Are There Spies in Priests' Robes?

Have you heard that Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy is persecuting Christians?

Have you heard that he’s closing churches and throwing priests in jail?

Have you heard that he’s so corrupt and anti-Christian that the U.S. should never support his regime?

Information warfare specialists in Russia want you to believe these allegations.

For a different take, hear what Aleksander Darbynko, Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) told this author in a recent Zoom conversation.

To understand Darbynko’s viewpoint, it helps to know about the religious split in Ukraine.

The country’s majority religion is the Orthodox Church, and of the 16,000 individual churches, 8,000 are pro-Ukraine and support Ukraine’s fight for its existence.

The other 8,000 Orthodox churches are loyal to Russia and preach that Ukraine is part of Russia and shouldn’t be fighting Russia.

The churches loyal to Russia historically are evenly spread across Ukraine with Russian churches dominating in numbers.

When the Russians began taking over Ukrainian territories (including Crimea) in 2014, they purged the clergy loyal to Ukraine and immediately installed Kremlin-approved clergy.

"People in the United States are used to the separation of church and state," Metropolitan Darbynko told me.

"This doesn’t exist in Russia. In Russia, the Church is a pillar of Putin’s governance, and every priest who has any leadership role must be approved by the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB)."

"Russia is devoting massive resources to trying to convince people that the branch of the Orthodox Church controlled by Russia is the real Church and the branch that’s loyal to Ukraine is unorthodox and fake," Darbynko said.

Darbynko also said that the branch of the Orthodox Church that’s loyal to Russia is not only staffed by people approved by Putin’s FSB, but many are also actual spies in priests’ robes.

"Zelenskyy is not prosecuting priests," he said. "He’s prosecuting spies who are hiding behind the cover of religion.

"Clergy members of the branch of the Church that’s loyal to Russia have provided logistical support and intelligence to Russian forces. They use their positions within the church to gather sensitive information.

"They support Russia’s invasion and have never condemned the murders and rapes that we know were part of the invasion."

The list of harms the clergy loyal to Russia has caused doesn’t end there.

"These clergy are using their influence to condemn the efforts of Ukrainians to defend themselves. They undermine the cohesiveness of Ukrainian society. They blatantly sow chaos during church services."

"We do not prosecute citizens for their religion," Darbynko emphasizes. "We prosecute them for their actions.

"Being a priest does not shield a person from paying a penalty for being a spy or an agent of chaos in a time of war."

For Darbynko, the clergy that support Russia’s war on Ukraine are traitors.

"I want to tell you that the war is not about taking our land. It’s about destroying our history, our language, and our ethnicity. For us, it’s existential, and the spies hiding under clerical garb need to be stopped."

"My personal opinion is Zelensky is too soft on these people," he concluded.

"We are not doing enough to mitigate the damage these people are doing to our country. For weaponizing religion, the heads of the Russian-dominated Orthodox Church in Ukraine and in Russia belong on the docket of the International Criminal Court in the Hague."

War correspondent Mitzi Perdue has visited Ukraine three times in the last year. She is a landmine clearance advocate, businesswoman, author, and anti-human trafficking advocate. She holds a B.A. degree with honors from Harvard University and a Master's from George Washington University. Read Mitzi Perdue's Reports — More Here.