Amsterdam: Arrests of journalists – part of a plan to destroy the UOC
Orthodox journalists Valeriy Stupnitsky, Andriy Ovcharenko, Volodymyr Bobecko, and Father Serhiy Chertylin at the court hearing. Photo: UOJ
The head of the international human rights firm Amsterdam & Partners LLP, Robert Amsterdam, sent an emergency communication to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, regarding the campaign against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), noting that according to this strategy, the authorities are intensifying the intimidation and persecution of UOC parishioners and clergy.
“These actions are being carried out by and in complicity with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS), nationalist deputies of the Verkhovna Rada led by Ukraine’s former president, Petro Poroshenko, and the OCU. The SBU is arresting priests and Orthodox journalists on false charges, detaining them without a fair trial,” wrote the lawyer.
He also noted that he has witnesses statements confirming that "the SBU is committing war crimes by offering some detained priests as barter in exchange for prisoners of war held by the Russian Federation."
As previously reported by the UOJ, American lawyer Robert Amsterdam on August 6, 2024, wrote a letter to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he detailed documents in his possession confirming the existence of a plan to destroy the UOC.
Read also
Amsterdam criticizes anti-UOC law in British media
On the air of a British TV channel, lawyer Amsterdam stated about the torture of clergy, church seizures, and the adoption of the anti-UOC law that violates the Constitution of Ukraine.
Kyiv street and square to be renamed after Caucasian imams
The capital authorities abandoned Soviet toponyms and immortalized figures associated with the North Caucasian resistance.
Relics of Sts. Job and Amphilochius of Pochaiv permanently given to Khmelnytskyi church
On the Feast Day of St. Nicholas, the relics from the Pochaiv Lavra were brought to the St. Nicholas Cathedral, which will henceforth become a permanent place of prayerful veneration for the faithful.
In Kyiv, His Beatitude consecrates St. Nicholas Sviatosha Church
In the Sviatoshynskyi district of the capital, the Primate of the UOC performed the rite of consecration and led the Liturgy with prayers for peace, warriors, and the suffering.
In Kvasyliv, UOC believers celebrate 130th anniversary of Sts Peter and Paul Church
The hierarchs of the UOC led the solemn Liturgy in the Rivne region; during the service, prayers were offered for peace, the defenders of Ukraine, and all those in need.
His Beatitude: One deprives oneself of God’s gifts by failing to thank Him
During a sermon at the Church of St Nicholas Svyatosha in Kyiv, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry reminded the faithful that ingratitude spiritually impoverishes a person.