The head of the Lithuanian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Innokenty of Vilna and Lithuania, defrocked former clergymen Vitaly Mockus, Vitaly Dauparas, Georgy Ananyev and Vladimir Selyavko. Delphi reports .
“The court found that Mockus, Dauparas, Ananiev and Selyavko, in cooperation with state authorities, took active steps to create a parallel church structure in Lithuania under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” the church said in a statement.
These priests condemned the war in Ukraine and criticized Patriarch Kirill, after which the Lithuanian Orthodox Church, which belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate, accused them of schismatics and first banned them from priesthood, and now deposed them. At the same time, the church itself claims that “the decision of the court has nothing to do with politics and current international events.”
Earlier, Selyavko, commenting on the ban on priesthood, said that he and other priests were being persecuted for political reasons: “What they accuse us of, saying that we are schismatics, is a game for the public, as they say.”