(OSV News): Russian forces have driven out all Greek and Roman Catholic clergy from the occupied areas of Ukraine, said Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, in a June 25 interview with media outlet, Ukrinform.
“Our Church was liquidated in the occupied territories, In fact, there is not a single Catholic priest in the occupied territories today—either Greek Catholic or Roman Catholic,” Major Archbishop Shevchuk said.
Russia has systematically suppressed a number of faith communities, including Catholic, Christian and Muslim. Churches and worship sites have been destroyed or seized, with clergy of various faiths imprisoned, tortured and in several cases killed.
Two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests, Redemptorist Father Ivan Levitsky and Father Bohdan Geleta, were released from a year and a half of Russian captivity on June 28, having been seized by Russian forces from their church in Berdyansk in November 2022 [Sunday Examiner, July 7].
Both priests had refused to leave their parishioners following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Shortly after they were captured, Major Archbishop Shevchuk said he had received “the sad news that our priests are being tortured without mercy.”
The archbishop noted in the Ukrinform interview that Russian officials in the occupied portion of the Zaporizhzhia region formally banned the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church by written decree, as well as the Knights of Columbus and Caritas Ukraine.
Some Ukrainian Greek Catholics remain in occupied areas of Ukraine despite Russia’s ban.
However, he noted that in regions of Ukraine under Russian control, “the Stalinist times are returning, the clergy are being repressed.”
In some places, such as Mariupol, Maryinka, Volnovakha, Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, “our churches are completely destroyed,” said the archbishop.
Other churches, as in Melitopol and Berdyansk, have been closed, he said, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic cathedral in Donetsk was “captured.”
He explained, “When our priests were expelled from there, believers continued to come there” for prayer. “And the [Russian] ‘authorities’ did not like it. And one fine day, our people came and saw that the locks had been changed, that is, people were simply thrown out of their [church].”
During its recent meeting in Bucharest, Romania, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing Russia’s 10-year aggression against Ukraine as genocide.
