by Miceál O’Hurley
KYIV – The decision of President Vladimir Zelenskii to terminate the Ukrainian citizenship of Metropolitan Onufry of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) came as a surprise to nobody following religious affairs in Ukraine. After the 2023 publication by Ukrainska Pravda confirming that Metropolitan Onufriy and at least 20 of his clergy held Russian passports the issue was bound to become a political-legal charged issue. Until recently, Ukraine excluded the possibility of dual citizenship. Metropolitan Onufry’s leadership of the Moscow-friendly church has made him a target of intense criticism by many of his fellow Ukrainians.
Ukrainian officials caught-up in Russian passport scandals is nothing new. Roman Ihnatov, head of the High Qualification Commission, was cited as having enjoyed Russian citizenship while he was an investigator for the prosecutor’s office in Russia’s Petrozavodsk in 1995-1996. Bohdan Lvov, a Justice of Ukraine’s Supreme Court was dismissed from office for holding a Russian passport before being reinstated on appeal. President Zelenskii previously deprived four Members of the Rada (Ukraine’s Parliament), Andriy Derkach, Taras Kozak, Rinat Kuzmin and Viktor Medvedchuk from continuing to enjoy Ukrainian citizenship due to their dual citizenship with Russia.
In response to the exposé by Ukrainska Pravda, Metropolitan Onufriy openly admitted he held Russian citizenship. In August 2023, Metropolitan Onufriy claimed, “I have Russian citizenship, I would like to immediately state that I do not consider myself a citizen of Russia.” According to Metropolitan Onufriy, he obtained Russian citizenship during the Soviet era when he was resident at a monastery and studied in Moscow. It was not uncommon for citizens of the individual republics of the Soviet Union to also obtain and use Russian citizenship at the time. Russia makes no provision for the forfeiture or renouncement of Russian citizenship thereby rendering anyone who at any point obtained or otherwise qualified for Russian citizenship a target for exclusion.
Given Russia’s 2014 invasion and attempted annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea Ukraine’s citizenship law allowing for dual citizenship, while excluding Russian citizenship, seems sensible and prudent. Indeed, it brings Ukraine in-line with a majority of countries who recognise dual-citizenship excluding threats to national security. Ukraine’s system of justice provides for judicial review where rights can be defended through the judicial process assuring individual rights are not compromised. The reinstatement of Justice Lvov to the Supreme Court is proof of Ukraine’s commitment to individual liberties and human rights within the context of their Constitutional obligations and other general and European human rights laws.
Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, which investigated Metropolitan Onufriy, claimed as part of their reasoning to find the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) the bishop was deserving of losing his citizenship was that he, “consciously opposed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church gaining canonical independence from the Moscow Patriarchate, representatives of which openly support Russian aggression against Ukraine.” This is disturbing.
If Ukraine has proof that Metropolitan Onufriy applied for and received Russian citizenship in contravention of Ukrainian law after 1991 then he is liable for the consequences of his actions. No citizen should be above the law. If he has a defense, such as having obtained it during the Soviet era but having either taken steps to attempt to renounce it or otherwise not renewing his Russian passport or otherwise exercising Russian citizenship after 1991 he should be allowed to appeal the revocation of his Ukrainian citizenship as a matter of law. Much to Ukraine’s credit Metropolitan Onufry appears to have this relief mechanism available to him.
The issue of his opposition to the formation of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, however, is a matter of religious conscience. It should not be used by the SBU or any other authority as a cause to deprive him of any right, especially a right so fundamental as citizenship. The Ukrainian State should not be parsing people’s individual religious consciences. The resort to a Presidential Decree for the revocation elevates it to a political act when in truth violations of citizenship laws are usually an issue for disposal by a lower court. For a country fighting to preserve its democratic values it appears to be autocratic overreach the type usually expected from Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump who exercise executive authority in lieu of applying the rule of law.
