Why Metropolitan Onufriy was stripped of citizenship right now
Metropolitan Onufriy. Photo: mukachevo.net
Everyone has already written about the deprivation of Ukrainian citizenship of the head of the UOC, Metropolitan Onufriy (Berezovsky), on charges of having Russian citizenship, and I will write too.
The fact of possessing Russian citizenship has been known for more than two years. During this time, Zelensky, on similar charges, deprived a whole group of UOC metropolitans (six people) of citizenship, whose citizenship was established or they were suspected of it. All of them remained in Ukraine and serve, and head dioceses. As, in fact, thousands, if not tens of thousands of representatives of the upper echelons of Ukrainian society (including some hierarchs of the OCU) with similar passports, quite calmly live in Ukraine.
So why was Metropolitan Onufriy punished and why now?
It is obvious that this is a reaction to the attempted seizure of the UOC cathedral in Chernivtsi on June 17 - that is, the church from the pulpit of which Onufriy preached for more than twenty years. Then a group of several dozen militants, apparently right-wing extremists, led by an OCU priest, attempted to seize the cathedral, beating thirty UOC parishioners and seriously injuring a priest who tried to stop them in front of the church.
Upon learning about this, several thousand UOC believers liberated the cathedral, clearly demonstrating the real balance of power in Orthodox Bukovina. Zelensky, a few days later, awarded the OCU priest with a state award, as he is a serial organizer of such seizures. But what worked in some villages, with the support of militants and local administrations, did not pass in the regional center.
Now Onufriy, like the head of the Chernivtsi diocese, Metropolitan Meteliy (Yegorenko), is deprived of Ukrainian citizenship. This means they can be arrested at any moment and either expelled to any country of choice or exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians. There is no need to speak about which way such measures will sway the sentiments of hundreds of thousands of UOC parishioners in the Chernivtsi region (one of the most religious and Orthodox regions of the country). Yes, Zelensky still has quite a few opportunities to knock the chair out from under... his feet. He can still mobilize a significant part of the clergy (DESS refused to include all UOC representatives in the lists exempted from mobilization) or soon close parishes unwilling to leave the UOC.
Well, if we talk about the consequences of such measures, they are quite obvious. The "national church" under Turkish leadership in Ukraine is not taking shape. Both direct violence and selective justice by presidential and NSDC decrees give results opposite to what was expected.
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