Department for External Church Relations
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Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin and Bratslav has been diagnosed with a stroke
DECR Communication Service, 21.03.2024.
On the 19th of March 2024, it became known that Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin and Bratslav had had a stroke.
"We would like to inform you that Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin and Bratslav is undergoing treatment for a stroke. Please offer prayers for the speedy recovery of His Eminence. Vladyka Metropolitan hopes that he will soon see everyone in fortitude and in the power of God," the publication on the website of the Tulchyn diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reads.
In August 2023, the 75-year-old seriously ill bishop, a church composer widely known in the Orthodox world, was sentenced by a Ukrainian court on absurd charges to five years' imprisonment with confiscation of property. While the appeal is being considered, Vladyka Jonathan remains under house arrest.
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As previously reported, the prosecutor demanded that Bishop Jonathan be sentenced to six years in prison, and, as the lawyers noted, the evidence in the case was falsified, and the legal and factual evidence of the hierarch's innocence provided by the defence was ignored by the prosecution.
Metropolitan Jonathan did not admit his guilt. In his address to the clergy and faithful of the Tulchin diocese, he emphasised: "The God of Truth is on my side, and this profession of faith for is a major victory for me as an Orthodox Christian and a bishop!"
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ made a statement in connection with the conviction of Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchyn and Bratslav by a Ukrainian court on 7 August. "In this court decision dictated by hatred towards the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, we see yet another act of blatant violation of religious freedom, an example of persecution of the faith," His Holiness noted. Having stated that the "charges brought against the hierarch are absolutely null and void, and the so-called evidence is falsified," the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church emphasised: "His Eminence Jonathan, like the whole Church, prays for peace, calls for the spiritual unity of Holy Rus’, and also defends the rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, denouncing the canonical untruth of the schism. It is for this that he was condemned." His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ called on the international community, religious and political leaders and human rights organisations "to pay attention to the purposeful policy of the Ukrainian authorities aimed at destroying the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and continuing the unpunished persecution of its hierarchs and clerics, monastics and lay people".
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