comment: >
  
  Get rid of all the Russians
context: This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 67%. (I'm a bot)
  
  
  By Decree No. 898/2022 of December 28, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky suspended the citizenship of a number of priests with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
  According to the publication's sources, Zelensky suspended the citizenship of 13 clerics of the UOC. In particular, it is about Metropolitan Ionafan of Tulchyn and Bratslav, who has been charged with treason.
  Many clergymen were found to hold Russian citizenship, store pro-Russian propaganda literature and millions in cash.
  
  
  Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: citizenship^#1 Ukraine^#2 Zelensky^#3 suspended^#4 number^#5 >
  
  
  Many clergymen were found to hold Russian citizenship, store pro-Russian propaganda literature and millions in cash.
  
  Underaged choirboys were also "held". >
  
  What ever happens to the good o' priest who would just fuck the nuns?? >
  
  Women's liberation happened. Women deemed immoral are no longer shamed by society into the nunnery to atone for their sinful ways, so the population in the convents ends up being formed predominantly from the kind of women who actually believe in the whole chastity thing. >
  
  One of my first jobs was in the kitchens of a Catholic care home that used to be full on Magdalene Sisters.
  Severe mental disability?  In the home.  Child out of wedlock?  In the home.  Raped by your brother and kept going on about it despite being told to shut up?  In the home.
  They were elderly and institutionalised by the time I got there in the 90s and the place had been taken over by an actual care home chain.  Shocking stories though. >
  
  Holy shite you worked in a Magdalene laundry?! That’s horrific. Well a care home by then but Jesus, so awful how we let the Catholic Church treat young women in Ireland >
  
  My aunt was packed off to a Magdalene home in the 60s when she got pregnant at 18. They worked her to the bone, verbally and mentally abused her and the other women, and beat them with canes. The nuns called her a tramp and a wh0re. She said the place was like a prison and a lot of the girls & women were sexually abused by the priests and nuns.
  The moment her baby was born they took him away, she never got a glimpse of him, then they kicked her out. It took her 40 years to find him, he was in NYC and they finally met a few years ago. The Church had been taking babies from these laundries and selling them to rich Americans to adopt, it was a very lucrative business for them. >
  
  That's how part of my family came to Canada. My great (great?) Grandmother sent her two sons to stay with the church during the blitz in London and the church sold them off to some guy in Ontario to work on his farm. She came to get them back afterwards and they were gone. I dunno if she ever found them again. >
  
  You can be stripped off citizenship if you have one from different country. If they had RU passports, it would be a reason. Russian churches in Ukraine were just propaganda places full of agents. >
  
  Wasn’t it Norway or some such place where they had to enact laws against Russian Churches because they were essentially just government hideouts? >
  
  It's weird that the Russian Orthodox Church survived the famously atheist USSR...
  ...until you realise that the KGB had thoroughly and totally infiltrated them and turned them into an extension of the state. That's how they survived, and continue to do so. >
  
  It's not like they were a bastion of scruples before the soviets, though. Rich, venal men suckling at the teat of autocracy for 600 years. >
  
  
  It's not like they were a bastion of scruples ..., though. Rich, venal men suckling
  
  So ... just like evangelists in America? >
  
  Whew, that was close, we almost got 5 comments deep without throwing shade at the US. >
  
  Eh the evangelists here deserve a lot of criticism >
  
  Agreed… I typically get peeved at these kind of comments but honestly this is arguably relevant and 100% accurate. >
  
  I don't view this as an attack or shade on the US as a whole, either. The Evangelicals here are just a shitty group that happens to be American, it's not that being American makes them shitty.
  Plus, as you said, it's a relevant and accurate comparison. >
  
  Religious extremists works well for both groups. >
  
  Cue Tucker Carlson raving about Zelensky’s war on Christianity. >
  
  Lol he was already raving about it before the plan even went through.
  Claimed that they were banning the entire Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Not even making this up. >
  
  Carlson's hypocrisy on Ukraine has been breathtaking as usual.
  Another narrative he made up was that Zelensky was turning into a dictator because the state took partial control over TV networks for emergency broadcasts. The execution of that were pretty much identical to the emergency plan in the USA, which Fox News certainly know about.
  And of course he saw that narrative confirmed when Ukraine banned some small pro-Russian opposition parties, many of whose leaders had already fled to Russia and were actively supporting the invasion. >
  
  At some point Ukraine is going to have to denounce Fox as being an extension of the kremlin’s propaganda network. It isn’t quite as bad as RT, but tucker and co are sure trying to make it so >
  
  Ukraine can't afford to risk US aid, so they just have to suck it up and try to appease Republicans. As painful as it is. >
  
