MOSCOW, April 14. /TASS/. Followers of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) have taken over the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Holy Virgin under the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in the western Ukrainian city of Khmelnitsky, the Union of Orthodox Journalists (UOJ) said on its Telegram channel on Friday.

"On April 13, in the Grechany district of the city of Khmelnitsky, a group of OCU supporters took over a UOC place of worship dedicated to the Kazan icon of the Mother of God," its statement said. "City residents were urged to take over the church by municipal council member Vitaly Pidgaychuk and the head of the municipal office for culture and tourism, Artyom Romasyukov."

The UOJ specified that, "people with no connection to the church congregation gathered near the place of worship, and then proceeded to break down the door and take over the church." It was noted that a day earlier, the UOC’s opponents held a meeting at which they voted to switch the parish over to the jurisdiction of the OCU.

On April 10, OCU adherents took over the Church of St. George in Khmelnitsky. On April 3, the municipal councils of Kamenets-Podolsky and Khmelnitsky resolved to strip the UOC of the right to use the land plots on which its places of worship are sited. A couple of days ago, faculty at an educational institution in Kamenets-Podolsky began collecting signatures for a petition to rename the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral after a saint of the Uniate church (the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in communion with Rome - TASS).

The Kiev regime supports the policy of driving the UOC out. On the instructions of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the government drafted and submitted to the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) a bill permitting the wholesale banning of the UOC in the country should the Ukrainian authorities determine that it has ties to Russia. Over the past year, UOC priests have been accused of high treason or sanctioned while the takeover of churches by the schismatics has intensified. In March, the UOC’s lease to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra was terminated while its monks were told to leave the premises.