Sociologist and publicist Mykola Mitrokhin has commented on the statements by the Security Service of Ukraine about investigations into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He wrote about it in his Telegram channel. Mitrokhin called the pressure exerted on the Church by the Ukrainian security services “coercion to unite with the OCU”.
“The 1,300 official searches (and God knows how many unofficial “inspections” and “conversations”) in churches, monasteries and diocesan offices of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the fall-winter of 2022-2023 led to the opening of only 38 criminal cases , half of them are “punishment for not finding anything” (“incitement of religious hatred” in Ukraine is practiced by approximately every second Orthodox priest of any jurisdiction, if not two out of three, but representatives of only one Church are chosen as objects of accusation under this article, and even then not less than in the rank of metropolitan, see the case of Metropolitan Ionaf. case of Metropolitan Jonathan (Yeletskikh), and the second – found to have repeated in a private telephone conversation news from Russian TV (on which the case of Metropolitan Pavel (Lebed) is based) or had a Russian passport (Metropolitan Irinei (Seredniy)”, – argues the publicist.
Nikolai Mitrokhin calls the current events around the episcopate of the UOC a threat to the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. For this very purpose, – the publicist claims, – the pressure is first of all exerted on the metropolitans. In addition, the publicist suggests the possible resumption of the SSU activity against the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
At the same time, Mitrokhin draws attention to the existence of confirmed facts of collaboration on the part of SSU employees in the occupied territories. “And frankly speaking, I would be interested in how many criminal cases have been brought against SSU employees since the beginning of the war for collaboration and cooperation with the enemy. And to what level the investigations about the surrender of the south of Ukraine and the attempted surrender of Kharkiv by these consistent parishioners of the right religious organizations have reached”, – the publicist concluded.
