According to the text of the verdict issued by the Court of Appeal of the City of Kyiv on June 26, 2018, Nazar Petraniuk (referred to in the documents as PERSON\_11) was found guilty of a criminal offense under Article 286, Part 2, of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

IMPORTANT: THE COURT’S FINDING OF GUILT

Reversal of acquittal: The Court of Appeal overturned the prior judgment of the Sviatoshynskyi District Court, which had acquitted Petraniuk.

Establishment of guilt: The judicial panel concluded that the evidence irrefutably proved Petraniuk’s guilt in violating road traffic safety regulations, resulting in the death of the victim.

Підтримати молитву

Circumstances of the accident: The court established that the driver failed to respond to the changing road situation and did not take timely measures to reduce speed (pursuant to Rule 12.3 of the Highway Code), despite having the technical ability to avoid striking the pedestrian.

Sentence: Three (3) years’ imprisonment with deprivation of the right to operate motor vehicles for a period of one year. Pursuant to Article 75 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, he was released from actual serving of the sentence with a probationary period of one year.

https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/74960968

«A Spring of Pure Water» — or the Source of Canonical Infection?

An investigation by the Memorial Foundation of His Beatitude Metropolitan Mefodiy exposes how, under the cupola of the Ternopil-Buchach Eparchy of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a convicted killer — a former clergyman of the Moscow Patriarchate — purchased for himself both an «indulgence» and a «shield» from the front lines.

A Death That Cannot Be «Laundered»

The Truth of Christ admits no half-tones. On January 17, 2015, a human body lay dead on the asphalt of Kyiv. According to the materials of criminal case No. 759/2926/16-k, as a result of the actions of Nazar Petraniuk, the victim sustained injuries incompatible with life: an open traumatic brain injury, a crushed skull, and brain matter that had literally spilled beneath the wheels of a Renault Logan.

On June 26, 2018, the Court of Appeal of the City of Kyiv delivered its final verdict: Nazar Petraniuk is GUILTY. The court established that he had the objective ability to stop the vehicle but failed to do so. This was not merely an «accident». It was the legally proven killing of a human being.

A priest must be an image of Christ. Yet Archbishop Tikhon Petraniuk chose otherwise. With full knowledge of his brother’s criminal past and of the horrific details of the victim’s death, he deliberately installed a convicted killer as an administrator within the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius of the Ternopil-Buchach Eparchy of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

This constitutes a direct violation of the foundational canons of Universal Orthodoxy:
– Apostolic Canon 66: Explicitly requires deposition from the clergy for homicide — even involuntary.
– Canon 55 of St. Basil the Great: Hands that have shed human blood are forever rendered unclean for the celebration of the Eucharist.
– Canon 14 of the Council of Neocaesarea: Requires of a minister irreproachable conduct — which is impossible in the presence of a criminal conviction for causing the death of a human being.

Beneath the cover of golden vestments, this is the canonical sacrilege of the Petraniuk clan. It is nothing less than an Organized Criminal Enterprise operating with impunity under the «roof» of the Local Church. Tikhon Petraniuk, himself possessed of a notable criminal past, is systematically and deliberately transforming the former primatial see of His Beatitude Metropolitan Mefodiy into a family «racket».

The appointment of Nazar Petraniuk is not an act of mercy. It is desertion sheltered beneath the sanctuary lamp. While true pastors perish at the front, a convicted killer from the Moscow Patriarchate conceals himself behind the back of his brother — an archbishop of the autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church — receiving what amounts to «ecclesiastical draft exemption».

Taras (Tikhon) Petraniuk knows the Criminal Code of Ukraine and the canons of the Church better than most, yet he has consciously scorned them both. He made Nazar the legal administrator of a religious organization — a Cathedral church. It is His Grace Archbishop Petraniuk who entrusted to hands stained with human blood the handling of sacred vessels and the stewardship of church property. This is not oikonomia. It is sacrilege. The citizen Petraniuk — both a criminal and canonical offender — has transformed the see of Metropolitan Mefodiy into a family criminal enterprise, in which a criminal conviction serves as a credential for office and a cassock serves as a means of fleeing mobilization and justice.

Appeal to the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority

This material, published on our official platform, is a voice crying in the wilderness of lawlessness.

