Metropolitan Onuphry Could Face Deportation

KYIV — Ukrainian political analyst Kostiantyn Bondarenko has warned that Metropolitan Onuphry being deported from Ukraine after being stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship.

“Taking advantage of the current situation, using this decree, they might deport Metropolitan Onuphry from Ukraine. Where to? Well, that’s another question—where? You understand, our officials don’t care about the law,” Bondarenko said in the interview with journalist Alexander Shelest.

When Shelest asked whether the authorities might arrest Metropolitan Onuphry in order to send him for a prisoner exchange, Bondarenko replied that he could not rule out such a possibility.

“I don’t exclude such actions. The authorities might do anything, precisely so that ‘everyone will be afraid, so they won’t mock’,” said Bondarenko, quoting a line from the song of the little wolf in the Ukrainian cartoon Kapitoshka.

According to Bondarenko, the authorities will try to use this precedent to pressure the hierarchy, clergy, and laity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. However, he also believes that if Metropolitan Onuphry were to appeal such a decisicion to the European Court of Human Rights, he would have “ironclad” grounds.

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