Another cleric of the Zaporozhye Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was attacked with a knife on Saturday night following the All-Night Vigil, reports the Information Department of the UOC. A few days earlier, Fr. Vladimir Gumenyuk was stabbed in the same district of Zaporozhie.
After the All-Night Vigil, Deacon Georgy Cherepanov was walking home together with his wife and child. “Fr. George was in his cassock. The attacker tried to cut him with a knife, but thanks to God, everything worked out and they got off with just a fright. The police were called and wrote a report,” said Archpriest Gennady Elin, head of the Zaporozhye Diocese chancery.
Bishop Victor of Baryshivka, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s representation to European international organizations, commented on the attacks:
“It is clear that security cannot be guaranteed unless steps are taken to prevent crimes. In other words, the task of the authorities is to maximize the reduction of the level of aggression in society, which means they should respond to any manifestations of hatred and anger, including acts of vandalism through legal means. And for this they do not need to come up with any special means, it is enough to execute the main law of the state – the Constitution,” the bishop stressed.
As the bishop noted, “reading the reports of international human rights organizations on the persecution of Christians, it is time for us to think about Ukraine not being included in them”.
“There is only one way to achieve this: to live according to the Gospel, learn to respect each other, exclude the rhetoric of hatred at all levels and fulfill the Constitution. And then our dear Ukraine will become a prosperous state, and not a country where a person can be stabbed in the head with a knife on the street,” Bishop Victor said.
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