Your Beatitude, Metropolitan Epifaniy! Most Reverend hierarchs, most worthy members of the Holy Synod!

The desecration of the memory of His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Mefodiy (Primate of the UAOC 2000–2015) at the hands of the Petraniuks must be brought to an end. The Truth of Christ does not tolerate the silencing of evil. On January 17, 2015, a tragedy occurred. Yet the true tragedy lies not only in the fact of the traffic accident itself, but in what followed. The verdict of the Court of Appeal of the City of Kyiv, case No. 759/2926/16-k, is not a mere piece of paper — it is a verdict upon a conscience.

The court established that the driver Petraniuk had the objective ability to stop. Instead, he reduced a human being to a mangled corpse. The case materials record: an open traumatic brain injury, a crushed skull, brain matter on the asphalt. This is not mere «negligence». This is a death for which the killer has yet to offer repentance — because true repentance is not a transfer to another jurisdiction, but a departure from the Holy Table.

Today, the global Orthodox community — including the Mother Church of Constantinople — upholds strict akriveia (canonical exactitude) in matters involving the shedding of blood. In the practice of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, a priest who has caused the death of another human being faces a tragedy that concludes with the laying down of his orders. The canons of St. Basil the Great (Rules 8, 11, 43) know nothing of «probationary periods». They know only one thing: the hands that hold the Chalice must be clean of blood.

What we observe in Ternopil is not merely a violation of the OCU Statute — it is a challenge to the entire Orthodox world. Sheltering a convicted killer beneath a cassock to shield him from mobilization constitutes a form of simony (the trafficking of grace and ecclesiastical status), which in Byzantine law was punishable by immediate excommunication of both the one who received the position and the one who granted it.

Nazar Petraniuk, having come from the Moscow Patriarchate, brought with him the worst of it: a record of criminal offenses, an example of impunity, and contempt for human life. When a convicted killer governs a cathedral, the faithful see not the Church of Christ, but a «blood business».

Your Beatitude! The Truth of Christ declares: «There is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed». Today this scandal is reaching the level of global Orthodoxy. What shall we say to the Ecumenical Patriarch? That within the OCU the canons apply only to those who have no archbishop for a brother?

Murder Is Murder

For the Church, there is no concept of «negligence» when human life is at stake. According to Apostolic Canon 66, any person guilty of homicide is permanently barred from the priesthood. An epitimia (penance) is not merely a «fine» — it is spiritual healing through exclusion. A person who has committed homicide ought to spend years in penitence as a layman, not govern a cathedral church.

Archbishop Tikhon, with full knowledge of his brother’s criminal past, consciously proceeded to counterfeit spiritual authority in order to provide a relative with a «safe rear» during wartime. Is there a limit to the cynicism of those who have transformed a cathedral church into a private enterprise for saving their own from the army?

We Demand an Ecclesiastical Trial — Open and Impartial

The removal of Nazar Petraniuk from all positions and the deprivation of his clerical status. Killers have no place in the governance of a cathedral of the autocephalous UOC.

An ecclesiastical trial of Archbishop Tikhon Petraniuk for the conscious concealment of a canonical criminal and the creation of a criminal franchise.

The restoration of honor to the Ternopil see by purging it of «re-shod» functionaries of the Moscow Patriarchate.

We appeal to His Beatitude Metropolitan Epifaniy: millions will read this text. If Nazar Petraniuk — who reduced a human being to a mutilated corpse — is permitted to remain within the bosom of our Holy Church, the OCU will lose the war for the souls of Ukrainians. Such a tumor destroys the authority of the Church more swiftly than Moscow propaganda.

The Petraniuk brothers thought that a cassock would conceal a court verdict, and that a Tomos would mask the smell of death. Tikhon has transformed an eparchy into a closed joint-stock company in which convicted «defectors» from the Moscow Patriarchate purchase indulgences for themselves. This is the logic of the criminal world: everyone must be bound either by blood or by kompromat.

The time for purification has come. Either the canons apply equally to all — or the OCU risks becoming an ecclesiastical reservation for the Petraniuk family.

To be continued…

Dzherelo: Fond pam’yati Blazhennishoho Mytropolyta Mefodiyaя