By KYIV. May 12 (Interfax-Ukraine) – A court issued the first verdict for Metropolitan Iosaf of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) of the Kirovohrad diocese, who was found guilty of violating the equality of citizens and sentenced to probation, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has said.
“Based on the materials of the SBU, the District Court of Kropyvnytsky, for the first time in Ukraine, issued a sentence for a high-ranking cleric of the UOC-MP, ex-head of the Kirovohrad diocese, Metropolitan Iosaf. He and the secretary of this institution fully pleaded guilty to the crimes that the Security Service incriminated them,” it said on the Telegram channel on Friday.
Thus, the court and the defendants themselves fully confirmed the evidence base collected by the SBU employees.
“They were convicted under Part 2 of Article 28 and Part 1 of Article 161 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violation of the equality of citizens depending on their race, nationality, regional affiliation, religious beliefs, disability and other grounds, committed by prior agreement by a group of persons). Given their cooperation with the investigation, the court sentenced them to three years in prison with a probationary period of two years, and also banned them from holding positions of heads of religious agencies and dioceses for one year,” the SBU said.
The intelligence service recalled that the defendants publicly praised the seizure of part of the territory of Ukraine and incited inter-religious hatred in the region in favor of the aggressor country.
“According to the investigation, the bishop was a member of the inner circle of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, with whom he coordinated subversive activities against our state. For this, the metropolitan was in constant contact with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and carried out his instructions regarding the justification of Russian aggression and occupation of the eastern and southern territories of Ukraine, in particular, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea,” it said.
According to the SBU, instructions from Moscow came in the form of written circulars, as well as during personal meetings on the territory of Russia, the bishop also involved the secretary of the diocese in criminal activities.
“On their behalf, in the churches of the religious society, people were given out enemy propaganda literature, which was printed in thousands of copies in the printing houses of the aggressor country. In these books, Russian ‘authors’ questioned Ukrainian statehood and praised the Kremlin regime,” the SBU said.
During searches on the territory of the diocese, law enforcement officers found a large amount of pro-Russian printed materials and documents with evidence of correspondence with Moscow “curators”.
The investigation was conducted by SBU officers in Kirovohrad region under the procedural leadership of the prosecutor’s office.
