(ZENIT News / Rome, 03.11.2022).- “After the celebration oof Holy Mass, some Russian soldiers entered the parish and, after showing contempt for the Catholics, prayer and the fact of being together, seized and took Father Oleksandr Bogomaz, a young parish priest of Melitopol, to an unknown location,” said Father Maksym Ryabukha, new Auxiliary Bishop of the Archbishopric of Donetsk, in an interview with the Tv2000 news program. He is the third Catholic priest detained, in just a few days without charges, by the Russian Army. Father Oleksandr was taken by force in his church, in front of the petrified faithful.
According to the latest reconstructions, Father Oleksandr was expelled from the Occupied Territories and is now in Zaporizhzhia. Moreover, two priests detained in Berdyansk are still in prison, accused by the Russian Army, without any proof, of having hidden weapons in the religious house where they live.
“In fact, they are being tortured because they do not admit that they are guilty of hiding weapons in the premises of their religious house,” stressed Father Maksym.
One of the hypotheses is that the Russian soldiers are torturing the two priests to extort and obtain information from them received during the Sacrament of Confession. “The conscience of any priest of the world is very clear about the Sacrament of Confession and silence,” recalled Father Maksym in his interview with Tv2000.
