UOC may receive support from international human rights groups – analyst

Kostiantyn Bondarenko. Photo: UOJ

Commenting to the UOJ on Zelensky’s decree revoking Metropolitan Onuphry’s citizenship, political analyst Kostiantyn Bondarenko emphasized that this step by the President is “a real threat of a new wave of repressions against the UOC and another anti-church media campaign by the Ukrainian authorities.”

“The attack on His Beatitude is linked to the launch of the process of implementing the ‘law banning the UOC.’ They want to decapitate it. This is a deliberate political campaign to destroy the canonical Church. In the future, the mechanism of political repression against the UOC could escalate even further,” the analyst stressed.

According to him, “legally, after being stripped of his citizenship, His Beatitude could face extradition.”

At the same time, Bondarenko emphasized that both the Primate and the entire UOC could receive legal support from international political organizations as well as from the current U.S. administration. He recalled the support shown to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the current Vice President, J.D. Vance.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that, according to Bondarenko, the Church survived the Bolshevik era and will survive the ‘Kvartal’ era.

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