Lenkivtsi Village. The Seizure of the Saints Peter and Paul Church by OCU Militants, Chernivtsi Region

Address: Lenkovtsy village, Dniester district, Chernivtsi region, 60111

The seizure of the church in Lenkivtsi, like most raider attacks in the Chernivtsi region, was coordinated by OCU cleric Roman Hryshchuk.

On June 2, 2023, under Hryshchuk’s leadership, OCU activists planned to hold a meeting at which the church would be illegally re-registered into the OCU.

The raider group failed to gather enough participants and fled the scene. On 4 July 2023, in Lenkivtsi hundreds of believers defended Sts. Peter and Paul’s Church of the UOC.

Nevertheless, a secret re-registration was eventually carried out.

On February 8, 2024, a group of masked individuals was brought to the church. They cut the locks and forced their way onto the church property.
The militants attacked parishioners.

Later, the attackers were identified as employees of the private security company “Tiger,” which OCU raiders have repeatedly hired for the seizure of churches.

In the footage, raiders standing on the steps suddenly attacked one of the believers, hitting him in the face. Immediately, a scuffle broke out, during which several arrivals knocked another parishioner to the ground and began to beat him with their hands and feet. Then, one of the bandits approached the man sitting on the ground from behind and delivered a powerful kick to his head. He lost consciousness.

At that moment, "priests" of the OCU walked into the Sts. Peter and Paul Church.

The Chernivtsi Diocese stated that they managed to identify the person "who led the actions of the hired thugs of the 'Tigr' security firm during the attempt to seize the Sts. Peter and Paul Church of the UOC in Lenkivtsi.

This person took part in raiding seizures of Orthodox shrines throughout Bukovyna. Tovtry, Vaslovovtsi, Sokyriany, Zadubrivka, Lenkivtsi. Meet Maksym Abdulrahymovych Suleymanov."

Canadian international lawyer Robert Amsterdam, who is currently defending the rights of UOC believers, responded to the violent attempt to seize the St. Peter and Paul Church in Lenkovtsy^

"With the tacit approval of the Ukrainian government, the new state-run church has been violently seizing UOC churches across the country, including this one in Lenkovtsy.

When you watch the video evidence of these violent attacks, how can you dare to claim there is religious freedom in Ukraine?“