UNITED NATIONS, May 12. /TASS/. Sixty-one criminal cases have been opened in Ukraine against the clergy of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said on Friday.

"Since October 2022, Kiev’s punitive bodies have been conducting mass raids in UOC monasteries and parishes across the entire country without any legitimate basis," he told an informal Arria-formula meeting of the United Nations Security Council. "Ukraine’s Security Service has conducted some 100 searches in monasteries, churches, and administrative buildings of the UOC eparchies in Ukraine. Criminal cases are being opened against the clergy."

"Nearly 250 UOC clergymen have been banned from entering Ukraine. In all, 61 criminal cases have been opened against UOC clergymen," Nebenzya said.

Ukraine’s authorities have been on a mission to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. On instructions from President Vladimir Zelensky, the government has prepared and submitted a bill to the parliament prohibiting the canonical church. Churches are being denied the right to lease the land on which the churches stand. Activists of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) seize UOC churches, exert pressure on parishioners, and attack clergymen. UOC priests are charged with high treason and other crimes. Thirteen hierarchs have been stripped of Ukrainian citizenship.