Moscow-linked church denies that its leader and other priests hold Russian passports

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) has denied that its leader, Metropolitan Onufrii, and other clergy have Russian citizenship.

Source: a statement by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP)

Quote: "His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufrii is a citizen of Ukraine by birth and does not hold passports of other countries."

Details: The church described an article published by Ukrainska Pravda alleging that Onufrii and a number of other UOC-MP priests have Russian citizenship as "unreliable and manipulative".

They also insist that some of the bishops mentioned in the video were stripped of their [Ukrainian] citizenship allegedly "without any justification", and therefore they have filed a lawsuit seeking the restoration of their Ukrainian citizenship, since they have no other. The court has opened proceedings at their request.

"Since the Security Service of Ukraine has repeatedly stated that it checked all UOC bishops for dual citizenship, and did not cancel the Ukrainian citizenship of other bishops mentioned in the story, the information in the video cannot be true. Especially since the author of the video cited as evidence footage that is frankly dubious, the content of which is not confirmed by anything," the UOC-MP representatives said.

They also accused the journalists of "persistently looking for non-existent Russian passports of bishops of the UOC, while ignoring the explicit statements of representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) that some bishops of that religious organisation have Russian citizenship and citizenship of the so-called LPR." The UOC-MP did not specify which "explicit statements" they were talking about.

Background: According to an investigation by Ukrainska Pravda, the UOC-MP’s Metropolitan Onufrii (secular name: Orest Berezovskyi) and over 20 other clergymen have Russian citizenship.

According to an extract from the Rospasport [Russian Passport] system, Onufrii obtained an internal Russian passport in Moscow on 20 March 2002. A year later, on 23 June 2003, he also obtained a passport for international travel as a Russian citizen - and not for the first time. He also obtained one in Moscow in 1998.

The other UOC-MP clergy who hold Russian passports, according to Ukrainska Pravda, are: Hedeon (secular name: Yurii Kharon), bishop and abbot of the Tithe Monastery; former Metropolitan Yelysiei (Oleh Ivanov) of Izium and Kupiansk; Metropolitan Ionofan (Anatolii Yeletskykh) of Tulchyn and Bratslav; Bishop Serhii (Serhii Anitsoi) of Ladyzhyn, Vicar of the Tulchyn Eparchy; Archbishop Panteleimon (Viktor Bashchuk), Vicar of the Kyiv Eparchy; Metropolitan Meletii (Valentyn Yehorenko), Head of the Chernivtsi-Bukovyna Eparchy; Metropolitan Mark (Mykola Petrovtsii), Bishop of Khust Eparchy; and Metropolitan Irynei (Ivan Serednii), Bishop of the Diocese of Dnipro. 

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