Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev Deprived of Ukrainian Citizenship

The press service of the Security Service of Ukraine reported today that by decree of President Volodymyr Zelensky, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev (Orest Berezovsky), has been deprived of Ukrainian citizenship. The official statement says that the service has established that Metropolitan Onufry “voluntarily received Russian citizenship in 2002. He did not notify the competent authorities of Ukraine about this. At the same time, after receiving it, he continued to use the status of a citizen of Ukraine. According to the information available to the Security Service of Ukraine, Onufry Berezovsky maintains contact with the Moscow Patriarchate and deliberately hindered the obtaining of canonical independence of the Ukrainian Church by the Moscow Patriarchate, whose representatives openly support Russian aggression against Ukraine.”

Metropolitan Onufry did not comment on the news. In principle, over the past two years, he has not made any public statements, regardless of what is happening in the country, but is content only with Sunday sermons, in which he does not comment on current events. His close circle assures that this is his conscious choice, since he “prefers prayer to words”. Public statements are made on his behalf by the chairman of the Synodal Information Department of the UOC, Metropolitan Kliment. Today he commented that Metropolitan Onufry explained that he only has a passport of a citizen of Ukraine. Specifically, Metropolitan Kliment stated the following for BBC – Ukraine: “His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry explained that he only has a passport of a citizen of Ukraine. Apart from the Ukrainian one, he does not have any other passports, including the Russian Federation. He has already explained that he has never applied to state authorities of other countries to acquire another citizenship”. When asked about further actions in connection with the published news, Metropolitan Kliment replied that Metropolitan Onufry will appeal the decision: “All actions will be fully within the framework of Ukrainian legislation.” Back in 2023, the Ukrainian media reported that, according to an extract from the Rospasport system, Orest Berezovsky (Onufry) received a Russian internal passport on March 20, 2002 in Moscow, and already in 2003 he received an international passport also in the Russian capital. Data from the same document indicate that Metropolitan Onufry received an international Russian passport in 1998, which may indicate that the metropolitan had Russian citizenship even earlier. Then, the very next day, a statement was published on the official website of the UOC-MP, denying that Metropolitan Onufry had a Russian passport. It claimed that “Metropolitan Onufry is a citizen of Ukraine by birth and does not hold passports of other countries.” Later, the head of the UOC himself explained that he studied at the Moscow Theological Seminary and then spent nineteen years in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. After the collapse of the USSR, he retained his Russian citizenship and received a Ukrainian passport. In his words, Russian citizenship “automatically extended” and “no one persecuted him for this,” since good relations existed between the two countries at that time. “When these relations began to deteriorate, especially in the last ten years, I renounced Russian citizenship… I consider myself a citizen only of Ukraine,” assured Metropolitan Onufry, emphasizing that he does not have a Russian passport. In 2019, Bishop Gideon (Yuriy Charon), who was also a Russian citizen at the same time, was deprived of Ukrainian citizenship. In 2023 A total of thirteen clergymen were deprived of Ukrainian citizenship – mainly from the Donetsk, Crimean, Odessa, Bukovina and Ramenskoye dioceses, including Metropolitans Chernivtsi and Bukovina Meletii, Tulchyn and Bratslav Yonatan, Dnepropetrovsk and Pavlograd Irinej, Bishop Ladyzhynski Sergiy, and the acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship by Archbishop Panteleimon of Buchan was canceled.

Currently, dual citizenship is not allowed in Ukraine. According to the country’s legislation, grounds for losing citizenship can be: the voluntary acquisition of a passport of another country, the acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship by fraud, the presentation of false data or forged documents.

However, a law is being prepared that should allow multiple citizenship, and it is expected to be adopted by the end of 2025. The reason is the millions of refugees who left the country because of the war, who in some countries can also obtain local citizenship. And after the changes, it will not be possible to simultaneously have Ukrainian citizenship and that of an aggressor country, i.e., Russia.