Patriarch Kirill addressed the egregious examples of pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has sent appeals to the presidents of local Orthodox churches and other religious figures, in which he described flagrant violations of the rights of believers and clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church mentioned the recent detention of Metropolitan Arseniy of Sviatogorsk, the vicar of the Holy Assumption Svyatogorsk Lavra, who was left in a pre-trial detention center for two months without the right to post bail. In addition, the First Hierarch also mentioned the criminal prosecution of the deputy head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, the arrest of Orthodox journalists and the blocking of Orthodox Internet resources covering the activities of the UOC. This is reported by the site Patriarchy.ru.

On the case of the detention of Metropolitan of Svyatogorsk Arseny, the patriarch said: “In the speech, which is imputed to Metropolitan Arseny, he informed the faithful that on the eve of the Church holiday on September 23, 2023, SSU officers set up roadblocks on the road to the monastery and arranged an all-out check of documents of hundreds of believers who sought to visit the monastery. At the same time, employees of the SSU and local paramilitary units illegally collected personal data of pilgrims, their phone numbers and e-mail addresses, as well as photographed each of them. In his speech, Metropolitan Arseniy emphasized the discriminatory nature of these checks, pointing out that mass pilgrimages of other religious denominations in Ukraine were made without obstacles from the Ukrainian security services. The public mentioning of the checkpoints did not cause damage to the Ukrainian armed forces and was caused by an objective reason – the creation of an obstacle for believers to attend church services. The multi-day arrest of Metropolitan Arseniy on artificial, far-fetched grounds is another of a number of other punitive measures directed against public speakers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its information resources”.

In addition, the Primate of the ROC drew attention to the fact of restriction of freedom of the press in Ukraine. The Patriarch spoke about the arrests of Orthodox journalists and blocking access to Internet publications that covered state-church relations in Ukraine.

“On March 13 this year, the SSU announced the initiation of criminal proceedings against 14 employees of the religious information resource ‘Union of Orthodox Journalists’, accusing them of ‘high treason’, ‘collaborationism’ and other crimes. The basis for the persecution was journalistic activity, i.e. publications about violations of the rights of believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. These violations are recorded, in particular, in the report on the implementation of human rights in Ukraine, which was published on October 4, 2023 by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as in other documents of the OHCHR and other international human rights organizations”. Four of the suspected journalists, including one priest, have been arrested and are in custody and face years or life imprisonment. In April this year, the Ukrainian authorities blocked a number of Orthodox online news resources that covered the religious policy of the authorities, the situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the facts of violation of the rights of its believers without explanation”, – the statement said.

The appeal also mentions the criminal prosecution of the deputy head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Nikolay Danylevych. According to the Patriarch, the accusations against the priest are groundless and are used as a way to pressure and restrict his public activities.

“On April 12, the SSU searched the residence of another public speaker of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the deputy chairman of its Department for External Church Relations, charging him with suspicion for his public speeches and for, in the words of the SSU press service, ‘seeking to discredit Ukraine on the international arena.’ I emphasize that the charges were brought two days after the representative of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church informed the delegation of the Conference of European Churches, which arrived in Kyiv, about violations of the rights of believers in Ukraine, in particular, about the threat of a legislative ban on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” – the Patriarch said.

Earlier we reported that the hierarchs of the local Orthodox Churches, who are members of the international Human Rights Alliance “Church against Xenophobia and Discrimination” made a public demand to release Metropolitan Arseniy from detention. The organization states that the arrest of Metropolitan Arseniy “is unjustified, unlawful and political in nature”.