Kharkov diocese of UOC: provocations of 1 + 1 channel are based on lies and manipulations

The diocese of Kharkov expressed the rejection of the recent 1 + 1 TV piece, in which the channel accused the clergyman of the UOC Alexander Kanevsky of separatist activities and immoral behaviour, reports the press service of the diocese.

"We consider it necessary to recall that over the past few years the mentioned mass medium has been systematically releasing video content with unreasonable and biased criticism of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. At the same time, the channel does not consider it necessary to adhere to the elementary standards of journalistic ethics and rules for creating objective information materials. In particular, the practice of attracting anonymous witnesses of various events is widely used, which minimizes the opportunity to recheck the veracity of their stories. We should also mention the abuse of value judgments which are not supported by clear evidence or facts," writes the website.

The diocese emphasizes that "similar methods could be observed in the TV piece, whose hero was the priest Alexander Kanevsky. First, he was accused of separatist actions. Given that such acts are punishable under the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and the fact that the ministry of the priest has had open and public character for all these years, Fr. Alexander could not have avoided proper responsibility. However, no cases of relevant offenses of the mentioned cleric were recorded by the judicial authorities. This allows us to speak about a direct slander against Fr. Alexander, as well as the use of unsubstantiated speculations in describing his public and educational activities."
"As for the other accusations made public in the news story, they relate to the sphere of personal beliefs of the clergyman. As everybody knows, expressing one’s opinion freely is not prohibited by current legislation and is the constitutional right of every citizen of Ukraine," the statement said.

The priest's accusations of immorality are considered illegal and questionable in the diocese. "The authors of the news piece indicate themselves that the inappropriate actions were committed by a person, as they put it, "looking like" Fr. Alexander. In fact, this is a recognition of the fact that the information is in the nature of an unreasonable and unproven assumption. Moreover, this also gives rise to talk about the possible forgery of video materials."
"In particular, as stated in the TV channel's story, a video was used as a source of information about the immoral act, which was allegedly found by a 1 + 1 journalist on the Internet. At the same time, the storyboard of the corresponding video allows us to make an unambiguous conclusion – at the time of watching the video by the journalist, it had (according to statistics) only one view. This point refutes the claim that a scandalous video was accidentally found on the Internet. Rather, we can talk about the legalization through the TV channel of a pre-prepared staged news story, as well as the on-demand discrimination of the UOC cleric," said the authors of the statement.

Read the full text of the statement on the website of the diocese.