The Supreme Court of Ukraine Upholds Sanctions Against a Former Hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court of Ukraine has issued a final ruling in the case of Joseph (Maslennikov), the former Metropolitan of Romny and Buryn of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, upholding the legality of the personal sanctions imposed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. According to “Glavkom” , citing data from the court registry, the hierarch unsuccessfully attempted to challenge the presidential decrees imposing restrictive measures on him for a period of five years.

The legal proceedings, which began in the summer of 2023, concerned two presidential decrees signed at the turn of 2022 and 2023. The plaintiff’s attorneys insisted that Maslennikov does not fall into the categories of individuals subject to sanctions under Ukrainian law. However, representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine presented evidence of the UOC’s canonical ties to the Russian Orthodox Church and also pointed to suspicions against the hierarch regarding his justification of the Russian Federation’s armed aggression and incitement of religious hatred.

A key argument of the prosecution was the bishop’s participation in a Liturgy in the Sverdlovsk Region (Russian Federation) in September 2022, “where he publicly prayed for the Russian government and army.” This “fact” was confirmed by the results of a linguistic analysis of the video recording. For its part, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court emphasized that, in the context of a full-scale war, the state is obligated to take all necessary measures to protect national security. The sanctions were recognized as a legitimate preventive measure consistent with the principles of international law and the UN Charter.

As a reminder, on July 2, 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree revoking the Ukrainian citizenship of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) claims that Metropolitan Onufriy obtained citizenship of the Russian Federation in 2002 but allegedly failed to inform Ukrainian government authorities of this. At the same time, according to the SBU, he “continued to ” exercise the rights of a Ukrainian citizen. Later, the head of state effectively acknowledged that the government’s actions against His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv and All Ukraine are part of a targeted policy toward individuals whom the authorities consider “linked to Russia.”