Video fake: Ukrainians celebrate Halloween in church

Russian propagandists replace the song in the video of a church choir performance

A video appeared on Russian Telegram channels showing people allegedly singing a song in honor of Halloween in a Ukrainian church. The inscription on the video claims the event is taking place in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in the city of Lutsk. Russian propagandists accompanied the video with a text saying that Ukraine allegedly “marks Halloween in the church," integrating Western paganism into the Orthodox Church.

This is a fake video. The propagandists added a Halloween song to the original video of the Oranta church chamber choir performing another song. The reverse Google image search helped to establish that.

It turned out that the video was shot in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lviv, not in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Lutsk. It appeared on Facebook on October 8, 2023. In addition, this church is not Orthodox, but Greek Catholic.

In a comment to Ukrinform, a church representative emphasized that this video is a fake, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church does not support Halloween celebrations.

"On October 8, our church hosted a celebration of the 15th anniversary of the parish community ‘Mothers in Prayer’. In the video, our parish choir sings a song praising the Blessed Virgin Mary, not a song in honor of Halloween," the church representative explained.

Earlier, Russian propaganda created a fake claiming that the Americans painted potatoes for Easter instead of eggs because of the "economic crisis".

Dmytro Badrak