Metropolitan Ioasaf (Huben)
Metropolitan Ioasaf of Vasylkiv (Secular name: Petro Huben)
A bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Since November 23, 2022, Metropolitan of Vasylkiv, vicar of the Kyiv Eparchy. From 2011 to 2022, he headed the Kirovohrad and Novomyrhorod Eparchy of the UOC.
The persecution of Metropolitan Ioasaf began during one of the first waves of repression by the Ukrainian authorities against believers and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
In November 2022, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies launched an unprecedented campaign in terms of scale, involving terror and searches of diocesan administrations, churches, and monasteries of the UOC.
At the time of this wave of repression, Metropolitan Ioasaf was the ruling hierarch of the Kirovohrad and Novomyrhorod see of the UOC.
On October 31, 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) conducted searches in the Kirovohrad and Oleksandriia Eparchies of the UOC, as well as at the residences of clergy.
Law enforcement agencies claimed that they had discovered “correspondence between the Metropolitan of Kirovohrad and Novomyrhorod and Moscow Patriarch Kirill” and had seized “a large quantity of anti-Ukrainian materials produced in Russia”.
On its official website, the SBU displayed old church calendars and literature about canonized Orthodox saints.
(Source: Official website of the SBU)
On December 2, 2022, the SBU announced that Metropolitan Ioasaf had been served with a notice of suspicion under Part 1, Article 161 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine – incitement of interreligious hatred.
This fact in itself refutes the insinuations of the SBU regarding allegedly discovered “pro-Russian materials”.
(Source: Official website of the SBU)
On December 9, 2022, the court imposed a preventive measure on the hierarch in the form of night-time house arrest.
On May 12, 2023, the Kropyvnytskyi District Court sentenced the Metropolitan to three years’ imprisonment with a probationary period of two years.
He was also banned from holding senior church positions for one year.
КУ ст. 35 (свобода вероисповедания) · ЕСПЧ ст. 9 · Нормы ООН