OFFICIAL COMMENTARY BY METROPOLITAN THEODOSIUS (SNIHIRIOV) OF CHERKASY AND KANIV IN RELATION TO THE BEGINNING OF A BROAD INTERNATIONAL PROCESS FOR DEFENDING THE RIGHTS OF BELIEVERS IN UKRAINE

Metropolitan Theodosius (Snihiriov) of Cherkasy and Kaniv, a hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a human rights advocate, and an initiator and co-founder of the International Human Rights Alliance ‘Church Against Xenophobia and Religious Discrimination’, has given the following commentary in connection with the start of a broad international human rights process for thwarting violations of the rights and freedoms of citizens of Ukraine who are believers of the UOC committed by a number of Ukrainian political figures and state bodies:

On 29 January 2024, the human rights organisation Public Advocacy, which is a member of our International Human Rights Alliance ‘Church Against Xenophobia and Religious Discrimination’, published some international documents indicating that an investigation into the facts of violations of the rights of believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) had begun at the international level.

For the first time in the last few years, international officials having the diplomatic status of UN officials and authorised to consider individual complaints against violations of the rights of believers posed specific questions to the government of Ukraine concerning the facts of violations of the rights of believers and not only expressed serious concern over such violations but also assessed the actions of the current leadership of the country as not complying with rules of international law. While previously we observed only some comments on or mentions of violations of the rights of the faithful of the UOC in reports by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, now there is a document showing that the UOC issue has been examined in depth at international organisations.

The formation of a UOC delegation to the UN, accredited with the UN headquarters in Geneva, in 2023, as well as the speeches made by UOC hierarchs directly during meetings of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), contributed to it a lot. In particular, during the consideration of a report on Ukraine prepared by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the UNHRC meeting room on 9 October 2023 , there was my video address regarding the violations of the rights of believers in relation to the deprivation of the UOC of churches and buildings of the Kyiv Caves Lavra and the Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary, as well as in relation to the ungrounded criminal prosecution of a number of UOC hierarchs and clergymen. Also, our international lawyers held a series of contact meetings , during which UN Special Rapporteurs were provided with written appeals and evidence of the violations of the rights of believers, statements by UOC dioceses, and other documents. As a result of the processing of these materials, an international request was prepared — a communication from three UN Special Rapporteus to the state of Ukraine on the violations of the rights of believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

At the same time, the officials of state bodies who prepared their response to this request — and it is specified in the text of the response that it was prepared by as many as three ministries, as well as by the Security Service of Ukraine — ignored a number of questions asked by the international mandataries and provided, in our opinion, false information on a number of issues. As for the violations of the rights of the faithful of the UOC in the cases of the Kyiv Caves Lavra and the Ivano-Frankivsk Diocese of the UOC, I think that representatives of the Lavra and this diocese will comment directly in the near future. For my part, I would like to underline the fact that the diplomats and respective ministries that prepared the response to the UN’s request provided absolutely no comments or explanations in connection with the criminal prosecution of hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, although the UN Special Rapporteurs had asked for explanations regarding the sentencing of the already convicted Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchyn and Bratslav and had expressed the desire to receive explanations concerning other criminal cases opened against UOC hierarchs, as well as concerning the imposition of sanctions on them. In addition, the international request pertained to local governments’ decisions to expropriate land plots from the Church and other discriminatory actions (paragraph 7 of the communication request).

However, such information was not provided by the Ukrainian state officials at all, and the international request was completely ignored by our authorities in this part.

I would like to stress that members of the UN mission in Ukraine have already been present at court hearings in the criminal case against metropolitan Jonathan, as well as in the criminal case fabricated against me. Also, I personally have had meetings with them concerning the violations of the rights of believers in the diocese entrusted to me. Moreover, UN officials directly interviewed the victims — our parishioners and clergymen who were brutally injured by members of armed groups during the raider seizure of Cherkasy’s Monastery of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos.

It should be noted that violations of the rights of believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are increasingly discussed in the foreign mass media, as a result of which more and more truthful information about the situation of the faithful penetrates into Western society. For instance, members of our Human Rights Alliance ‘Church Against Xenophobia and Religious Discrimination’ have issued a press release at the Geneva Press Club on the violations of the rights of UOC believers in Ukraine . All the events specified, and especially the activity of Orthodox believers in defending their Church and faith, are shaping ever greater international attention to cases concerning the violation of the rights of UOC believers, which, in turn, will lead to an ever sharper response of the international community to facts of violations of the rights of the UOC.

Therefore, in my opinion, officials of state bodies, if they really want to be statesmen at least to some extent, should think about the long-term effect of the discriminatory policy towards the Ukrainian Orthodox Church both for themselves personally and for the state. There are already calls at the international level to consider introducing personal sanctions against officials of Ukrainian state bodies who are responsible for the anti-Church discriminatory policy. European and international law works under somewhat different principles than the ‘principles’ to which our state officials and political figures are accustomed. And if Ukrainian state politicians keep generating so many easily provable facts of hatred towards the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (and, in fact, to their own people), it will be enough to launch a lot of international proceedings against the Ukrainian state officials who are the perpetrators of such offences. As far as I know, these matters have already begun to be discussed, and if UOC believers continue to be persecuted in Ukraine, a large-scale relevant response will be shaped in the near future by persons and foreign organisations defending Orthodoxy at the international level.

In view of this, to my mind, the minimum that needs to be urgently done by the state authorities of Ukraine today is to:

• immediately stop the discriminatory policy towards the UOC;

• close without delay the absolutely outrageous, artificially fabricated criminal cases on trumped-up charges against UOC hierarchs and priests and lift personal sanctions from them;

• stop the massive unlawful re-registrations of legal entities — UOC religious communities — to the new denomination (the Orthodox Church of Ukraine) by state registrars on the grounds of falsified minutes of meetings held by unauthorised persons;

• respond immediately to any manifestations of violence towards UOC believers, as well as to public calls for discrimination of the faithful of the UOC, who are citizens of Ukraine, on religious grounds;

• cease the participation of state bodies in the deprivation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of historical religious buildings and architectural monuments. That is, to stop initiating the termination of agreements on the free use of historical Lavras, monasteries, and churches by the UOC and stop filing lawsuits for reverse restitution, which are barbaric in their nature. Such lawsuits are rightly regarded by international lawyers as a free ‘Lenin-like’ expropriation of church property, which actually should have been returned into the ownership of the Church long ago by way of restitution, pursuant to the international commitments of our state.

Summing up everything that has been said, I would like to express my hope that there are remains of reasonability in the minds and hearts of our statesmen. I want to believe that at least some of them still retain the ability to be guided in their actions not by momentary political profit and destructive emotions, but by the principles of the inviolability of human freedoms and rights and the ideas of strategic state thinking for the good of our society. Stop and listen to the voice of the historical Church of your people — to the voice of the conscience of our people. Before is it irreversibly too late.

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