People injured in fight near the Church of the Tithes in Kiev

20 August 2007, 15:15

Kiev, August 20, Interfax - A fight between the Orthodox Christians and a group of pagans took place near the Church of the Tithes in Kiev, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church told Interfax-Ukraine.

According to him, on the Transfiguration Day, a group of pagans and twenty skinheads came to the church shortly before the service ended.

The Orthodox called the police. ‘But before they came, they started fighting and heavily injured one our parishioner with knuckledusters. The bodyguard of another parishioner made a shot at the air, and injured an attacker with a rubber bullet. It was a pagan from Odessa who came there to siege the church,’ he said.

The Orthodox managed to dislodge the attacker toward the Historic Museum, but the pagans got a reinforcement of another group of young people with swastikas on their jackets. They went on fighting until the police came and detained some two dozens of attackers.

The attack was made jointly by pagans, members of the self-declared Kiev Patriarchate, and the Uniates, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s spokesperson said.

source: