DESS launches probe into Cherkasy Eparchy’s ties to Russia
Ukraine’s State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience has launched a review of the UOC’s Cherkasy Eparchy over possible ties to a religious organization banned in Ukraine.
The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) has initiated a review to determine whether the Cherkasy Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) shows signs of affiliation with a foreign religious organization banned in Ukraine.
Officials cited Article 5-1 of the law prohibiting the activities of religious organizations linked to foreign religious centers. The agency said it would publish the findings once the review is complete.
The review is being conducted under the law “On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Religious Organizations,” which is aimed at restricting the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
As the UOJ previously reported, Metropolitan Yevlogiy of Sumy said that DESS head Viktor Yelensky’s main goal is to destroy the UOC.
