The government has been conducting a crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for years
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has revoked the citizenship of the seniormost bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the SBU security agency reported on Wednesday.
According to the agency, it has evidence that 80-year-old Metropolitan Onufry obtained Russian citizenship in 2002, and thus was no longer eligible to hold Ukrainian citizenship. Zelensky has reportedly ordered the church leader to no longer be considered a Ukrainian national, although his office has yet to publish the decree.
Zelensky’s government has been cracking down on the largest religious organization in Ukraine for years, claiming the measures are necessary due to the UOC’s historic ties with Russia.
The broad campaign of criminal investigations against the clergy has been accompanied by the seizure of property by supporters of the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which is backed by Kiev. The UOC says it is being victimized by the government.
The SBU alleged that Onufry “deliberately opposed canonical independence of the Ukrainian church from the Moscow Patriarchy,” referring to the spiritual connection between the two churches originating from the times of Imperial Russia.
The creation of the rival OCU in 2019 and its recognition by the Patriarch of Constantinople caused a major rift among world’s Orthodox churches. The UOC has been de facto independent from Moscow since the 1990s, but maintained the canonical connection that lent it inter-church legitimacy.
Last year, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that effectively threatened a ban on the UOC unless it cut the spiritual link to Russia. The UN and international human rights organizations have accused Kiev of overreach and interference with the freedom of religion by mandating a specific way of worshiping God.
Ukraine currently does not recognize dual citizenship, but has no explicit legal prohibition either. However, an adult citizen who becomes a foreign national through means other than marrying a foreigner can be stripped of their citizenship at the president’s discretion. Zelensky previously targeted multiple former Ukrainian officials and political rivals in this manner, including Viktor Medvedchuk, formerly the leader of the largest opposition party in Ukraine.
