June 14, 2025, 2:04 p.m.
(Photo collage: Intent)
Archpriest Oleksandr Moskovchuk, a cleric of the Odesa Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), was detained by employees of the territorial center for recruitment and social support in Dobroslav.
This was reported by the press service of the diocese.
The diocese said that despite his age and poor health, as well as the canonical impossibility of taking up arms and the inability to mobilize under the law, the rector of the Holy Trinity Church in the village of Troianove was allegedly forced to sign a contract for military service, threatened and subjected to psychological pressure, transported to various departments of the TSC and military units of Odesa region and Ukraine.
"At present, Father Oleksandr has been in the barracks of the CCC for four days, unreasonably deprived of the opportunity to see his family and fulfill his pastoral duties. The priest is being provided with qualified legal assistance," the diocese emphasized.
This is not the first time that priests have been detained by the CCC. In November 2024, in Odesa, the CCC officers detained Vitaliy Zharykov, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), a priest of a convent. But then he was released.
In August of the same year, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law banning the activities of religious organizations associated with Russia in Ukraine.
On August 20, 2024, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the relevant law. The day before, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO) supported the parliamentary initiative to ban the activities of religious organizations affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church.
On October 19, 2023, the Verkhovna Rada supported Bill 8371 on the ban on religious organizations affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church in the first reading.
Meanwhile, as of the end of December of the same year, Odesa region, according to analysts of the Opendatabot platform, ranked seventh in Ukraine and first among the southern regions of the country in terms of the number of operating churches of the branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, better known as the "Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). At that time, there were 415 churches of the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate in Odesa region, compared to 291 in Kherson region and 193 in Mykolaiv region.
Кирило Бойко