Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has stripped Ukrainian citizenship from 13 Orthodox clergy and several opposition politicians alleged to have ties to Russia.
President Zelensky stripped the 13 priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of their citizenship late last month and this week stripped several prominent opposition politicians of their Ukrainian citizenship as well, among them Viktor Medvedchuk, who was given to Russian authorities as part of a prisoner exchange in September of last year.
“I have decided to terminate the citizenship of four persons,” Zelensky stated earlier this week, with former MPs Andriy Derkach, Taras Kozak, and Renat Kuzmin also having their citizenship revoked by the government.
Medvedchuk had fled his home in the early days of the conflict with Russia and was arrested in April, accused of treason and attempting to leak military secrets to the Russians.
Derkach, Kozak, and Kuzmin have also been alleged to have ties to Russia or have supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Derkach, in particular, was also accused of smearing U.S. President Joe Biden regarding Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine, which involved work for the energy company Burisma for as much as $83,000 a month.
'Enemies of Christ' – Moscow Denounces Zelensky Govt After Raids on Russia-Linked Churches https://t.co/8ieoXdANJj
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 4, 2022
The stripping of citizenship of the opposition politicians comes after Zelensky stripped 13 Ukrainian Orthodox Church clergy of their citizenship, including the Metropolitan Archbishop of Tulchin and Bratslav, Ionafan, announcing the move last Saturday.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova did not mince words following the move by Kyiv: “And this is on Orthodox Christmas! This is pure Satanism.”
The move by the Zelensky government comes after it set its sights on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), a branch of Orthodoxy which retained links to the Patriarch of Moscow after the rival state-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was formed, heavily restricting the church late last year.
Since then, Ukrainian intelligence authorities have raided several Orthodox churches, leading to former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to comment: “The current Ukrainian authorities have openly become enemies of Christ and the Orthodox faith.”
Ukraine has claimed that the raids uncovered various materials, including pro-Russia literature and Nazi symbols.
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the state-backed church, “reclaimed” the Dormition Cathedral and the Refectory Church of the nearly 1,000-year-old Pechersk Lavra last week after the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was forced to give it up by the government.
Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill released a statement following the handover of the historic cathedral asking believers to pray “for our brothers in Ukraine, who are being expelled today from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, that Lavra, which for centuries has been the guardian of true, undistorted Orthodoxy.”
Zelensky has used martial law to ban a number of Ukrainian opposition parties, including the largest party after his own. https://t.co/ZSJ82B6PfS
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 20, 2022
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.
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