An official with the Security Services of Ukraine said that about 200 priests from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in “every region” of the country were under heavy surveillance as potential collaborators.
The official, who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, spoke with NYT.
Now the church is increasingly an object of distrust, largely because its spiritual leadership — at least until May — was in Moscow, rather than Kyiv.
Government officials speak openly about suspicions that some priests are collaborating with Moscow and worry that the broader church could be a Trojan horse for pro-Russian views and more.
When it comes to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), “we are not talking about god, faith, or spiritual development,” said Serhiy Kondrachuk, the head of the Rivne regional council in central Ukraine. “We can only talk about the biggest danger to our national security.”
One case on the first day of the invasion, Feb. 24, led to the arrest of a priest in a field in a Kyiv suburb, where a Russian helicopter had been shot down. Police officials believed he was trying to help the downed pilots escape. Another priest from the Kyiv suburb of Borodianka was accused of acting as an informant to Russian soldiers who occupied the now-decimated town. In Rivne, the wife of a local priest was detained on suspicion of collaborating with the Russians.
Information on the cases is closely held by the courts and intelligence services, which have sought to turn some priests under suspicion into informants. No clergymen have been convicted publicly.
Mr. Kondrachuk, the local official in Rivne, displays the case of a Javelin anti-tank missile in his office and has been lobbying to get the Ukrainian Orthodox Church banned in his region. At scholastic and religious events, he said, congregants openly espoused pro-Russian views. He cited a prewar graduation celebration in which dozens of girls sang a song about “waiting for the glory of Holy Russia,” and a Sunday school festival in which children were encouraged to celebrate Imperial Russia’s Romanov dynasty.
“Since Ukraine became independent, Russia has tried to bring its influence and values — cultural, religious, and otherwise — here,” he said.
