The SBU, by “special order,” prohibited the Orthodox Metropolitan from praying
In Donbass, Metropolitan Hilarion of Donetsk and Mariupol UOC was denied passage across the contact line at a Ukrainian checkpoint.
About it reports the press service Donetsk diocese of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate, reports the PolitNavigator correspondent.
According to the diocese, the incident occurred at the Novotroitskoye checkpoint, when Hilarion was traveling from Donetsk to the Holy Dormition Nikolo-Vasilievsky Monastery in the village of Nikolskoye, Volnovakha district, Donetsk region, to perform the traditional (for 20 years) joint prayer with the bishops of the UOC.
It is noted that the metropolitan’s electronic pass to cross the demarcation line in the SBU database was canceled “without specifying objective reasons.”
“The only “reason” for the emergence of such a situation, according to an employee of the Security Service of Ukraine at the Novotroitskoye checkpoint, turned out to be extremely simple and mockingly groundless: “a special order from Kyiv,” the diocese reported.
“At the same time, the absurdity of the details of the situation is surprising: Metropolitan Hilarion’s electronic pass, according to the same SBU officer, was canceled on December 7, but on December 8, Metropolitan Hilarion was returning from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra after a meeting of the Holy Synod of the UOC in Donetsk, and problems while crossing the demarcation line did not arise,” the press service added.
The above actions of the SBU in the diocese were called provocative, “especially in the context of the recent appeal of the President of Ukraine Poroshenko to the Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, with a request for assistance in the return of Ukrainian sailors.”
“This situation blatantly demonstrates that the Ukrainian authorities continue to follow their chosen line of gross interference in the affairs of the Church and outright persecution and discrimination of hierarchs and clergy of the UOC on religious grounds, while clearly violating the constitutional rights of citizens of Ukraine,” the Donetsk Diocese of the UOC commented on the incident MP.
As PolitNavigator reported, the SBU fabricates an anti-Ukrainian conspiracy Orthodox priests.
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