Mobilizing UOC clergy: Are the authorities simply purging “Moscow priests”?

TRC personnel at work. Photo: veteran

The Volodymyr-Volynsky Eparchy has named the number of mobilized clerics: 18. One of them has been killed, and two are missing in action – and we understand what that means. This raises the question: what is the overall picture across Ukraine?

Reports surface almost daily of one UOC cleric or another being abducted by TRC officers. Some manage to be returned, but many are sent to a military medical commission, then to a training ground, and from there – to the front.

There are now 38–39 eparchies on Ukrainian-controlled territory. Some are larger than Volodymyr-Volynsky, others smaller. In some places, the TRC operates more aggressively; in others, with somewhat more restraint. But overall, this eparchy can be taken as fairly average. Multiply 18 by the number of eparchies, and the figure comes close to 700.

And yet the authorities know perfectly well that mobilizing clergy is utterly pointless: they cannot take up arms. Even Elensky admits it: “A priest cannot shed blood. He can offer only the so-called bloodless sacrifice.”

Still, UOC clerics – unlike those of the OCU, UGCC, Jews, Muslims, and pagans – are granted no exemptions. The only “benefit” they are allowed to bring the country is to go to the front and die.

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