Washington, D.C., June 17, 2024
Photo: liturgija.mk
The international legal team representing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, led by Robert Amsterdam, is warning of the threat of increased persecution against the Church and its representatives following the Summit on Peace in Ukraine held in Switzerland over the weekend.
The legal team announced on Friday that “it has received intelligence that an impending round of arrests and persecutions are being planned against top Church leadership and their Ukrainian counsel upon conclusion of the Summit on Peace in Ukraine being hosted in Bürgenstock, Switzerland this weekend.”
The conference gathered representatives from 92 nations and 8 international organizations, aimed at supporting Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s 10-point peace plan. The Ukrainian head of state also met there with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who supports the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” that actively persecutes the canonical Church and Orthodox Christians in Ukraine.
“We are informed by credible sources that when the peace summit concludes, the gloves will come off – we are very concerned for the human rights of this community,” said Robert Amsterdam. “Pursuing peace while jailing priests – this has become the other, untold story in Zelensky’s Ukraine.”
According to the lawyers’ intelligence, the expected crackdown is connected with the Ukrainian state’s flimsy case against journalists of the Union of Orthodox Journalists, who face life in prison for reporting on the persecution of the UOC.
“With the flimsy pretext of the case failing in court and increased international scrutiny, the state is looking to expand the case with another 20 defendants. Sources indicate that a sweeping series of unlawful raids and arrests are being planned next week against a variety of targets,” reads the release on Amsterdam & Partners LLP’s Save the UOC site.
Amsterdam states that the UOC fully supports Ukraine in the war, “But we must not allow the war to serve as a shield of impunity for the current administration in Kyiv to repeatedly violate the rule of law and ignore international legal commitments.”
In particular, Amsterdam notes that there are reports of plans to arrest Nikita Chekman, who is both a Ukrainian priest and a lawyer for the canonical UOC. He stated that such brazen tactics are being tolerated in the West, although Ukraine is its ally. "We are urgently warning the international community of these concerns and we intend to exercise every available international legal avenue to hold specific individuals in the Ukrainian government accountable for their violations of law", Amserdam said.
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