In the Kharkiv region, employees of the TCC subjected another priest of the UOC to forced mobilization

A cleric of the Izyum Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), Priest Vyacheslav Kalinichenko, was detained by the staff of the territorial recruitment center (TCC) in the Kharkiv region on January 8, 2026. According to his wife, the clergyman was held for more than 72 hours, subjected to pressure, and then taken to a training unit in Dnipro, with virtually no contact with his family.

According to the Union of Orthodox Journalists, the rector of St. Michael’s Church of the UOC in the village of Petrovka, 54-year-old Father Vyacheslav, was stopped by a police officer at a checkpoint in the city of Chuguev and escorted to the district recruitment center. There, according to his wife, he was detained for more than 72 hours — until January 13 — without any explanation.

While the priest was in the Chuguev RTC, the staff of the RTC, according to his wife, tried to gain access to his smartphone and install the «Oberig» application. on January 13, Father Vyacheslav was able to call his wife and asked her to block his SIM card. The woman immediately called the police, but, according to her, law enforcement officers were in no hurry to arrive, although two police cars drove up to the SCC building in turn.

While his wife was waiting for the police, the priest was taken to Kharkiv. «Later they brought me his things in a bag. The priest saw me and asked permission to talk to me, but he was not allowed to,» the woman says. In Kharkiv, she was unable to find her husband and had no contact with him. At 2 a.m. on January 14, Father Vyacheslav called from an unknown number and said that he was being taken to Dnipro to a training unit.

The clergyman’s wife also claims that during his stay in the Chuhuiv RCC, her husband was blackmailed with the initiation of a criminal case under Article 153 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, although she is convinced that the priest did not commit anything illegal and it was only pressure. «The parish was left without a priest, the family was left without a father and a husband, we were all left without a prayer book,» the UOJ quoted the woman as saying.

The woman filed applications with the hotline of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the regional and military prosecutor’s offices. The parishioners, in turn, sent a collective letter to the military prosecutor’s office. However, there have been no results so far. The couple emphasizes that «the laws have been violated and will continue to be violated» and asks for the prayers of all those who care.

Earlier, we reported that in Chernivtsi, employees of the Territorial Recruitment Center (TCC) detained Archpriest Nikolai Sinyuk, a cleric of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). Archpriest Nikolai Sinyuk is a cleric of the Vvedensky Monastery in Chernivtsi.