Ukrayinska Pravda
CV NEWS FEED // Metropolitan Ionafan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) Upz, who was arrested in Ukraine in 2023 for having expressed support of Russia, was recently freed and sent to Moscow.
His release comes around the same time that two Ukrainian priests were released from Russian captivity in a prisoner exchange. As CatholicVote previously reported, the two Ukrainian priests freed from Russian captivity on June 28 showed concerning signs that they were tortured regularly for months before their release.
Metropolitan Ionafan, 75, who had been the leader of his eparchy, or diocese, in Ukraine since 2006, was sentenced on August 8, 2023, to five years in prison, according to a July 1 Asia News report.
He was accused of having distributed pro-Russian pamphlets to his congregation in Ukraine, Asia News reported. He was also accused of repeatedly preaching about the Upz Church’s dependence on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of the Moscow Patriarchate (MP).
According to Radio Free Europe (RFE), the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) separated from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of the Moscow Patriarchate in 2019. Metropolitan Ionafan reportedly posted statements on his eparchy’s website about “the primacy of the UOC-MP over the OCU,” according to RFE.
After reportedly suffering a stroke in prison in March 2024, Metropolitan Ionafan appealed his sentence and was placed under house arrest. According to Asia News, Metropolitan Ionfan’s lawyer argued that staying in prison ‘would have been a de facto death sentence.’”
An appeals court ruled on June 18 upholding the original sentence. However, his release in exchange for Ukrainian priests has since been negotiated by Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, according to RFE.
According to the UOC-MP, Metropolitan Ionafan has been stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship and would soon be in Moscow, RFE reported.
Asia News described Metropolitan Ionafan as “an outstanding personality within Ukrainian Orthodoxy.” As a liturgical text translator and composer of liturgical music, he was also considered a leading expert in Orthodox chant. He went to Leningrad’s seminary in 1970, when the Soviet Union’s KGB was in power.
In 1986, three years before Metropolitan Ionafan became a bishop, according to Asia News, the KGB questioned him about a multi-volume book set about life in a Soviet Union prison camp, written by Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solženitsyn. The book had spread through the seminary. After the questioning, Metropolitan Ionafan was expelled from Leningrad, but he later was able to continue ministry in Kiev. Patriarch Kirill ordained him a bishop in 1989.
