Yelensky's Nerves: Why the SESS Is Attacking the UOC's Lawyers
The current court proceedings on the SESS lawsuit against the Kyiv Metropolis are going nothing like Yelensky would have wished.
The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience has published an extremely agitated statement addressed to the lawyers of the UOC.
This is evident from the language used in the text. In particular, Viktor Yelensky's agency claimed that the UOC's international lawyer Robert Amsterdam "spared no effort to derail foreign partners' assistance to Ukraine, to defame its leadership, and to distort the religious situation in Ukraine." According to the authors, the UOC's lawyer is engaged in spreading "disinformation." Yet not a single quote is provided as evidence — the agency has stated an obvious untruth.
However, the anxiety of Yelensky's subordinates is understandable. In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Amsterdam repeatedly mentioned a fact that is highly inconvenient for the current head of the SESS: that back in Soviet times, he published antisemitic books, praised Lenin, and wrote articles directed against the Church. This is, without question, scandalous information.
The same situation applies to the SESS's attack on UOC Protodeacon Vadim Novinsky, who, according to the authors, allegedly "places full responsibility for Russia's armed aggression on Ukraine." This is equally blatant falsehood, easily refuted by the clergyman's own words in his interview with the same Carlson:
"I in no way justify Russia and the Russian authorities for committing this act of aggression against Ukraine."
What compels the relevant agency to state such obvious untruths?
The reason seems clear: the current court proceedings on the SESS lawsuit against the Kyiv Metropolis are going nothing like Yelensky would have wished. The ban on the UOC's governing center, which the authorities had planned to achieve as early as last year, keeps being pushed further away. And this is happening thanks to the actions of the UOC's lawyers and the activity of ordinary believers who are joining the case as third parties. There are now more than 10,000 such applications, and their number continues to grow.
Hence, Yelensky's team's position is clearly tinged with irritation. For instance, they claim that the UOC is fighting the SESS in court "for the right to remain part of the ROC," and that this is being "concealed" from the faithful — and has been concealed for over a year. In other words, UOC parishioners, in the authors' view, are so dim-witted that they cannot read for themselves what the agency's demands actually are.
"In the course of communicating with many believers, it turned out that they do not know the meaning of the Directive and what, in fact, the Ukrainian state requires of the Kyiv Metropolis," the SESS assures.
And we do not know who these "many believers" are or exactly where the authors of the text communicated with them. But since the agency has already departed from the facts in its previous points, there is no reason to trust its team here either.
The situation is further compounded by the fact that the court case to ban the Kyiv Metropolis is, for the SESS, the decisive battle for the destruction of the entire UOC. If they succeed, bans on the Pochaiv Lavra, the Holoseyevo Monastery, diocesan administrations, and all other structures of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will follow "automatically." But despite the colossal pressure from the state, the case is not moving forward. And so Yelensky and his colleagues are anxious and on edge.
And with good reason. Should they fail, their leadership will have very serious questions to answer.
