Details emerge online of fatal crash involving Phanar cleric

OCU cleric and “religious expert” Oleksandr Yefremenko. Photo: infonavigator.com.ua

On September 14, 2022, new details emerged about a road accident involving Oleksandr Yefremenko, a cleric of St Andrew’s Church and subdeacon to the Phanar’s exarch in Kyiv. The information was published in the Facebook group For the Ukrainian Church.

“On May 25, 2022, at around 9:28 p.m., at kilometer 22 of the Kyiv–Odesa highway in the direction of Kyiv, a driver closely resembling Oleksandr Yefremenko, driving a Chevrolet Epica, crashed into a guardrail. As a result, two passengers, Volodymyr and Ruslana Volochai, died at the scene from their injuries. A third passenger was hospitalized at Kyiv Regional Hospital with multiple injuries. The driver’s blood alcohol level was found to be 0.77‰, against the permitted limit of 0.2‰. Criminal proceedings were registered under Part 3 of Article 286,” the post said, recounting the circumstances of the tragedy.

According to the authors of the post, “the man who killed two people and then tried to justify himself on camera by saying he had ‘amnesty,’ and who played dumb at the scene as though he had no idea what was going on, bears an extraordinary resemblance to OCU propagandist, editor of the OCU internet rag Spiritual Front, and personal secretary to Phanar Exarch Michael Anishchenko – Oleksandr Yefremenko. This individual is also close to Metropolitan Epifaniy Dumenko.”

The post also alleged Yefremenko’s involvement in corrupt organizations, including the Chaplaincy Development Foundation.

The authors noted that Yefremenko “is a deacon at the stavropegion of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and serves with the exarch at St Andrew’s Church,” adding that “even after this incident, he remains at large and calmly continues to present himself as a prominent Church figure.”

The authors further claimed that, according to rumors, law enforcement officials were now trying to hush up the case at the request of OCU head Epifaniy Dumenko and Exarch Michael (Anishchenko).

The post also stated that the UOC-KP would soon send an inquiry to Patriarch Bartholomew asking whether he was aware that a cleric of his stavropegion “is using his name in Kyiv to evade responsibility for killing two people – while intoxicated, no less.”

Earlier, the UOJ reported that a Phanar cleric in Ukraine had been accused of manslaughter.

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