A Metropolitan of the Moscow-affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP) was sentenced to a few years in jail Friday after pleading responsible earlier than a Ukrainian courtroom to “violating the equality of residents.” The Safety Service of Ukraine (SBU) mentioned that Metropolitan Iosaf, also called Petro Huben, distributed pro-Krelmin Russian literature that questioned Ukrainian sovereignty in coordination with the Russian Orthodox Church and its head, Patriarch Kiril.
Iosaf, who previously led the UOC-MP’s Kirovohrad Eparchy (or diocese), was additionally given two years of probation and banned from non secular management for one 12 months.
The bishop was accused of violating Article 121 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, which prohibits:
Willful actions inciting nationwide, racial or non secular enmity and hatred, humiliation of nationwide honor and dignity, or the insult of residents’ emotions in respect to their non secular convictions, and in addition any direct or oblique restriction of rights, or granting direct or oblique privileges to residents based mostly on race, colour of pores and skin, political, non secular and different convictions, intercourse, ethnic and social origin, property standing, place of residence, linguistic or different traits.
The utmost time period of imprisonment for this crime is 5 years when dedicated by an official and accompanied by “violence, deception or threats.”
The sentencing comes amid a standoff between the Ukrainian authorities and the UOC-MP. The Ukrainian authorities has repeatedly accused the UOC-MP of supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In April, a Kyiv courtroom gave the abbot of the government-owned Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, Metropolitan Pavel, 60 days of home arrest for undermining Ukrainian sovereignty and selling non secular enmity. Pavel’s arrest got here after UOC-MP clerics refused to depart the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, which is revered as Ukraine’s holiest orthodox web site, when the Ukrainian authorities ordered them out in March.
The UOC-MP is the Russian-affiliated orthodox church in Ukraine. It claimed independence from the Russian Orthodox Church in Might 2022, however its independence is disputed by Kiril. It’s not to be confused with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was shaped in 2018 and is unbiased.
Source / Picture: jurist.org
