Metropolitan of the UOC Ioasaf received three years in prison for downloading religious books
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Reading Russian publications was recognized as a “violation of the equality of citizens”
The court of the Leninsky District Court of the city of Kropyvnytskyi (formerly Kirovohrad) sentenced the former head of the Kirovograd diocese of the UOC, Petr Guben, and the secretary of the diocese, Roman Kondratyuk, to three years in prison with a two-year probationary period and deprivation of the right to hold leadership positions in religious organizations for a year. They were accused of inciting religious hatred.
Peter Guben, better known as Metropolitan Vasilkovsky and vicar of the Kyiv diocese Ioasaf, in 1980-1982 he served in the Soviet army in Leningrad. In December 2019, Metropolitan Joasaph, at the head of a pilgrimage delegation from the Kirovograd diocese, was received at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’. These details of the biography of the clergyman were interpreted by the Ukrainian state prosecution as “aggravating circumstances”…
Prosecutor Sergei Ozhog – it was he who represented the state prosecution – announced the materials of the case, from which it followed that Joasaph (then Metropolitan of Kirovograd and Novomirgorod) on December 21, 2021, “during a meeting of the deans, presented in his office the Kirovograd diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church published in the Russian Federation spiritual literature.
The books written in Russian “Contribution to the Dialogue of Ukrainian Autocephaly”, “Modern Ukrainian Question”, “The Russian Church on Guard of Orthodoxy in the 21st Century”, “Ukrainian Church Question” and “Rules of Churches and the Unity of the Church”, at the direction of Metropolitan Joasaph, began to download from the site of one of the Moscow publishing houses, the secretary of the diocese, Roman Kondratyuk. What is shameful in this? According to the Ukrainian court, this is a terrible crime.
Today, the Kyiv media informed about the accusation of “collaboration activities” brought by Ukraine against another clergyman from the UOC – Archimandrite John (Prokopenko), the abbot of the monastery of St. Sava the Sanctified. According to parts 5 and 6 of article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the archimandrite faces a prison sentence of up to 12 years. Fortunately, Prokopenko is now under the protection of the Russian military: founded in 1995, the monastery of St. Sava the Sanctified is located on Monastyrskaya Street in the Russian Melitopol, Zaporozhye region.
Archimandrite Prokopenko became known to Russians thanks to his participation, together with Metropolitan Panteleimon (Povoroznyuk) of Lugansk and Alchevsk, in the September ceremony of the official annexation of new regions to Russia. Prokopenko blessed the Russian authorities to speed up the referendum in Zaporozhye.
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