All four judges of the city of Tulchin, Vinnytsia region, announced their voluntary withdrawal from participation in local court proceedings in the case of Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin and Bratslav. The Vinnitsa Court of Appeal granted this request. This was reported by the press service of the Tulchin diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The press service recalled that earlier Metropolitan Jonathan publicly stated that the printed materials, appearing as the main evidence of his “anti-state guilt”, were planted by someone during searches in the premises of the temporary actual residence of the bishop in the city of Bershad and in the general office of the Tulchin diocesan administration.

“The video materials unambiguously testify in favor of Metropolitan Jonathan’s assumption about the sham nature of the appearance of the above-mentioned “material evidence,” the report says.

The press service also noted that Metropolitan Jonathan in Tulchin was visited by “a certain urgent Kiev envoy”, who “secretly declared to the bishop that “there may not be a trial against him” (?!), but subject to full “understanding” and interaction in a conversation with a high police officer in the capital.

“Metropolitan Jonathan immediately openly told an emergency meeting of deans and rectors of diocesan churches about this unexpected, and more than strange proposal of collusion,” the statement said.