AGI. – Ten Ukrainian civilians held captive in Russia have been released in a deal brokered by the Vatican. The Ukrainian president said so Volodymyr Zelensky. “We managed to bring back ten more of our people from Russian captivity,” Zelensky said in a Telegram post, sharing a list of those freed, including two priests and a Crimean Tatar politician. Among the prisoners freed by the Russians also the vice-president of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, the highest executive-representative body of the Crimean Tatars, Neriman Dzhelal, captured in 2021.
Among the ten prisoners released by Moscow, also the two Greek-Catholic priests Ivan Levytskyi and Bohdan Heleta, Fathers of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. The release of the clerics, according to a note from the Secretariat of the Archbishop of Kiev Sviatoslav Shevchuk, took place due to the exchange of prisoners. The two priests were arrested on November 16, 2022 in Berdyansk under occupation.
For a long time, there was no news about them.. Shevchuk expressed his sincere gratitude to the Holy See for the release of the two priests. He addressed special thanks to Pope Francis, Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the entire diplomatic corps of the Vatican. Special thanks were addressed to Cardinal Matteo Zuppi and Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine, for their mediation.
“Each of them made an invaluable personal contribution to making this event a reality,” the statement reads. The priests were welcomed by Monsignor Andriy Khimyak, auxiliary bishop of the Kiev archeparchy, and by the Reverend Oleksa Petriv, Head of the Department for External Relations of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine.
“Since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, priests Ivan Levytskyi and Bohdan Heleta have chosen to remain with their community in the temporarily occupied territories. They have ministered to both the Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic communities, bringing the light of hope to the people under Russian occupation. Were arrested, and subsequently, for the formulation of the charges, military objects were placed in the church to incriminate himi of illegal possession of weapons. There were reports that the two priests were tortured mercilessly to extract confessions of crimes that had never been committed”, we read further.
After a long period of no news of the prisoners, in May, Archbishop Shevchuk received confirmation that Reverends Ivan and Bohdan were still alive and that there was concrete hope for their release. “Finally, the day of their liberation arrived on June 27th.”
