Domes of St. Sophia Cathedral in KyivMOSCOW, March 10More than 27 churches and monasteries of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) have been seized by armed people in recent days, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) considers the threat against clerics and monastics to be real, a source in the Moscow Patriarchate told RIA Novosti, commenting on the message of the territorial defense of the DPR about the planned murder of priests in Nikolskoye by Ukrainian nationalists. Earlier, the headquarters of the territorial defense of the DPR reported that the nationalists were planning to kill the clergy of the Holy Assumption Nikolo-Vasilyevsky monastery in the village of Nikolskoye, Volnovakhsky district. «/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/3a848878148a58f1c8609479c1574404.jpg» />The authorities of the city in the Lviv region banned the activities of the canonical UOCV in 2001, according to information on the website of the Moscow Patriarchy, the St. Nicholas sister community of the village of Nikolskoe was given the status of a monastery, in 2002 the St. Basil Monastery was registered. The famous Schema-Archimandrite Zosima (Sokur) was the founder and rector of the Nikolo-Vasilyevsky Monastery. Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill visited the monastery in 2009, having made a small consecration of the Assumption Cathedral in it — a copy of the cathedral of the same name in the Moscow Kremlin. The Volnovakha district center is of strategic importance. It is located on the highway linking Donetsk with Mariupol, the second largest city in the DPR, which is trying to take control of the armed forces of the republic. Vladimir Zhoga, the commander of the Sparta battalion, one of the most famous units of the DPR, died on March 5 in Volnovakha while ensuring the exit of civilians. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive. But the occupation of Ukraine is out of the question, the President of Russia emphasized.
