Woman tried in Rivne region for insulting OCU parishioners on social media

In Rivne region, a resident of the village of Velykyi Zholudsk was tried for “inciting religious hatred”. According to the court, the woman posted a video on Facebook “insulting the parishioners of the OCU and promoting the exclusivity of the UOC.” This is stated in the verdict of the Volodymyrets District Court, which was made public on May 29, 2024.

According to the investigation, on March 27, 2024, a resident of the village of Velyky Zholudsk of the Rafaliv community, a woman who had not been previously convicted, posted on Facebook, which contained “statements aimed at inciting religious hatred, humiliation of the parishioners of the OCU, the use of propaganda for the exclusivity of the UOC, statements about the OCU with offensive names and characteristics and hatred in Ukraine between the believers of the UOC and the OCU.”

As a result of the court hearing, the accused was sentenced to a fine of UAH 3,400.

Earlier we reported that Archpriest Oleksandr Ivanchenko, a cleric of St. George’s Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Lviv, was tried for “inciting religious hatred”. The reason for the trial is the alleged distribution by the clergyman of a book entitled “The Modern Ukrainian Question and Its Solution According to the Divine and Sacred Canons” by Metropolitan Nikiforos (Kikkotis) of Kykkos and Tillyria. The investigation saw in this book “signs of Russian propaganda aimed against the foundations of Ukraine’s national security.”