DESS is called to check OCU for ties with Moscow on the network
Archbishop Jonah pointed out to the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) that the current hierarchs Shostatsky and Drabinko are considered bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC).
Metropolitans Simeon Shostatsky and Oleksandr Drabinko are listed on the website of the Moscow Patriarchate as bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, although they are banned from priesthood. Archbishop Jonah of Obukhiv drew attention to this on his Facebook, publishing screenshots of the ROC website featuring Shostatsky and Drabinko.
«What do you think about this, Elon Musk DESS? The OCU has two hierarchs whom the ROC considers, although banned, still its bishops. Will an examination be conducted regarding them? With the same team as for the UOC? The same wonderful people who conducted it based on ROC documents?” wrote the archbishop.
He made it clear that this fact serves as a basis for applying Law 3894 to the OCU and banning its structures, since this law states that «the activity of a religious organization is not permitted in Ukraine» if «the official documents of a foreign religious organization, the activity of which is banned in Ukraine <...>, contain signs of the inclusion of a religious organization operating in Ukraine into its structure».
Earlier, the UOJ reported that a DESS official at a lecture in the KDA urged the UOC to separate from the Russian Orthodox Church «more clearly».
