Ukrainian conscription officers detain Orthodox bishop amid church crackdown

Metropolitan Sergius was unlawfully detained without the required procedures, the church’s lawyer has said Ukrainian draft officers detained Metropolitan Sergius of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) on Sunday, a lawyer for the church said, in the latest escalation of Kiev’s long-running crackdown on the country’s largest denomination.

Ukraine’s conscription drive has grown increasingly violent and corrupt as it attempts to make up for battlefield losses and with the supply of willing recruits long since exhausted.

Regional mobilization officials have been detained on charges of taking bribes for deferments, and the threat of being pressed into military service has reportedly been used to pressure journalists to not publish damning reports.

Sergius heads the UOC’s Tulchin diocese in Vinnitsa Region.

Draft officers detained him, along with Archpriest Anatoly Vishnev, in southeastern Kiev, according to a Telegram statement by Archpriest Nikita Chekman, a lawyer who represents the UOC.

Read more Ukraine using mobilization threat to pressure journalists – media Both were taken for medical evaluations at the local Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support (TCK), the body tasked with overseeing Ukraine’s conscription drive, according to the lawyer.

Sergius was released later in the day, but his passport was seized, Chekman said in an update.

Both the detention and the seizure were carried out “without proper procedural formalities,” with no paperwork or legal basis provided for either action, he said, adding that the UOC considers the TCK’s actions unlawful.

Conscription officers were still attempting to process Archpriest Vishnev as of Sunday evening, Chekman added.

Our team will take all measures provided by law to challenge the unlawful detention, confiscation of the passport, and illegal mobilization of the clergyman.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Ukrainian authorities have imposed sanctions on UOC clergy, raided its monasteries and churches, and backed efforts to transfer its properties to the Kiev-affiliated Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).

The schismatic organization was launched in 2019 under then-President Pyotr Poroshenko.

Read more State-backed raiders seize Odessa church from Ukraine’s largest denomination (PHOTOS) Forced conscription has reportedly been used to pressure UOC priests.