Moscow July 17, 2025
Photo: spzh.eu
On July 16, enlistment officers in Ukraine detained Metropolitan Bogolep (Goncharenko) of Alexandria and Svetlovodsk of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists (UOJ).
The Metropolitan was issued a military summons and released. He is currently free.
The Ukrainian military has started forcibly recruiting bishops and clergy of the canonical UOC, after passing a law the does not exempt them from military service and allows them to be sent to the front lines in the ranks of ordinary soldiers. This law seems to be targeting the UOC, since there have not been reports of clergy from other confessions or the non-canonical OCU being recruited.
Some clergy have been sent to the front, while others have been released from the training camps. As OrthoChristian reported earlier, one priest was beaten and injured at the recruitment center.
Orthodox canon law forbids the clergy to kill a living being, human or animal.
According to most media reports, the Ukrainian army is losing large numbers of soldiers in the fighting, and in some cases army battalions are sent on what they themselves consider suicide missions. And so, this enlistment of clergy has all the appearance of a new way to purge canonical clergy from Ukraine.
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