Mykola Medynskyi

Mykola Medynskyi

UGCC Cleric

UGCC cleric Mykola Medynskyi has been engaged in harassment and persecution of Orthodox Christians since 2017.

During his time in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Medynskyi organized one of the first violent seizures of UOC churches on Ukrainian territory since the 1990s.

The UGCC cleric is known for systematically inciting hatred against UOC clergy and faithful, and for openly calling for violence and reprisals.

From approximately 2023, Medynskyi relocated to Kyiv Oblast, where he began taking part in the seizure of UOC churches by OCU activists.

On October 18, 2017, despite a ruling by the Ivano-Frankivsk District Administrative Court, a group of UGCC clerics seized the Holy Annunciation UOC Church in the city of Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.

The perpetrators cut the locks and barricaded themselves inside the church premises.

The day before, the Coordinating Council of Military Chaplains — whose members include UGCC priests Mykola Medynskyi, Mykhailo Arsenych, Yurii Atamaniuk, Vasyl Dovhaniuk, Mykhailo Dziuba, Mykola Ostafiiчuk, and others — declared a complete ban on the performance of religious services in the Annunciation Church by the Orthodox community.

The raiders used physical force against Orthodox Christians.

(Source: Press Service of the Ivano-Frankivsk and Kolomyia Diocese of the UOC)

On October 29, 2017, Medynskyi called for the effective seizure of yet another UOC church.

"Within 500 meters of a strategic facility, another hornet's nest of the Moscow Church (effectively an FSB subdivision) has been established," Medynskyi wrote.

The chaplain appealed to patriots with a call to somehow respond to this "outrageous fact."

(Source: UOJ)

On February 9, 2018, at a press conference at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center, Medynskyi called for repression against UOC faithful and clergy.

Speaking about the UOC Tithe Church in Kyiv, which faced the threat of destruction, the controversial chaplain stated: "When FSB operatives use icons, cassocks, and crosses as elements of their criminal activity in support of the Moscow chauvinist empire, I'm sorry, but this is not spirituality, this is not a Church, and this is not a chapel."

In a subsequent address, Medynskyi explained what should "properly be done" with the UOC.

"We need to unite with demands to ban in Ukraine any activity of those structures and organizations that are under the direct influence of the Moscow empire, and the Moscow Patriarchate holds first place here as the ideological mouthpiece of the 'Russian world' on our land," the UGCC chaplain stated. "We are not persecuting anyone, but we must demand that all of them leave our territory until the war is over. Until Russia acknowledges its crimes against the Ukrainian people, until it repents before the entire world for the atrocities committed, until it compensates for the losses suffered by the Ukrainian people, until it returns the stolen territories, until it takes the name that truly belongs to it: the ROC in Ukraine. We must strive to restore God's truth and Ukrainian truth."

On April 5, 2023, during the acute phase of the state expropriation of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Medynskyi appeared at the walls of the monastery.

Anti-church activists handed the UGCC cleric a megaphone to address the crowd, in which he effectively called for the seizure of the Lavra.

On September 5, 2023, OCU supporters seized the UOC Church of Saints Boris and Hlib in Vyshhorod.

A group of raiders, using a hammer and chisel, broke down the doors of the UOC church. At the same time, as seen in the video, police did not interfere with their unlawful actions.

Mykola Medynskyi took part in the invasion of the church.

(Source: UOJ)

In September 2023, Medynskyi, during a sermon at the OCU-seized Church of St. Nicholas the Hermit in the village of Novosilky, Vyshhorod District, called on his parishioners to "cleanse" Ukraine of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The UGCC cleric declared that "we must cleanse and help cleanse those around us… of the presence of the spiritual occupier," meaning the UOC.

According to him, the Church "without pause, for decades, has been forming Russia's presence in the consciousness of the Ukrainian people."

Calling the seizure of the Church of Saints Boris and Hlib in Vyshhorod a "joyful piece of news" and "final cleansing from the spiritual occupier," Medynskyi urged doing the same in other villages and districts of the oblast.

"We must try to support the people there and gradually join in this work, because we must completely cleanse the city of Vyshhorod, the entire district, and every village — cleanse completely."

On October 6, 2024, a group of OCU raiders seized the UOC Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in the village of Novosilky, Kyiv Oblast.

The attack on the church was led by Mykola Medynskyi. According to reports from the scene, the UGCC cleric used force against female parishioners of the church.