Leafing through old fakes: Kyiv roundtable discusses "saboteurs" in the UOC

The Institute for Foreign Policy Studies with the organizational assistance of the General Directorate for Service to Foreign Missions of Ukraine held a roundtable on "The Moscow Patriarchate in the Russian War against Ukraine. The meeting was broadcast on the GDIP Media Center YouTube channel. 

To substantiate the prohibition of the UOC, the Director of the Institute Hryhoriy Perepelytsia cited fake news about priests who allegedly cooperated with the Russian authorities. 

"We have known about the subversive activities of the UOC under martial law for a long time. There are plenty of examples when Russian churches acted as warehouses for weapons, and we can't help recalling more vivid examples: on the second day of the large-scale invasion near Hostomel, UOC Archpriest Mikhail Pavlushenko was detained, who helped the Russian army. On March 16, priest of the UOC Onufry was detained in Kyiv, who worked with the Russian secret services and gave them information about roadblocks and critical infrastructure," Perepelytsia said with confidence. 

We shall remind, on February 24, 2022, the police of Ukraine detained the priest of the UOC Archpriest Mikhail Pavlushenko, mistaking him for a Russian saboteur. Video of the interrogation of Father Mikhail was published by Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Herashchenko. The priest was arrested for running out of the house when he saw the downed helicopter and thought help might be needed. The priest was taken to the district police station in Bucha, where he was held overnight and not released until February 25 in the morning.

The UOJ also reported that the Kyiv Metropolitanate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church denied reports in social networks that the man detained on suspicion of espionage is a priest of the UOC. 

"The Kyiv Metropolis reports that there is no hieromonk Onufry with the secular name Sergey Tarasov on the staff of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," the UOC told.