Ukrainian Catholic church in Western Sydney desecrated with swastika graffiti

21 June 2014

A Ukrainian church in Sydney has been desecrated with racial slurs in an attack the NSW government has labelled vicious and abhorrent.

Members of the Ukrainian community woke on Saturday morning to find the St Andrew’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in Lidcombe covered in spray paint. Among the vandalism is a swastika symbol and the message ‘‘traitors fascists’’.

Father Simon Ckuj said the church partly commemorated Ukrainians who fought against Nazism in World War Two.‘‘This act completely defiles the memory of those who died fighting fascism,’’ the parish priest said on Saturday.

Peter Shmigel, of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations, said the act trashed the principals of a multicultural and democratic Australia.‘‘There is no room for people like those who attacked our church to import their foreign conflicts to Australia and Sydney, where our community has made a positive contribution for 65 years,’’ he said in a statement.

The church says the graffiti, translated to English, also reads ‘‘burn in hell for the sins of Poroshenko’’, referring to the President of Ukraine.




Ukrainian Catholic church in Western Sydney desecrated with swastika graffiti