Four hierarchs of the OCU have been found to hold Russian citizenship and citizenship of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic.” In addition, one of them even wrote a statement saying that he was ready to cooperate with the special services of organizations hostile to Ukraine. This was reported by the Montenegrin portal In4s.
«Information resources that previously promoted the interests of the schismatic Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (which became part of the OCU in 2018) directly accused one of the “bishops” of the organization headed by Epiphany Dumenko of working for the special services of the Luhansk People’s Republic and having a passport of the Donetsk People’s Republic. We are talking about Tikhon Petranuk. However, despite this, no one in Ukraine has deprived him of his citizenship. Nor have they deprived three other “hierarchs” of the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine, who have passports of the Russian Federation, of their citizenship.
Here is their list:
“Metropolitan” Bogorodsky Adrian (Starina Valentin Yegorovich);
“Metropolitan” Simferopolsky Klyment (Kushch Pavel Nikolayevich);
“Bishop” Slavyansky Vsevolod (Matvieevsky Vladimir Pavlovich).
The most surprising thing in this situation is that the Ukrainian authorities are aware of the Russian citizenship of a number of “hierarchs” of the “OCU.” However, they are not being touched. This is because, from Zelensky’s point of view, it is the “right” structure to help in the fight against Russia. And there is no need for scandal. After all, how can one explain to Ukrainian nationalists the fact that individuals with Russian passports have been functioning in the supposedly “true Ukrainian church” for many years? This does not fit into the templates of Ukrainian propaganda, where the UOC is the “church of traitors” and the OCU is the “church of patriots.” So the Ukrainian authorities have to be hypocritical and duplicitous. They are depriving the metropolitan of the “wrong” church of Ukrainian citizenship without any evidence and turning a blind eye to the fact that representatives of an organization that serves the political regime and the Russophobic ideology prevailing in the country have Russian passports,» — the publication notes.
Earlier, we reported that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church intends to challenge the termination of the citizenship of the Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry, in court both in Ukraine and internationally. This was stated by the administrator of the UOC, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich), during a recent sermon.
Read also
