Source: www.forum18.org
Date: December 20, 2023
https://www.forum18.org/archiv
By Felix Corley, Forum 18
More than a year after Russia's National Guard in November 2022 seized two
Greek Catholic priests, Fr Ivan Levytsky and Fr Bohdan Heleta, in the
Ukrainian city of Berdyansk in Zaporizhzhia Region, the occupying forces
have given no information on whether they are still alive and, if so, where
and why they are being held. Similarly, the occupiers have given no
information on the fate of Fr Kostiantyn Maksimov, a priest of the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Tokmak, seized as he tried to cross into
Crimea in May 2023.
"We have had no information about Fr Ivan or Fr Bohdan," a representative
of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Donetsk Exarchate told Forum 18 on 18
December (see below).
"Currently, the reliable whereabouts of Maksimov are not known," the Center
for Civil Liberties in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, which has been following
Fr Kostiantyn's case, told Forum 18 (see below).
An official of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Regional Prosecutor's
Office refused to discuss whether any criminal case has been lodged against
the two Greek Catholic priests or any other aspect of their situation.
Forum 18 was unable to ask about Fr Kostiantyn as the official had put the
phone down (see below).
An official of the Special Department of Investigation Prison No. 1 in
Simferopol in Russian-occupied Crimea refused to say if any of these
priests are being held in the prison. "I don't have the right to give any
information by telephone," she repeatedly told Forum 18. Telephones at
Simferopol's Investigation Prison No. 2 went unanswered (see below).
Similarly, an official of the Special Department of the Investigation
Prison in Russian-occupied Donetsk refused to say if any of the priests are
being held there (see below).
The Greek Catholic Church was one of four religious communities the
Russian-installed governor of the part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Region
under Russian occupation banned in December 2022. The others were Grace
Protestant Church, Melitopol Christian Church, and Word of Life Protestant
Church. Yevgeny Balitsky accused these Churches of links with foreign
"special services" and ordered all their property seized (see below).
Forum 18 was unable to find out why Balitsky signed such sweeping decrees
banning the four Churches. Yevgeniya Zaitseva, spokesperson for the Russian
occupation Zaporizhzhia Region Administration, did not respond to Forum
18's question. Artyom Sharlay, the head of the Russian occupiers' Religious
Organisations Department at Zaporizhzhia Regional Administration's Social
and Political Communications and Information Policy Department, did not
answer his phone (see below).
The Russian occupation authorities in parts of Zaporizhzhia Region they
control had already seized all the places of worship of these communities,
as well as places of worship of other communities (see below).
Illegal imposition of Russian law
Russia's February 2022 renewed invasion of Ukraine saw more Ukrainian
territories brought under Russian occupation. As of mid-December 2023,
Russia controls about 70 per cent of Zaporizhzhia Region. Freedom of
religion and belief is with other human rights severely restricted within
all Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights notes
that under international humanitarian law, Russia as the occupying power
must respect the laws of Ukraine in the territory it occupies.
"However, following the illegal so-called referendums organized in occupied
areas of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts [regions] in
September 2022, the Russian Federation unlawfully annexed these regions,
and imposed Russian political, legal and administrative systems," it notes
in its report on human rights in Ukraine from 1 August to 30 November 2023,
issued on 12 December (A/HRC/55/CRP.2
(https://www.ohchr.org/sites/d
Russia has registered 24 religious communities under Russian law in the
parts of Zaporizhzhia Region it controls, according to Russian tax records.
Of these, 18 are the Russian Orthodox diocese of Berdyansk and its parishes
(which are subject directly to the Patriarch of Moscow). The others are 5
Baptist and 1 Pentecostal Church.
Russians "disappeared" Greek Catholic priests 13 months ago
On 16 November 2022, troops of Russia's National Guard seized two Ukrainian
Greek Catholic priests
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
Fr Bohdan Heleta, in the coastal town of Berdyansk in Zaporizhzhia Region.
They accuse them of storing weapons and explosives in the church,
accusations the Greek Catholic Donetsk Exarchate denied. The Russian
occupation authorities then forcibly closed the local Greek Catholic
parishes.
