Ukraine today: The first confessor bishops
In the current persecutions against the UOC, the first confessor bishops have already appeared. The court's verdict against Bishop Jonathan has already come into legal force.
Today, court proceedings are ongoing against several UOC bishops. Metropolitans: Pavel of Chernobyl, Theodosiy of Cherkasy, Longin of Bancheny, Jonathan of Tulchyn, and Arseniy of Sviatohirsk – all of them are facing prison terms under rather heavy articles of the Criminal Code.
The Metropolitan Arseniy case
On June 19, 2024, the first court session on the case of the abbot of the Sviatohirsk Lavra, Metropolitan Arseniy, took place in Dnipro. This was a substantive hearing of the case, plus the session addressed the extension of his preventive detention since his 60 days in pre-trial detention were due to expire on 22 June 2024. The relatively quick transfer of the case to court is somewhat surprising.
For instance, Orthodox journalists with a similar level of evidence had their pre-trial detention extended by another three months, meaning that SBU investigators can "investigate" the case for six months or more without much effort. The logical assumption for such promptness in Metropolitan Arseniy's case is that they are in a hurry to convict and imprison him as soon as possible.
If UOC lawyer Robert Amsterdam's statements are correct that after the Summit in Switzerland, Ukrainian authorities will sharply intensify their persecution of the Church, then the demonstrative imprisonment of Metropolitan Arseniy would send a message to all other bishops: "join the OCU, or it will be too late." However, let's not run ahead. The case of Metropolitan Arseniy has just begun to be reviewed; several more sessions, a verdict, an appeal, etc. are yet to come.
The Metropolitan Jonathan case
The verdict against Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchyn and Bratslav (Yeletskykh) has already come into legal force. On 18 June 2024, the Vinnytsia Court of Appeal upheld the verdict of the Vinnytsia City Court of 7 August 2023, which sentenced Metropolitan Jonathan to five years in prison with confiscation of property. He was found guilty of the following crimes:
• incitement of religious hatred (Article 161);
• justification of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation (Article 436-2);
• calls for the overthrow of the constitutional order (Article 109);
• encroachment on the territorial integrity of Ukraine (Article 110).
The Appellate Court's ruling takes effect from the moment it is pronounced, meaning Metropolitan Jonathan can already be sent to prison. Although this decision can be appealed to the Cassation Criminal Court within the Supreme Court of Ukraine within three months, given recent trends, it is unlikely that any fair outcome can be expected.
Of course, calling someone a confessor during their lifetime is not correct according to Orthodox tradition. When some elders of Mount Athos were told about the sanctity of the still-living Silouan of Athos, they remarked, "Let's see how he will die." While keeping this approach in mind, it is nonetheless essential to pay attention to Metropolitan Jonathan's case now, as it may serve as an example for many other faithful members of the Church.
What is Metropolitan Jonathan
Metropolitan Jonathan is one of the prominent bishops who has already played a significant role in the history of the UOC. Born in 1949, he graduated from the Leningrad Theological Seminary in 1973 and the Leningrad Theological Academy in 1976. A year later, in 1977, he was tonsured as a monk, and in 1978, he was ordained as a hieromonk by none other than the current Patriarch of Moscow Kirill (Gundyaev), who was then the Bishop of Vyborg and the rector of the Leningrad Theological Academy. Under his guidance, Hieromonk Jonathan began his academic career, teaching church singing at the seminary and conducting the choir of the Leningrad Theological Schools. Even then, Jonathan was seriously involved in church music, to which he had special talents. In 1986, a record of the choir of the Leningrad Theological Schools, which included his compositions, was released by a recording studio. However, soon the KGB revoked Jonathan’s Leningrad registration due to his inclination towards dissidence: reading Solzhenitsyn, attending semi-underground exhibitions of ideologically "wrong" artists, etc. For a whole year after that, he could not find a place to serve and eventually ended up at the St. Vladimir Cathedral of Kyiv.
However, times were changing rapidly, and in 1988, against the backdrop of the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus', the state began to return to the Church some churches and monasteries, including the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, of which Archimandrite Jonathan became the first abbot. A year later, in 1989, he was consecrated as the Bishop of Pereyaslav and became the Chancellor of the then Kyiv Exarchate and later the independent UOC. Essentially, he was the second person after Filaret Denysenko in the church hierarchy, his right-hand man and trusted person. When in 1990, after the death of Patriarch Pimen, Filaret went to Moscow firmly believing that he would become the next Patriarch of Moscow, he was preparing to hand over the management of the Kyiv Exarchate to Bishop Jonathan. However, Filaret did not become the Moscow Patriarch, and then he decided to become the "Patriarch of Kyiv". It was here that Jonathan showed his firmness as he preferred faithfulness to church canons over the favour of his superior and patron. Jonathan clearly stated his disagreement with Filaret's schismatic aspirations, for which he was not only banned from priesthood in 1991 but also defrocked the same year.
