The “Memorial Foundation of His Beatitude Metropolitan Methodius” provided the Security Service of Ukraine with documents confirming that the “archbishop” of the OCU Tikhon, who manages the Ternopil-Buchatsky diocese, has a DPR passport. The documents were provided as part of an open criminal proceeding.

“As part of an open criminal proceeding entered by the Security Service of Ukraine into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations on the grounds of a criminal offense under Part 1, Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (high treason, that is, an act deliberately committed by a citizen of Ukraine to the detriment of sovereignty, territorial integrity and immunity, defense capability, state, economic or information security, going over to the side of the enemy in a state of martial law or during an armed conflict, espionage, providing assistance to a foreign state, a foreign organization or their representatives in carrying out subversive activities against Ukraine – shall be punished by imprisonment for a term of twelve up to fifteen years with or without confiscation of property), in relation to citizen Petranyuk Taras Ivanovich, (10/19/1976, Ivano-Frankivsk region, Kolomyia), Archbishop Tikhon, administrator of the Ternopil-Buchatsky diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church kvi (Orthodox Church of Ukraine), which, possibly, contributes to the activities of the so-called Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Lugansk People’s Republic, today the head of the Public Organization “Foundation for the Memory of His Beatitude Metropolitan Methodius” Natalia Shevchuk was interrogated as a witness,” the fund’s website reports.

Blogger Oleksandr Voznesensky commented on the publication: “Oh, how inconvenient it turned out… after the OCU members kept shouting that they were the most patriotic among all the most patriotic Ukrainians, it turned out that among the hierarchy of the OCU <… > there are even people with a passport DNR. We are talking about the “archbishop” of the OCU Tikhon Petranyuk, who was previously accused of fraud on an especially large scale. This is really a meeting of “patriots.”