When in May 2023 Forum 18 asked the Russian Berdyansk Police where the
priests are, they replied
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
Ask [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky's special services – they're
responsible." The occupation police officer refused to give any evidence
for this claim and put the phone down.
Artyom Sharlay, the head of the Russian occupiers' Religious Organisations
Department at Zaporizhzhia Regional Administration's Social and Political
Communications and Information Policy Department, insisted to Forum 18 in
October 2023 (https://www.forum18.org/archi
producing evidence) that Fr Levytsky and Fr Heleta stored weapons in their
church.
"We have had no information about Fr Ivan or Fr Bohdan," a representative
of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Donetsk Exarchate told Forum 18 on 18
December.
An official of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Regional Prosecutor's
Office refused to discuss with Forum 18 on 19 December whether any criminal
case has been lodged against Fr Ivan and Fr Bohdan or any other aspect of
their situation.
An official of the Special Department of Investigation Prison No. 1 in
Simferopol in Russian-occupied Crimea refused to say if Fr Ivan and Fr
Bohdan are being held in the prison. "I don't have the right to give any
information by telephone," she repeatedly told Forum 18 on 19 December.
Telephones at Simferopol's Investigation Prison No. 2 went unanswered on 19
and 20 December.
Similarly, an official of the Special Department of the Investigation
Prison in Russian-occupied Donetsk refused to say if Fr Ivan and Fr Bohdan
are being held there. "We don't give information by phone," she kept
repeating on 20 December, before putting the phone down.
Russians "disappeared" Orthodox priest 7 months ago
Since 2021, Fr Kostiantyn Maksimov, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church, has been serving in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary in the city of Tokmak in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Region. Russian
occupation forces detained Fr Kostiantyn in the southern town of Chongar
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
cross the administrative boundary with the occupied Ukrainian territory of
Crimea on 16 May 2023.
Artyom Sharlay, the head of the Russian occupiers' Religious Organisations
Department at Zaporizhzhia Regional Administration's Social and Political
Communications and Information Policy Department, would not say where Fr
Kostiantyn is. "I have not heard that he's left [the Russian-occupied
territories]," Sharlay told Forum 18 from Melitopol in October
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
[as a priest]," he added.
Sharlay claimed that Fr Kostiantyn had not wanted the Berdyansk Diocese of
the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to move to be an integral part of the Russian
Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox Church took over the Diocese in May,
just days before Fr Kostiantyn was seized, following a request from some
clergy. The Russian Orthodox Church replaced Metropolitan Yefrem (Yarinko),
who had fled to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
"According to our data, Maksimov was in a camp in Chongar, and then he was
probably transferred to a pre-trial detention centre," the Center for Civil
Liberties in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, which has been following Fr
Kostiantyn's case, told Forum 18 on 20 December. "Currently, the reliable
whereabouts of Maksimov are not known."
"I know Fr Kostiantyn," another local Ukrainian Orthodox Church priest, Fr
Vladimir Saviisky, told Forum 18 on 18 December. "There has been no news of
him at all."
Earlier in 2023, Russian officials pressured Fr Vladimir, then serving at
St Nicholas Church in Primorsk, to accept the transfer of the Berdyansk
Diocese from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the Russian Orthodox Church.
He refused and left Russian-occupied territory in June 2023
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
An official of the Special Department of Investigation Prison No. 1 in
Simferopol in Russian-occupied Crimea refused to say if Fr Kostiantyn is
being held in the prison. "I don't have the right to give any information
by telephone," she repeatedly told Forum 18 on 19 December. Telephones at
Simferopol's Investigation Prison No. 2 went unanswered on 19 and 20
December.
Similarly, an official of the Special Department of the Investigation
Prison in Russian-occupied Donetsk refused to say if Fr Kostiantyn is being
held there. "We don't give information by phone," she kept repeating on 20
December, before putting the phone down.
Forum 18 was unable to ask the official of the Russian-controlled
Zaporizhzhia Regional Prosecutor's Office on 19 December about Fr
Kostiantyn, as the official had already put the phone down.