However, after Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan) was elected as the Metropolitan of Kyiv, the bans against Bishop Jonathan were deemed invalid. Jonathan subsequently headed several eparchies of the UOC. Since 2010, he has been a member of the Patriarchal Council for Culture (a synodal institution of the Russian Orthodox Church). Additionally, Metropolitan Jonathan is the author of a number of church hymns and theological works, among which are notable "An Explanatory Guide to the Prayers of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great", with an attempt to present the prayers and litanies of the Liturgy in Russian and Ukrainian, along with historical and theological commentary.
Criminal persecution
Given his background, Metropolitan Jonathan has become a convenient target for Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, which began searching for "betrayal" within the Church where it does not exist.
On October 11, 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) conducted a search at Metropolitan Jonathan's residence and initiated criminal proceedings. According to the Metropolitan and his lawyers, the "evidence" allegedly found was planted, and compromising files on his computer appeared only after it was in the hands of the SBU investigators. The prosecutors could not present convincing evidence of Metropolitan Jonathan's guilt, yet he was sentenced to five years in prison.
The "seriousness" of the evidence can be judged by the prosecutor's statement during the trial that Metropolitan Jonathan, "driven by ideology, searched for pro-Russian leaflets on the Internet and downloaded them to the system disk of his computer to distribute them to his priests in the public office". In other words, the prosecution considered it a completed crime that a person downloads content from the Internet (which, by the way, is no longer necessary with the advancement of information technology). However, even if this is believed, the prosecutors did not provide serious evidence that Metropolitan Jonathan intended to disseminate this content.
After the verdict made by the Vinnytsia City Court, the Metropolitan suffered a stroke. This was reported by the press service of the Tulchyn Eparchy on 19 March 2024. According to his lawyer, while undergoing treatment, Jonathan wrote a request to be included in the exchange fund of prisoners of war for transfer to Russia. However, shortly after, it was reported that the Metropolitan changed his decision, stating he still did not admit guilt and "wanted to continue working for the benefit of Ukraine". The lawyer also mentioned another reason – that Metropolitan Jonathan does not have the prisoner-of-war status and thus cannot be exchanged. This seems strange, as individuals without the prisoner-of-war status, such as V. Medvedchuk or writer Yan Taksiur, were previously exchanged to Russia.
Why confession?
Given Metropolitan Jonathan's biography, it can be assumed that he would be received with honor in Russia. For him, an exchange to Russia is almost the only way to survive. Everyone understands that five years in prison for a 75-year-old man, who recently suffered a stroke, is tantamount to a death sentence. Prison healthcare is not known for its quality, so any health problems mean guaranteed suffering. It seems that Metropolitan Jonathan was aware of all this when he made his choice to refuse the exchange to Russia. Nevertheless, he made that choice. Why?
Let’s consider what would happen in the case of such an exchange. Yes, the Metropolitan would resolve his personal problems, enjoy freedom, have comfort and receive quality medical care. But on the other hand, he would thereby acknowledge the fairness of the accusations against him: that he incited religious hatred, justified Russian aggression and encroached on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. He would admit that the ROC, not the UOC, is his true home. Additionally, he could be strongly encouraged in Russia to speak critically against the decisions of the UOC Council in Feofaniya held on 27 May 2022, as happened with Yan Taksiur.
The exchange of Metropolitan Jonathan to Russia would set a precedent that would make it much easier to deal with other UOC hierarchs, initiate fabricated criminal cases, present flimsy “evidence” and deliver guilty verdicts in courts. The logic is simple: if one UOC hierarch ultimately admitted his guilt, then others are probably no better.
Therefore, Met. Jonathan’s decision to actually sacrifice himself but not to give the Church’s persecutors an easy way to deal with other fellow bishops can be seen as an act of confession. The hope that the Cassation Court will overturn the verdict is very little, which means there is nothing left to do but pray that the Lord strengthens Metropolitan Jonathan, Metropolitan Arseniy, and all other confessors suffering in prisons for their faithfulness to Christ and His Church. May He not leave them without His help and comfort and help them carry their Cross to the end.
