Kiev, April 4, 2024
Photo: spzh.media
The Ukrainian Ministry of Justice has filed a lawsuit with the High Anti-Corruption Court, calling for sanctions to be imposed upon His Eminence Metropolitan Lazar, the retired bishop of Crimea.
Met. Lazar has been a hierarch for 44 years. He led the Crimean Metropolis from 1992 to October 2023, when he was granted retirement. The Crimean dioceses remained part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church after Crimea became part of Russia in 2014, but in June 2022, several months after the war began, the dioceses, under the leadership of Met. Lazar, petitioned for and were received into the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Ministry of Justice explains its call for sanctions:
Since 2014, the defendant has been actively engaged in supporting the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and the occupation of its territories by providing material and technical support for the armed aggression against Ukraine, actively aiding the occupation authorities with information, using his position to carry out propaganda work among the faithful within the ideology of the aggressor state, as well as by supporting and motivating the moral and psychological health of the military personnel of the armed forces of the Russian Federation and illegal armed formations that are carrying out armed aggression against Ukraine.
Met. Lazar is a Ukrainian from the Ternopil Province and served most of his ecclesiastical career in Ukraine. His place of residence in retirement is not indicated in his public profiles.
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