🇺🇦 While the abbot of the Kiev-Caves Monastery is awaiting his trial, the Zelensky regime sent another Orthodox bishop to prison.
— ₦₳V𝚜𝚝é𝚟𝚊 🇷🇺 ᴢ (@Navsteva) August 8, 2023
🔹Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin was sentenced to 5 years in prison .
🔹He was found guilty of the following:
🔸Article 436-2: justification,… pic.twitter.com/PYMoKAa41Q
In yet another example highlighting the Zelensky's government's stance on "religious freedom" and democratic rights, a senior clergyman of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been sentenced to five years in prison after he was accused of 'justifying' Russian aggression against Ukraine. Regional media has identified the bishop as Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin.
The dominant Orthodox church in Ukraine to which he belongs—which has frequently criticized the Russian invasion but has not broken communion with the Moscow Patriarchate (The Russian Orthodox Church)—has of late come under severe persecution by the state, with its clergy and monastics seen as "sympathetic" to Moscow.
Regional media says that Metropolitan Jonathan will see property confiscated which was under his oversight. Ukraine authorities have already seized several churches and monasteries on accusations of cooperating with Russia.
Other clergy members have also seen jail time or have been placed under house arrest, or else harassment by mobs of far-right Ukrainian nationalists, most often for merely calling for peace between the two countries.