Archpriest Tarasy Petrunyak, Dean of the Southern Spanish District of the Metropolis of Spain and Portugal of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, addressed an open letter to the Exarch of the Phanar in Kyiv, Bishop Michael of Koman, where he called on him to raise his voice against the arbitrariness of the authorities in relation to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“Recent events related to the church life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church make me turn to you with an open letter. <…>

We must raise our voice in defense of our brothers in faith and blood! After all, you and I are also Ukrainians. The arbitrariness that the SBU committed, in this case similar to the Bolshevik Cheka-NKVD or the Nazi Gestapo, cannot be allowed to exist. When church life of monastic cloisters is violated by humiliating searches, groundless accusations of treason, low provocations against bishops, assumptions about the exchange of Orthodox clergy for captured soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are allowed. I wish every Ukrainian soldier to return home from captivity, but not at such a price. You cannot exchange a Ukrainian for a Ukrainian! Defending the truth, one should not be afraid of politicians, but only one God.

The priest turned to the exarch with a request “to petition the President of Ukraine to stop the arbitrariness regarding our brothers from the UOC.”