Crushing the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
The Russian occupation authorities in Zaporizhzhia forcibly closed
Ukrainian Greek Catholic parishes not only in Berdyansk (see above).
Fr Peter Krenický, a Greek Catholic priest originally from Slovakia, led
the Assumption of St Anna parish in Melitopol in southern Zaporizhzhia
Region from 2010 until the Russian occupation forces expelled him
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
Ukraine in November 2022. He chose to remain with his parish after Russian
forces seized the city in late February 2022.
Fr Peter served the morning liturgy at Melitopol's Nativity of the Virgin
Mary Church on 25 November 2022, where he noticed two members of the
Russian FSB security service in civilian clothes. "They tried to pretend
they were believers, one crossed himself with his right hand, the other
with his left, they stood up awkwardly, they knelt," Fr Peter told the
Greek Catholic Zhyve TV for an 8 December 2022 programme.
After breakfast with men undertaking building work in the parish, he went
into the yard of the parish house. "That's when a car arrived, about six
men got out of it, I don't remember exactly, they closed the gate and
immediately started beating me," Fr Peter recalled. The men were apparently
from Russia's National Guard (Rosgvardiya). "They pushed me against the
wall and beat me, then they beat me in the knees, thank God, I can walk,
but they beat me, I don't remember everything anymore." An FSB official
told the men to stop beating Fr Peter.
The assailants seized one of the workers and banged his head against the
wall until it bled.
The assailants searched the parish house and then beat Fr Peter again. They
then ordered him to pack a bag, banning him from putting on his cassock or
taking any religious item except a Bible, his breviary and a rosary. He
said he believed they were taking him to prison.
The assailants – who Fr Peter says were from the FSB – then put a bag
over his head and drove him to a place close to the frontline. Officials
checked his passport and handed him to another official, who took his phone
and money and then read a statement on camera that the Russian Federation
was "deporting" him "because my activity does not support Moscow's policy
and I belong to a church that opposes this policy".
After threatening to shoot Fr Peter, the officer ordered him to walk across
the frontline to the Ukrainian checkpoint.
Fr Peter said he had tried to prepare his parish for the time when he might
not be there. "I told the people that when I'm not here, when I have to
leave, continue meeting for prayer, reading the word of God, singing
antiphons, troparies and kondaks, and singing the reading. I asked a man
from the parish to preach the gospel."
Masked soldiers with automatic weapons seized Fr Peter's colleague, Fr
Oleksandr Bogomaz, on the morning of 2 December 2022. "The interrogation
went on for an hour," he said in an 8 December 2022 interview
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
Catholic television channel Zhyve. "They loaded me into a car, took me to
Vasylivka, and then I walked to our territory."
Crushing Melitopol's Grace Church, Melitopol Christian Church, Word of Life
Church
In 2022, the Russian occupation authorities also forcibly closed and seized
Protestant churches in Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia Region, including Grace
Protestant Church (led by Pastor Mikhail Britsin), Melitopol Christian
Church (led by Pastor Viktor Sergeyev) and Word of Life Church (led by
Pastor Dmytro Bodyu). Pastor Britsin puts the number of closed Protestant
Churches in Melitopol at 13, with 2 Greek Catholic Churches also closed.
"We were interrogated many times by the FSB [Russian security service], who
tried to force us to become collaborators," Pastor Britsin told Forum 18
from government-controlled Ukraine on 20 December 2023. "They did not like
the fact that our Church openly supports the Ukrainian position, sings and
prays in Ukrainian. It was obvious that we do not accept their rules and do
not support the occupation. We also provided humanitarian aid to the needy.
But this broke the picture for Russian propaganda, which tried to show
'liberation' as a benefit for the people."
Pastor Britsin said Russian officials threatened to arrest him and other
ministers and take them to Donetsk, which has been under Russian occupation
since 2014.
Armed and masked officials in Russian military uniforms seized Grace Church
during Sunday worship (https://www.forum18.org/archi
on 11 September 2022.
After the seizure of the church, Russian officials (apparently from the
FSB) detained Pastor Britsin, searched his home and took his documents.
