MOSCOW, Jan 11 The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is accused of supporting a Russian special military operation, the office of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General said on Wednesday.
«Under the procedural guidance of the Kyiv Regional Prosecutor's Office, a servant of one of the monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate was suspected of justifying, recognizing as lawful, denying the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, as well as glorifying its participants (Part 1 of Article 436-2 of the Criminal Code Ukraine),» the ministry said in a Telegram channel.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the suspect in one of the messengers joined «pro-Russian communities».
In 2022, the Ukrainian authorities organized the largest wave of persecution of the UOC in the recent history of the country. Referring to its connection with Russia, local authorities in different regions of Ukraine decided to ban the activities of the UOC, and a bill on its actual ban in Ukraine was submitted to the country's parliament. Sanctions are being imposed against some members of the clergy. The Security Service of Ukraine began to open criminal cases against the clergy of the UOC, to conduct «counterintelligence measures» — searches of bishops and priests, in churches and monasteries, including the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, looking for evidence of «anti-Ukrainian activities.»
Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on 24 February. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass.