Cherkassy Province, Ukraine, May 18, 2023
Photo: spzh.news
A court case has been initiated against another hierarch of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The Prosecutor’s Office of the Cherkassy Province has submitted an indictment against His Eminence Metropolitan Theodosy of Cherkassy and Kanev, accusing him of “inciting religious enmity” and “justifying Russian aggression,” the State Security Services of Ukraine of the Cherkassy Province reported on Tuesday.
The news comes just days after another UOC hierarch, His Eminence Metropolitan Joasaph, Vicar of the Kiev Metropolis, was given a suspended sentence of three years in prison on the same charge of “inciting religious enmity.” The evidence was that the Security Services found various Orthodox books discussing the Ukrainian schism in his possession.
Similarly, the evidence in Met. Theodosy’s case is that in 2020 he ordered the creation of a new diocesan website which used a template from the Russian Orthodox Church and had links to Orthodox resources in Russia such as patriarchia.ru (the official ROC site), pravmir.ru, and pravoslavie.ru.
A 10-hour search was carried out at the diocesan administration and his apartment in Kiev in February, and he was later placed under house arrest.
“According to the investigation, the cleric also disseminated appeals in public statements among clergymen and believers, in official comments, violating the equality of citizens depending on their racial, national, religious affiliation and beliefs,” the Security Services press service added. This charge refers to the fact that Met. Theodosy regularly speaks publicly and as a professor of the Kiev Theological Academy about the Church’s ecclesiology, explaining the difference between the canonical UOC and the schismatic organizations in Ukraine, as he earlier explained.
His Eminence issued a video statement on Tuesday, explaining that the criminal case is a pure fabrication, initiated on the denunciations of former clergy whom Met. Theodosy had to ban from serving for joining the schismatic OCU or for immoral behavior.
The persecuting authorities don’t understand that they’re at war with God Himself, His Eminence said:
Those people who are at war with us, with the Church, don’t understand that they’re not fighting with weak people, not with easy prey—grandmothers, grandfathers, women, children, priests who can’t show them the same brazen and aggressive resistance. They don’t understand that they’re at war with God Himself.
Such people don’t even believe in God, the hierarch said, but God will take vengeance and set everything right.
Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!
