State Border Service: Bishop Gedeon left Ukraine of his own free will

Bishop Gedeon (Kharon) of Makarov

Office spokesman Oleg Slobodian stated that no one forced the abbot of the Desiatinny(Tithe) Monastery to leave Ukraine. He wrote about it on his Facebook page.

“This morning at 06:30, Yuri Kharon (Bishop Gedeon) took a return flight to Frankfurt. He left on his own, without any coercion, in good health and mood. He promised to return,” Slobodian writes.

Recall that early in the morning of February 14, 2019, Bishop Gedeon (Kharon) of Makarov was deported to the United States. The night before, at the Borispol airport, without any explanation of the reasons, the SBU officers detained him, while the State Border Service officers expropriated his foreign passport.

Spokesman of the State Border Service Chairman, Oleg Slobodian, said at the time that “the border guards had fulfilled an order from one of the law enforcement agencies.”

Vladyka tried to contact the lawyers, but they did not let the Bishop get in touch either with the lawyers or with MPs. The priest stressed that his detention was motivated by “simply because the passport had been allegedly lost,” although there were no statements from him about the loss of documents.

Law enforcement officials said that he was deprived of Ukrainian citizenship in accordance with Article 21 “Cancellation of decisions on registration of the acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship” and the issue of his deportation was being considered.

According to article 21 on the cancellation of decisions on registration of citizenship of Ukraine of the Law "On Citizenship of Ukraine", the decision on registration of acquiring citizenship of Ukraine is canceled if a person acquires Ukrainian citizenship in accordance with Articles 8 and 10 of this Law by fraud, due to the presentation of deliberately false information or false documents, concealment of any material fact, in the presence of which a person cannot be naturalized.

As reported by the UOC Information Center, the detention of the abbot of the Desiatinny Monastery took place on the eve of the Supreme Court’s session on the claim to invalidate the appeal of Parliament to Patriarch Bartholomew on granting the Tomos. The information about the meeting, scheduled for February 14, is posted on the website of the Supreme Court of Ukraine.

Thus, due to the deportation, Bishop Gedeon could not take part in the court session on February 14.

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