The fate of two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests remains unknown almost a year after their capture by the Russian National Guard amid Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to Forum 18, an Oslo, Norway-based news service that covers religious and intellectual freedom violations in several countries.
Father Ivan Levitsky and Father Bohdan Geleta, both Redemptorist priests, were seized in November 2022 from the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in Berdiansk, located just over an hour southwest of Mariupol in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia oblast. Father Geleta is known to suffer from an acute form of diabetes. Both priests refused to leave their parishioners following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, which continued attacks launched in 2014 against Ukraine.
Ultimately, “the Russians don’t explain what they’re doing, what plans they have, what their intentions are in seizing people,” Forum 18 researcher Felix Corley said. Having walked away from multiple international agreements, Russia has made it “quite clear” that its government “does not have much respect for international human rights commitments, and is not shy about showing that to the world,” said Corley.
Picture: Father Bohdan Heleta, left, and Father Ivan Levitsky are seen in this undated screen grab. The fate of the two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests remains unknown almost a year after their capture by the Russian National Guard amid Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (OSV News screen grab/courtesy of Ukrainian Catholic Church)