Court in Zakarpattia fines UOC believer for comments defending the Church

In the Rakhiv district of Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region, a court found a parishioner of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) guilty of “inciting interreligious enmity.” The charges were based on her Facebook comments in which she expressed support for the canonical Church and condemned the persecution of clergy. This was reported by the “First Cossack” channel.

According to published information, the woman’s comments appeared under a post by Archimandrite Benedict, abbot of the Monastery of All Saints of Carpathian Rus’, who reported yet another postponement of a hearing in his case. Among other things, Nadiya Hodvan wrote: “God is! Was and will be, and these schismatic beasts will soon vanish like dew in the sun!” — this statement became grounds for opening a criminal case.

The key “evidence of guilt” was a so-called “psycho-linguistic” examination, which claimed her remarks reflected a “conviction that the UOC should not transition under the jurisdiction of the OCU.”

Although Nadiya Hodvan admitted authorship of the comments, she firmly denied the accusations. The court ordered her to pay 14,009 UAH for the examination and imposed a fine of 5,100 UAH.

Previously, it was reported that а resident of Rivne Region was found guilty of publishing posts that, according to the court, insulted supporters of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and incited religious hatred. According to court documents, the man published several Facebook posts containing critical remarks about the OCU and its head, Epiphaniy Dumenko. The verdict stated that the posts included “calls to condemn the actions of Metropolitan Epiphaniy, humiliation of OCU believers,” and offensive language directed at the structure itself.