The only church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Russia was demolished in Noginsk

On April 11, in Noginsk, Moscow region, the only church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in Russia was demolished. This was reported by the Ukrainian abbot Mercury (Skorokhod), who from 2008 to 2015 was the secretary of the rector of the church, Metropolitan Adrian (Starin) of the OCU.

“Yesterday, in the city of Noginsk near Moscow, the only church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in honor of the Holy Trinity, which was built and in which Metropolitan Adrian served, was demolished,” says a message on the abbot’s Facebook page (belonging to the recognized extremist and banned Meta), published on April 12.

According to Mercury, they decided to demolish the church because the object “disturbed the peace of the local population.” He noted that the Noginsky District Court made the decision to demolish the church back in 2016. At that time, the Holy Trinity Church belonged to the Bogorodsk diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, which in 2018 became part of the OCU.

The Orthodox Church in Ukraine is represented by the OCU and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC; left the Moscow Patriarchate by decision of the Local Council on May 27, 2022). The OCU was created in December 2018 after the merger of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. In January 2019, the Patriarchate of Constantinople awarded the OCU the status of an autocephalous church (independent of the Russian Orthodox Church). The UOC does not recognize this decision. The Russian Orthodox Church considers the OCU schismatic.