Clergy “busification,” or the routine genocide of Orthodox priests
The video of masked men grabbing a priest by his arms and legs and throwing him into a van shocked many people. It was the first time we had seen a clergyman treated this way with our own eyes.
Hundreds of pastors have already been mobilized, yet few have stopped to consider that their “mobilization” often looks exactly like this. Other mobilized men have written about it on social media as well – about priests bearing signs of beatings whom they encountered at recruitment centers. But until you see it for yourself, it is difficult to believe that clergy can be treated with such brutality.
Viktor Yelensky, head of DESS, recently acknowledged that the authorities are well aware that Church canons forbid a priest from taking up arms. His agency grants mobilization exemptions to virtually everyone – Catholics, Jews, Muslims, even pagans.
But not to UOC clergy.
Why? Because the Ukrainian Orthodox Church refuses to comply with the law forcing it to rename itself the “Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine” and will not call itself the Russian Church.
In other words, once a UOC priest has been “busified,” he is left with two choices: take up arms and lose his priesthood – or refuse, and in all likelihood lose his life.
At the same time, the authorities say quite openly that everything can change in an instant. All a priest has to do is join the OCU – and suddenly everything will be fine. He will receive an exemption, public respect, and the favor of the state.
What can this be called, if not religious discrimination?
Nothing else.
It is discrimination in its purest and most blatant form.
Yet Yelensky and the court clergy of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations regularly assure Ukraine’s Western partners that the country enjoys an unprecedented degree of religious freedom.
It appears that the authorities are carrying out the busification of the clergy in the UOC – and the busification of conscience within the Council of Churches.
Meanwhile, more and more priests are being abducted by the manhunters.
And more and more parishes are being left orphaned.
"Religious liberty" in full swing.
