"They were deliberately imposing the Catholic Church here, the Catholic way of life.
And the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth did just that—they were destroying the Orthodox faith.
They were closing churches, not allowing people in, just like now," says Archpriest Pyotr Gritsenko, Chief Priest in the Special Military Operation Zone in charge of Visiting Clerics of the Synodal Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies.
Since the coup d'état in Ukraine in 2014, he frequently travels to cities in Donbass ravaged by the Ukrainian army, providing humanitarian aid.
The Priest believes that the current events in Donbass echo events of the past.