Novynskyi Alleges Government Plot to Seize Control of Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Protodeacon Vadym Novynskyi and Metropolitan Onuphry. Photo: Novinsky's Facebook

KYIV — Protodeacon Vadym Novynskyi has accused President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration of orchestrating a plan to dismantle the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by revoking the citizenship of its primate, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.

In a statement on his website, Novynskyi called the move a reaction to the failed seizure of the UOC cathedral in Chernivtsi by state-backed forces and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). He claimed the government aims to decapitate the Church’s leadership, install a loyal acting primate, and orchestrate the election of a new head under SBU supervision.

Calling the Security Service of Ukraine a “pocket tool of Zelensky’s clique,” Novynskyi warned that the state has launched mass mobilizations of clergy and stepped up direct persecution. He urged bishops and laity to remain united and resist state pressure, denouncing the effort as an attempt to fulfill what he called the “dream of the Zelensky-Yermak- Bartholomew triumvirate” to absorb the UOC into a state-controlled religious body.

Novynskyi asserted that the Church would prevail and that “all persecutors will receive their just reward from God.”

"I appeal to those bishops whom the authorities are pushing toward betrayal and infidelity to the Church: come to your senses, and do not become another Judas," he stated.

Previously, UOJ reported that U.S. Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna had publicly condemned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his government's ongoing persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).

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