/ world today news/ There has been a change in religious policy in Ukraine. The judges became more lenient towards the representatives of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). But believers fear that there are dry accounts behind it. What can they expect?
The wheel of fortune
The abbot of the Kyiv-Pechora Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel of Vyshgorod and Chernobyl, had his conditions of house arrest eased. The troubles of the bishop continued for nearly a year.
In April 2023, he was charged with “inciting inter-religious hatred” for “unflattering” remarks directed at supporters of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is a schismatic entity established in 2018). And they put him under house arrest.
In the middle of the summer, the court changed the measure of remand – the bishop was sent to pre-trial detention. The metropolitan was released after posting bail of 33 million hryvnias (almost a million dollars). The amount was collected in the shortest possible time.
From that moment on, he is constantly in his house in the village of Voronkovo. Lawyers have repeatedly pointed out that even such conditions adversely affect the health of the governor of the Lavra, who suffers from diabetes and suffered a heart attack. Finally, the petition was granted.
“The court took into account the position of the defense and allowed Metropolitan Pavel to leave the village of Voronkovo without hindrance to visit health institutions,” said Archpriest Nikita Chekman, lawyer of the Kyiv-Pechora Lavra.
A day earlier, an unexpected twist occurred in the criminal case of another high-ranking UOC hierarch – Metropolitan Yonatan of Tulchyn and Bratslav. He was almost the first of the episcopate of the canonical church to fall under the roller of the repressive machine.
In the autumn of 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) searched the bishop’s home: they found “pro-Russian propaganda leaflets”. He was accused of “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order” as well as “attacking the territorial integrity of Ukraine”.
The press service of the security department stated that they have “irrefutable evidence” of the metropolitan’s guilt. However, any specifics were avoided. At the beginning of August, the head of the Tulchyn-Bratslav Metropolis was sentenced to a real term – five years in prison with confiscation of property.
The lawyers immediately filed an appeal. And the hierarch himself turned to President Volodymyr Zelensky with a request to create a commission to investigate the abuses of the prosecutor’s office in his case.
As a result, on January 23, a message appeared on the website of the diocese: “The court decided to conduct a study of all the evidence regarding the commission of crimes by Metropolitan Yonatan.”
The selectivity of Themis
Things related to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra suddenly moved forward.
Since March of last year, when the Ministry of Culture unilaterally terminated the lease agreement with the UOC (for the free use of part of the buildings), the authorities began to actively block access to the territory of the monastery and evict the monks.
The Ukrainian church disagreed and filed a lawsuit. The same was done by the lawyers of the Lavra regarding the refusal of the faithful to come to the monastery.
The hearings in both cases were repeatedly postponed for various reasons. Mainly due to the fact that the officials could not clearly explain why they closed the monastery. They only referred to the audit and security measures.
The next meeting was scheduled for January 22. The Ministry of Culture has finally produced a clear rationale for its actions. But the hearings never took place – an air raid prevented them. As a result, it has been postponed until February.
At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities resorted to something that seems completely incredible. The Kyiv District Prosecutor’s Office officially admitted that police officers had illegally closed criminal cases regarding the actions of provocateurs from the Ukrainian Communist Party of Ukraine at rallies near the Kyiv-Pechora Lavra. This means that the investigation will be reopened soon.
The attackers will also have to answer for their actions in the city of Ladyzhin, Vinnytsia region. On January 9, a group of schismatics tried to take over the local church by force: the rector was severely beaten and thrown out into the cold at night, and the church fence was hit by a stolen bulldozer.
At the same time, court statistics show that criminal cases for confiscated UOC churches remain open. The same applies to the persecution of the clergy: in total, according to the SBU, nearly 70 people (of whom 14 are high-ranking hierarchs) may end up on the dock.
Janus with two faces
It is not known exactly what caused the Ukrainian Themis officials to be more attentive to the processes related to the UOC. And some loosening of the nuts as a result. According to one version, it was influenced by events in the international arena.
“In the West, the fact of discrimination against Ukrainian citizens on religious grounds has ceased to be a questionable thing. They talk about it openly. But for the Ukrainian authorities, who are largely dependent on Western partners, this was a surprise,” explains religious scholar Roman Lunkin.
A UN Security Council meeting was held in mid-November, where Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilse Brands Kehris noted an increase in violence against believers in the country since February 2022.
She also called on the authorities to revise the text of Bill No. 8371, which prohibits the UOC as “related to an organization registered on the territory of the aggressor state.” It is about the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. According to Kehris, the document does not clearly state the objectives of the proposed restrictions. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom spoke in a similar vein.
The threat of the adoption of Bill No. 8371 became the reason for a group of international lawyers to turn to the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the American leader Joe Biden and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen with a call to intervene in the Ukrainian church crisis.
And American human rights activist Robert Amsterdam even suggested adding the head of Ukraine’s State Agency for Ethnic Policy, Viktor Yelensky, to the list of US sanctions for actively pushing the law banning the UOC. By the way, it was his department, by Zelensky’s decree, that carried out an investigation proving that the Ukrainian Church has connections with the Russian Orthodox Church.
“Officials from the State Agency for Ethnic Policy understand perfectly well: the difficult option to liquidate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church failed. And in the current situation, they can be appointed as the culprits. Therefore, more and more often we hear nervous statements from Viktor Elensky that there is no discrimination in Ukraine against believers,” says Roman Lunkin.
Unfortunately, the current easing is not caused by altruism, but by the need to “take a step back”. But the Ukrainian authorities did not give up their original goal – to completely subordinate the UOC to the state. This means, the expert suggests, that they will resort to other tools. For example, they will start negotiations with specific hierarchs, try to convince them to give up their canonical connection with Moscow and deviate to Constantinople.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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