Father of Dead Toddler Punches Priest Who Denied Him Burial Rights

The father of a toddler who died in a tragic accident punched a priest after the clergyman denied him burial rights.

Roman Polischuk, the boy's father, allegedly approached the Priest Yevgen Molchanov of the Moscow-led church requesting to have their son buried, the Daily Mail reports. When the priest refused the burial because the boy had been christened at a rival church, Polischuk allegedly lashed out, punching the priest.

"The priest said our baby was unchristened and our church was a sham," Polischuk said. "My wife cried and threw herself before him on her knees, but this did not help."

Priest Yevgen Molchanov said that he had no choice but to refuse the burial because those were the rules of his faith, further exposing the religious divide in Ukraine.

"I am very sorry. I feel for those people," he said. "But there are certain lines I cannot cross. A child christened by the Kiev Patriarchate remains unchristened - and the Kiev Church itself is a hoax."

The 21-month-old had been crushed to death after a suicidal man jumped from the eighth floor of the apartment building they lived in and landed directly on him. Both the toddler and the man had died at the scene despite emergency responders' best efforts to revive them.

Local police are investigating in an attempt to discover what had pushed the man, who was a construction worker, to commit suicide.

The boy's parents eventually took their son's body to the church where he had been christened.