Article 10 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights protects freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. This right includes the freedom to choose a religion or belief, and to manifest it either alone or with others, in public or in private, through worship, teaching, practice, and observance. The Charter also prohibits discrimination based on religion or belief. The SBU’s citation of Metropolitan Onufry’s opposition to the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is a violation of these fundamental rights of thought, conscience and religion.
To be clear, Metropolitan Onufry’s opposition to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine’s autocephalous status thereby being freed of the shackles of the Moscow Patriarchate is a personal exercise in bewilderment and hypocrisy. In 1992, then Bishop Onufriy petitioned the Ecumenical Patriarch for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to be given autocephaly. Is it possible his desire to be a Patriarch of Ukraine has since clouded his judgment? Is his religious affinity to the Moscow Patriarchate so great that he has become an apologist for the Patriarch Kirill’s declaration of a ‘Holy War’ on Ukraine? After all, Metropolitan Onufriy is on record saying in 2022, “war is a grave sin before God”. Is this pretentious pietism, or, is it something else?
Metropolitan Onufriy has rendered himself a pitiable figure. Once renowned for great personal piety he seems to be incapable of applying the precepts of the Orthodox Faith or the principles of the Church to his decision-making. In 2018, he remained aloof from 2018 Reconciliation Council at the direction of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. The Council resulted in the merger of three Orthodox Churches into the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. His self-imposed absence represents a political, spiritual and religious mistake.
While presenting himself as a Ukrainian patriot he took his instructions from the very man who blessed Russia’s 2014 invasion and attempted annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea. When the Ecumenical Patriarch, His All Holiness Bartholomew I sought to correct an historic wrong by restoring autocephaly to Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians, his sage guidance was to allow the Ukrainians to select their own church leadership. Metropolitan Onufriy seemed incapable of grasping that it was the very opportunity he begged for in 1992 and absented himself from election to lead the unified Orthodox Church. Once believed the heir apparent to the See of Kyiv, Metropolitan Onufry instead remained adherent to the Moscow Patriarchate and his ‘Holy War’ doctrine.
Although he decried Russia’s war on his homeland, he has maintained ties to Moscow and Patriarch Kirill. Surely, history will record Metropolitan Onufry as a genuinely holy but completely inept man too indecisive to oppose his Moscow master who declared a ‘Holy War’ on Ukraine. He is, in the final analysis, the author of his own misfortunes.
Still, there remains a difficulty. Metropolitan Onufry’s decisions were based on his inalienable right to enjoy the freedoms of his individual religious. It is not for the State to begin parsing people’s religious beliefs arising from interior thoughts, supported by conscience and grounded in the freedoms of speech. However wrong or hypocritical Metropolitan Onufriy may be (he is both wrong and hypocritical), he has a right to be wrong on issues of religious belief and conscience as a matter of principle and law.
So great is the European and Western value of religious freedom that it is enshrined as a fundamental right in the European Charter. The Ukrainian State, who aspires to join the EU, should be far more mindful of the implications of ignoring the European Charter of Fundamental Rights to base its citizenship decision on Metropolitan Onufry’s religious beliefs. It was enough that he held the passport of an invader and continued to correspond and maintain relations with Patriarch Kirill who pledged to declare Russians dying in Ukraine martyrs to the faith (they aren’t).
In light of questions by the United Nations, Holy See, the World Council of Churches and others that the law banning religions linked to foreign entities, specifically targeting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), may tend to violate free speech, freedom of association rights, religious freedom and other human rights laws, the SBU’s reasoning about Metropolitan Onufry’s opposition to the Canonical formation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and its autocephaly only invites more criticism. It is unworthy of the great Ukrainian State that daily fights to preserve democracy as has no other European nation since World War II.
While depriving Metropolitan Onufriy of his citizenship may have been prudent, only the judiciary can decide if it is legal. Meanwhile, the court of world opinion is questioning if it was at all wise.
