In November 2023, news began to spread on social networks and the media about the emergence of an official religious cult of the dog Patron in Ukraine. We decided to check if this is true.
At the end of November, posts appeared in many Telegram channels that a church named after the dog Patron, a service dog that became famous after the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022, was allegedly registered in Ukraine, when it began to be involved in demining the Chernihiv region. As evidence, a video was given in which a young man dressed as a clergyman speaks about the creation of the Church of the Holy Dog Patron. Users also shared a video of a choir singing a song about Patron - it was claimed that they were singing psalms. This was, in particular, reported by such Telegram channels as “Ne.Sugar"(250,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Russia now"(234,000), "Uncle Slava"(216,000), "Observer👁️" (194,000) and "Putin on Telegram"(172,000). Also notes about the Church of the Holy Dog Patron wrote “Moskovsky Komsomolets" and website "Ukraine.ru»
The dog Patron became the most famous animal in Ukraine in 2022. The service Jack Russell terrier helped the sappers in demining and was able to detect hundreds of explosive objects. On May 8, 2022 the dog was awarded medal “For Devoted Service”, and his owner Mikhail Ilyev - the Order “For Courage”, III degree.
The dog Patron has become a popular character in Ukrainian culture: a film was made about him animated series, Ukrposhta released stamps with his image. However, there is no trace of news about the creation of a church named after him in Ukrainian news.
The first video related to the Church of St. Patron is the conversion of a man dressed as a priest. He says: “Dear parishioners, we are glad to see you in the Church of St. Patron.” He wears a stuffed dog's head with a miter on top.
The original source of this video is the video in TikTok, posted by user bratikvu November 19, 2023. Fact checkers from the project "Gvara Media“It was established that the priest’s vestments were assembled from two carnival costumes: dog Patron And St. Nicholas, both are freely sold on Ukrainian websites.
The publication also contacted the author of the video and asked him if he really registered such a church. He replied no. In addition, “Gvara Media” clarified whether he seriously intends to create the Church of the Holy Dog Patron. The creator of the video also responded negatively to this.
As for the second video, with the choir, it is also real. But this is a joke, as in the previous case. In the original video in TikTok (published on November 17) they sing not a psalm, but a well-known Christmas song in Ukraine “Shchedrik"with different text - words taken from the song "Dog Patron"by the group Karta Svitu, recorded in 2022. It also became relatively popular - the video for this composition received more than 4.6 million views on YouTube.
Thus, Russian media and Telegram channels put together two comic videos and turned them into news about the creation of the Church of the Holy Dog Patron.
Cover photo: Library of Congress
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