On May 6, 2023, in the village of Mitintsy, Khmelnytsky region, raiders tried to seize the St. Nicholas Church of the UOC, the press service of the Khmelnytsky diocese reports.

During the service, an aggressive group of people burst into the temple and “began to offend the believers of the religious community with foul language.”

“At that time, the ten-year-old son of the rector of the temple rang the bell. One of the attackers with a knife ran up to the child, snatched the cord from his hands and cut it to stop the ringing. Such actions contain signs of a criminal offense under Article 180 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (obstruction of the performance of a religious rite),” the diocese website said in a statement.

However, the believers of the UOC defended the temple and held a meeting at which they “unanimously reaffirmed their spiritual and canonical unity with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with the leading center in Kiev under the leadership of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine and the leadership of the diocesan bishop Archbishop of Khmelnytsky and Starokonstantinovsky Viktor.”