Suspicion against an FSB officer and an inconvenient detail of his biography
“Patriotic” media outlets and Telegram channels have spread the news that the SBU announced suspicion against FSB officer S. Havrish – for repression against two clergy of the OCU in the occupied territory of Donbas. According to the investigation, Havrish coerced them into re-registering their churches under Russian legislation, and also facilitated their transfer to the “Temporary Detention Center for Foreign Nationals,” and from there – to Georgia.
Religious persecution, if it did take place, is absolutely unacceptable. But there is another aspect worth noting. Before 2014, Havrish was an officer of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine – meaning that after the occupation he became a traitor. And he was far from alone in this.
The lawyer of the Lavra, Fr. Nikita Chekman, stated that approximately 98% of Ukrainian security service personnel in Crimea defected to the side of the Russian Federation. Yet here is the paradox: no one in Ukraine labels the SBU or the foreign intelligence service as entirely treasonous structures. But with the clergy of the UOC, the story is somehow entirely different: isolated criminal cases involving less than 1% (!) of the clergy are being seriously described by the authorities and the media as a threat to national security – and it is precisely for this reason that they are attempting to ban the entire Church.
Yet another occasion to take pride in our unprecedented freedom of religion.
