Catholic media outraged by forcible conscription of Uniate cleric
The Vatican’s Apostolic Nunciature has demanded the return of a forcibly mobilized Greek Catholic cleric.
International Catholic news outlet EWTN News reported that TRC officers forcibly mobilized Andriy Stebivka, a 38-year-old cleric of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo, at a checkpoint in Ukraine’s Rivne region.
According to the priest’s parents, he was returning from a spiritual retreat when military recruitment officers detained him. Due to an administrative delay in his transfer to a new parish, his information was temporarily missing from the state registry confirming his clerical status. Despite documents proving that he was an ordained priest, military officials sent him to a training center and assigned him to an assault unit for deployment to the front lines.
The Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo is an autonomous ecclesiastical jurisdiction directly subordinate to the Vatican rather than the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). Bishop Teodor Matsapula of the eparchy and the Apostolic Nunciature in Ukraine appealed to the authorities, demanding that the cleric be allowed to return to his parish duties. However, their requests received no response. Fearing that their son would be sent to the front, the priest’s parents appealed to civilian, military, and diplomatic authorities to allow him to continue his priestly ministry.
The UGCC-linked Telegram channel Churcher commented on the situation. Its authors also accused the Mukachevo Eparchy itself of “separatism” and noted that priests in Ukraine were no longer safe. They urged clergy to join the UGCC, arguing that doing so would reduce their chances of being sent to the front.
As the UOJ previously reported, UGCC head Sviatoslav Shevchuk had condemned Ukrainians who evade military mobilization.
