Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky decreed on Monday to impose sanctions on 22 representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church.
According to a document posted on the Ukrainian presidential website, the affected priests include Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest and Hungary, Vakhtang Kipshidze, the deputy chair of the Russian Orthodox Church’s public relations department, Nikolay Balashov, advisor to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, and Vladimir Legoida, head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s public and media relations department.
Metropolitan Anthony (Sevryuk) of Volokolamsk, who told a United Nations Security Council meeting by video link on January 17 about the pressure being exerted by Ukrainian officials on the country’s Orthodox Church, was also blacklisted.
Among other things, the priests’ accounts will be frozen under the move, with cultural exchanges with them to be suspended, and they will also be stripped of Ukrainian state awards.
Earlier, Zelensky sanctioned 317 Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian individuals.