They gave him two days to leave Russian-occupied territory. "This is a kind
of 'soft deportation', as opposed to a 'hard deportation', when you are
arrested and without documents and a phone are taken away by force." He
left for government-controlled Ukraine in September 2022.
The Russian occupation Culture Ministry took over Grace Church building.
They removed the cross from the top of the building, repainted the facade
brown, and hung four portraits of soldiers high up on the building's facade
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
which contained thousands of books, was burned in the church yard.
Pastor Britsin said Pastor Sergeyev of Melitopol Christian Church left
Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Region in early 2022. "After he left, the
Russians made this revealing video claiming to have found weapons in his
church and home," he told Forum 18. Also forced to leave Melitopol was Word
of Life Church pastor Dmytro Bodyu, who spent five days under arrest.
Seizures of churches have continued. On 23 October 2023, Russian occupation
forces seized the Central Baptist Church in Melitopol
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
the Baptist Union.
Artyom Sharlay of the Russian occupiers' Zaporizhzia Religious
Organisations Department insisted to Forum 18 in October 2023
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
"law-abiding" religious communities are allowed to exist in the parts of
the Ukrainian region the occupiers control. He did not answer his phone
between 18 and 20 December.
Russia's governor banned four religious communities
On 26 December 2022, the Russian-installed governor of the part of
Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Region under Russian occupation, Yevgeny Balitsky,
banned four religious communities. In four separate decrees, he banned
Grace Protestant Church, Melitopol Christian Church, Word of Life
Protestant Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. As of 20
December 2023, nearly one year after Balitsky signed the decrees, they
remain on the website of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Region
administration.
Russian occupation officials had already forcibly halted the activity of
these communities (see above).
Balitsky's four decrees claim that the four Churches "carry out their
activity with violations of the legislation on religious and public
organisations of the Russian Federation". All four are accused of links
with foreign "special services", including with those of the United States
(Word of Life). Balitsky accuses members of Grace Church, Word of Life
Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church of participating in "mass
disorder and anti-Russian meetings in March and April 2022".
Balitsky specifically accuses Grace Church's pastor Mikhail Britsin of
"agitation against the Russian Federation and against the establishment of
peaceful life on the territory of Zaporizhzhia Region". He accuses Pastor
Viktor Sergeyev of Melitopol Christian Church of storing weapons and radio
communication equipment in his home and in the church building.
Balitsky accuses the Greek Catholic Church of storing weapons and
explosives in its church, "distributing literature calling for the
destruction of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation", and
"active participation" in "the activity of extremist organisations and
propaganda of neo-Nazi ideas".
Balitsky orders a ban on all four religious communities, the annulment of
any property rental agreements, and the seizure of all their movable and
immovable property, which is to be handed to the Zaporizhzhia Region
Military/Civilian Administration. He also ordered a ban on any registration
of these communities under Russian law and banned their leaders from
registering any other religious or public organisations under Russian law
in Zaporizhzhia Region.
Balitsky orders the seizure of Pastor Sergeyev's personal and family
property. He also orders the Russian-controlled police to consider bringing
a criminal prosecution against him for allegedly storing weapons.
Balitsky extends the ban on Grace Church to include its Azov Lighthouse
recreational centre. He extends the ban on the Greek Catholic Church to
include the activity of various branches of the Caritas aid agency, as well
as the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal order which he alleged "is
connected with the special services of the USA and the Vatican".
Pastor Britsin of Grace Church says he was not informed of the Decree
banning his Church. "But how can that change anything?" he told Forum 18.
"They have already banned us from holding religious services and taken our
property."
Forum 18 was unable to find out why Balitsky signed such sweeping decrees
banning the four Churches. Yevgeniya Zaitseva, spokesperson for the Russian
occupation Zaporizhzhia Region Administration, did not respond to Forum
18's question on 20 December. Artyom Sharlay, the head of the Russian
occupiers' Religious Organisations Department at Zaporizhzhia Regional
Administration's Social and Political Communications and Information Policy
Department, did not answer his phone between 18 and 20 December. (END)
More reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Occupied
Ukraine (https://www.forum18.org/archi
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