SBU ARRESTS FIVE LEADERS OF "DOGNALITE" SECT
On 22 June, personnel of the USBU [Directorate of
the Security Service of Ukraine] for Lvov province arrested five
leaders of the unregistered religious organization "Ukrainian
Orthodox Greek Catholic Church" [UPGKTs], better known as the
sect of "Dognalites," in the village of Briukhovichi outside
Lvov.
Dognalites themselves reported the arrest of their
religious leaders to ZAXID.NET. The Lvov SBU refused to
officially confirm or deny this information, although on
condition of anonymity a highly placed SBU source confirmed the
incident of the arrest of several Dognalites. The SBU plans to
publish official information on this matter on Tuesday, 23 June.
It is known that all arrested "bishops of UPGKTs"
were placed in an SBU investigation cell in Lvov.
Searches were conducted in a UPGKTs convent in
Briukhovichi and in a UPGKTs chapel. The operation for arrest of
the Dognalite leaders was rather wide-scale and the capture was
conducted by several dozen agents of a special subdivision of
SBU.
According to a representative of the Dognalites,
two "bishops" and one "priest" were deported outside Ukraine
since they are Czech citizens, and another two are in the SBU
investigation cell. As is typical, the Dognalites have accused
representatives of the UGKTs [Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church]
of repressions against their organization. (tr. by PDS, posted
23 June 2015)
Background information: "Headed by
a 67-year-old fundamentalist preacher from the Czech Republic,
Antonin Dohnal [or Dognal], the sect began a decade ago as a
dissident movement within the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
After repeated clashes over theology, property and politics,
though, Mr. Dohnal and his followers broke away in 2009 to form
their own “orthodox” version of the mainstream church. It
appointed its own bishops and priests and in 2011 broke with the
Vatican, too, establishing its own Byzantine Catholic
Patriarchate based in Lviv and headed by Mr. Dohnal, who as a
Czech national has now gone into hiding to avoid expulsion from
Ukraine for visa violations. While never attracting a large
number of followers, Mr. Dohnal and his lieutenants made
headlines in the local news media for their pro-Russian views
and their alleged brainwashing of vulnerable young recruits."
["Ukrainian church faces obscure pro-Russian revolt in its own
ranks," RISU,
21 June 2014]
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