Sumy Police Arrest UOC-MP Priest for Brandishing Pistol

Hieromonk Inokentiy (Ivleva) who brandished a pistol with a Flaubert shot system was arrested on April 9 in a private hotel in Sumy.

According to the police’s public relations department, the priest was taken to the Sumy police station. The hotel has not yet commented on the incident. According to preliminary data, the hieromonk was drunk and with young girls from a school in Sumy.

The secretary of the Eparchy of Sumy, Heorhiy Taraban, told Dankor that in connection with this incident, Hieromonk Inokentiy has been removed from his position the church in the village of Bezdryk and has been banned from ministry.

The 37-year-old cleric, from whom the law enforcement officers seized a pistol, was very active on social networks and, judging by his recent posts on his Vkontakte page, supports separatism and a pro-Russian policy in Ukraine.

Former Secretary of Sumy City Council Oleksiy Movchan was at the hotel where the police detained the priest. In a comment to Dankor, Movchan confirmed that he did indeed go to the hotel. According to Movchan, he did not ask to remove any videos. When asked about the reason for visiting the hotel, Movchan said that a man called him and said that the police were arresting the priest: “When I arrived, it turned out that the priest wanted to lodge his godfather with his children in the hotel, but the hotel staff noticed he had a pistol (which actually can hardly be called a pistol, it is a regular Glock) and called the police.”

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Sumy Oblast is currently considering opening criminal proceedings against the priest for hooliganism at the hotel.