On the night of February 13, 2023, an act of vandalism was committed in the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Murovany Kurilovtsi, Vinnytsia region. Unknown people broke almost all the windows of the church, and at the entrance to the churchyard, they broke the legs of the Savior on Golgotha with an ax. This was reported by the Information and Education Department of the UOC with a link to the parish’s Facebook page.

It is noted that after the desecration of the Cross, an ax was thrown into the window, behind which the Altar is located.

“The blow was so strong that it went through double-glazed windows and damaged the candlestick that was inside. They also broke the doors and all the windows in the baptismal, smashed the window in the refectory, glass and stones are everywhere in the temple. This is not the first time we have had windows broken and harmed. But it’s one thing to break a window, and another to break the feet of the Savior… The person who did this has nothing sacred in himself,” the message says.

The diocese says that they have repeatedly appealed to state services and the police, but there is no result.

According to the parishioners, such acts of vandalism are the result of propaganda against the Church, “which today sounds everywhere – from television, the Internet and various media, from which believers suffer innocently, who pray for victorious peace in our country and the health of all our soldiers” .