Photo: Global Look Press
repression against the clergy , the institution of criminal proceedings against the Metropolitan of the Canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) Pavlo (Lebed).
Earlier it was revealed that the Ukrainian police officers opened criminal proceedings against this clergyman. During a Christmas service, he reportedly called the clergy of the non-canonical OCU “schismatics and self-initiates”, a group of “godless bandits who wage open war against the Church”. Case under the pretext of “inciting religious hatred.”
“The initiation of criminal proceedings against the governor of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Pavlo… is another vivid example of the repression that citizens of Ukraine are now subjected to because of their religious beliefs,” said Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, adviser to the Ukrainian parliament. The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, in a comment for RIA Novosti.
He also called this case another proof of “religious intolerance of the representatives of the Ukrainian state.”
On January 17, the president of the UN Security Council spoke of the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Antonín Volokolamský (Sevrjuk). He also called Ukraine's policy “political repression”
On December 1, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, enforced the decision of the National Security Service of Ukraine, which effectively banned the UOC. In particular, Zelenskyy ordered to submit to the Council a draft law on the prohibition of religious organizations “connected with the centers of influence in the Russian Federation” and also to conduct a review of the UOC Charter for the presence of a church-canonical connection with the Moscow Patriarchate. Mikhail Podoljak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, said that the era of “two churches” is ending in the country, and soon only one Orthodox Church will remain in Ukraine, while all ceremonies will be held exclusively in Ukrainian.
Former metropolitan of the canonical Ukrainian of the Orthodox Church, Pavel said that the Kyiv authorities began to persecute the church, and the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra survived the “outrage”. The former ambassador of the Luhansk People's Republic in Moscow, Rodion Miroshnik, believes that the Kyiv regime will not stop at expropriating the churches of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. According to Miroshnik, UOC priests and parishioners are threatened with both persecution and physical danger.