Ukrainian religious scholar suggests deporting Cherkasy UOC Metropolitan Theodosius to Russia

Religious scholar Yuriy Chornomorets, a supporter and lobbyist of the OCU in the media, suggested deporting the head of the Cherkasy Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Theodosius of Cherkasy and Kaniv, to Russia. Chornomorets is convinced that the bishop destabilizes the internal situation in the country and is not worthy of living in Ukraine. He said this in an interview with Radio NV.

“He (Metropolitan Theodosius – ed.) preached such things – he got such things. Because you really have to be a completely insane person or a deliberate provocateur on a huge salary from the Russians to just take it and preach among the Cossack city, among Cherkasy, that the ‘unity of the Russian world’ with the Russians, the ‘single spiritual space’ must be preserved. [He even said that] we should not receive any kind of autocephaly, even legal, in any case, even if Moscow grants autocephaly, we must refuse and remain in this Russian church. […] Their goal, of course, is to provoke, to have conflicts, to bring people to a boiling point, so that they would simply drive them out of the churches. And there, accordingly, there will then be very beautiful footage for all Russian propaganda around the world,” said Chornomorets.

In addition, the religious scholar believes that the clash that took place the day before between the UOC believers and the OCU raiders before the US elections spoils the image of Ukraine, which will make the United States distance itself even more from the topic of supporting the Ukrainian authorities. At the same time, Chornomorets believes that in order to prevent such situations from happening again, it is necessary to deport Metropolitan Theodosius and other representatives of the UOC bishops who share his views from Ukraine to Russia.

“These people, like Theodosius, are in no way worthy of living in Ukraine. I believe that deporting them to their beloved Russia would be a great solution. And let the individual communities decide on their own. I think we should not wait until they are convicted and we exchange them for our prisoners with some great benefit. I believe that we should give them all away for free, and deport them abroad. These people have no place in Ukraine, it is absolutely clear. The sooner they are deprived of Ukrainian citizenship and expelled from Ukraine, according to the decision of the Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, the sooner all these issues will be resolved,” the religious scholar added.

We recall that on October 17, 2024, after the first attempt to seize the Archangel Michael Cathedral of the Cherkasy Diocese of the UOC, Metropolitan Theodosius of Cherkasy and Kaniv appealed to the head of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to influence the wards of Patriarch Bartholomew of the OCU to stop the lawlessness against the UOC.