Metropolitan Ionafan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), who was sentenced to five years in prison in August for his support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has reportedly been released and will be sent to Moscow following the intervention of Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill.
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The development regarding Ionafan of the UOC, formerly known as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), was announced on June 22 by the Russian Orthodox Church.
The separate Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) gained its ecclesiastical independence from the UOC-MP and the Russian Orthodox Church in 2019. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, authorities in Kyiv have accused some UOC-MP clerics of supporting Moscow in the war.
Metropolitan Ionafan, or Anatoliy Yeletskykh, was accused last year of distributing pro-Russian leaflets to his congregation, posting statements on his diocese’s website declaring the primacy of the UOC-MP over the OCU, and of supporting the Russian invasion.
Ionafan was sentenced on August 8 to five years in prison after a court in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsya found him guilty on four counts, including calling for the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, taking actions against Ukraine’s constitutional order, and the premeditated violation of citizens’ rights.
Ionafan was the first working UOC diocese head to be sentenced to a prison term in Ukraine in relation to the war. A former metropolitan, Iosaf, was previously sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for distributing pro-Russian propaganda.
Ionafan had been under house arrest following his appeal of his sentence and reportedly suffered a stroke during his incarceration. On June 18, an appeals court upheld his original sentence.
The UOC-MP said that Ionafan had lost his Ukrainian citizenship and would “soon arrive in Moscow,” without providing further details of his release.