Over 20 priests with Moscow-run church in Ukraine hold Russian passports - journalists

Over 20 priests with Moscow-run church in Ukraine hold Russian passports - journalists

Ukrinform
Metropolitan Onufriy (Orest Berezovskyi) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and more than 20 clergymen of the same church turned out to be Russian nationals.

That’s according to an investigation by Ukrainian Pravda journalist Mykhailo Tkach, Ukrinform reports.

"According to an extract from the Rospassport system, Onufriy obtained a Russian passport in Moscow on March 20, 2002. A year later, on June 23, 2003, he also received a Russian passport for foreign travel. And it wasn’t his first one. The cleric had received his previous one in Moscow back in 1998. This means Onufriy had obtained Russian citizenship much earlier than in 2002," the report reads.

Read also: Religious fake: Russians fabricate ‘arson attack’ on UOC MP church

In Kharkiv region, the Security Service of Ukraine gathered evidence regarding the former vicar of one of the temples of the UOC MP’s Izium Diocese who is believed to have been supporting Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, said the UOC MP was massively infiltrated by Russian spies, some of which have already been exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners of war captured by the invasion forces.

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