The Security Service gathered a large-scale evidence base on four high-ranking Russian clerics who spread the Kremlin regime in the temporarily occupied part of the territory of Ukraine, and announced that they are suspected of illegal actions.
Points of attention
- High-ranking Russian metropolitans are suspected of illegal actions related to seizing Ukrainian churches and spreading Kremlin regime propaganda in occupied territories of Ukraine.
- The Security Service of Ukraine has gathered evidence against these metropolitans under Article 110 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and they are currently wanted for their involvement.
- Patriarch Gundyaev played a significant role in supporting the Russian clerics in seizing Ukrainian church properties and appointing bishops controlled by Moscow in the occupied regions.
The SSU announced the suspicion of Russian metropolitans
All of them are members of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In particular, it is:
the head of the St. Petersburg Metropolis is Metropolitan Varsonofy (Anatoly Sudakov) ;
Head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church — Metropolitan Anthony (Anton Sevryuk) ;
the head of the Kolomnitsa eparchy, the patriarchal vicar of the Moscow Metropolis — Metropolitan Krutytskyi (Georgiy Ponomarev) ;
the head of affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate is Metropolitan Dionysius (Petro Porubai).
According to the case materials, during 2022-2023, they contributed to the seizure of the property of Ukrainian churches on the left bank of the Kherson region, as well as in the Crimea and temporarily occupied areas of the Zaporizhia and Luhansk regions.
For this purpose, those involved under the leadership of Patriarch Gundyaev secured the decision of the Russian Synod regarding the "joining" of Ukrainian religious communities to the Russian Orthodox Church.
In this way, Russian clerics seized the temples, church buildings and land of the Dzhankoy, Berdyan, Rovenkiv and Kherson dioceses and appointed bishops controlled by Moscow there.
In the future, proteges of the aggressor country imposed Kremlin narratives on believers, in which they blessed the Russian Federation's war against Ukraine and justified the crimes of the occupiers.
On the basis of the collected evidence, Sudakov, Sevryuk, Porubai and Ponomaryov were notified in absentia of the suspicion under part. 5th century 27, ch. 3 Art. 110 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (assistance in the commission of deliberate actions with the aim of changing the boundaries of the territory or the state border of Ukraine, by prior conspiracy by a group of persons, which led to other serious consequences).
Currently, comprehensive measures are underway to bring perpetrators to justice for crimes against our state.
The Russian Orthodox Church covers the Russian invasion of Ukraine with the slogan "holy war".
The Russian People's Council, under the leadership of Moscow Patriarch Kirill, adopted an "order" in which the Russian invasion of Ukraine was called a "holy war" and declared that "the entire territory of modern Ukraine must enter the zone of exclusive influence of Russia."
Formally, the document of the patriarchate has no relation to the Russian Orthodox Church, but many Russian church hierarchs and church-related public figures participate in the work of the council.
The document was approved during the conclave held on March 27 in Moscow under the chairmanship of Patriarch Kirill.
In this paper, the war in Ukraine was called "a new stage of the national liberation struggle of the Russian people against the criminal Kyiv regime and the collective West behind it, which is being waged on the lands of South-Western Russia", and from the "spiritual and moral point of view" — " A holy war, in which Russia and its people, protecting the single spiritual space of Holy Russia, fulfill the mission of the "Sustainer", protecting the world from the onslaught of globalism and the victory of the West, which has fallen into Satanism."