  "If you love it so much, why don't you live there?", but in the best way possible. >
  
  This concept should apply to all migrants. If you're not going to embrace western values and only going to leech off our wealth while spreading your country's propaganda/sexually assault women, then you can fuck off back to where you came from. >
  
  Yikes, sounds like someone is looking for an excuse to express awful thoughts...
  Going to a country to be part of free society but still enjoying a different culture is light-years away from subverting and assaulting a country for personal wealth and power. >
  
  I'm not talking about a difference in cuisine or stuff like that. 
  I'm talking about cultures that do not view women as humans but rather as property.
  Finland and France's own governments have conducted studies that found that migrants were overwhelming more likely to sexually assault women. 
  But when you point that out, you get shouted down for being "racist". That's ridiculous. >
  
  My dude, I'm the kid of a middle eastern father and European mother. I've seen at least as many European men talk about women as objects or property as the Muslim men. Turns out, sexism comes in different flavors but people like you love to create drama about someone else to mask your own.  
  If anything, I've noticed the people that complain about migrants are hardly feminists themselves. They'll just as easily say that Europe has lost its way and women should return to more "traditional" values. 
  So yes, you are either blind in the mirror or a racist. But when you say that, the "Europeans" feel attacked. >
  
  Yes, men all over the world have issues when it comes to objectifying women. The question at hand is whether or not these men act out physically against them. 
  The data on that issue is clear. Migrants are much more likely to commit sexual crimes against women (2 to 4 times more likely)
  Here is the Finnish study
  And here is the French study >
  
  And were these studies conducted on immigration of limited specific cultures, limited specific ethnicities, or to limited specific countries? Or was it done on immigration of varying immigrants to varying countries? >
  
  
  Many clergymen were found to hold Russian citizenship
  
  So it's possible because of it. You can't legally remove the only citizenship of a human being but you can when there's several >
  
  The UK govt did it to Shamima Begum. >
  
  Yeah, the argument being that she would be eligible for citizenship granted by another state, I think Pakistan in her case >
  
  Bangladesh. Even though she had never set foot in the country in her life and the Bangladeshi foreign minister expressly said she was not eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship. >
  
  It was frankly immoral. Why should it be a Bangladeshi problem? >
  
  Did they fail to realize they're at war? Aid and comfort to the enemy is typically considered treason. One of them is charged with that. They could all have suffered a fate much worse. >
  
  The Russian orthodox faith is more like a state (Russian state that is) religion. So all of the clergy are loyal to Russia. >
  
  And apparently the Russian Orthodox clergy is an intelligence agency. Which is less surprising when you remember that the head of it is a former KGB agent. >
  
  At one point in the 1980s every Russian bishop and the vast majority of priests were KGB informants. >
  
  Unsurprising.  The real purpose of this "church" is to promote Kremlin propaganda and recruit spies.  It is an organ of the state and it's so called priests are nothing more than agents of the Kremlin. >
  
  Stripping their citizenship is fairly mild then considering there's a fair argument for considering them enemy combatants. >
  
  Spies, not combatants.
  Enemy combatants are generally protected under the Geneva convention. Enemy spies, under the convention, can be hanged or stood in front of a firing post.
  Here's Nazi spies being executed by US soldiers in WW2 Belgium (NSFW). This would not be legal if it were enemy intelligence officers (or NCMs) rather than covert spies.
  Stripping the dual-citizenship holders of their UA nationality is absolutely a fairly mild outcome, given the circumstance. >
  
  It sounds bad until you read the whole story. They hold Russian citizenship and are paid to be part of the propaganda machine. >
  
  Yep, open and shut case of treason. Thats a fair reason to lose citizenship imo. Especially during wartime. >
  
  Surprised they did not prosecute them for treason instead. But I suppose doing this will just bait Moscow to either offer these traitors citizenship if they already were not russian citizens or leave these pricks in limbo. >
  
  Expelled for activities inconsistent with their theological status.
  In other words... spies are spies, whether or not they wear cassocks. >
  
  cossacks in cassocks >
  
  Why wait almost a year into the war to do this? I would think they would have done this early if they were a real security issue. So to me this is purely sending a message. What message and why? idk. >
  
  Worth mentioning that it’s not just priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but specifically priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchy >
  
  Storing millions in cash in a country like Ukraine is fucked, how long had they been in positions of influence in the church is what I want to know >
  
  Dude the head of UOC MP is nicknamed Pasha Mercedes and he's been known to employ thugs and henchmen to threaten and beat up journalists who were investigating his wealth. He even called it "divine judgement". >
  
  If this was just pro-Russian, I might be slightly concerned about this occurring. However, what the article goes into is likely material support for Russia. That is considered treason anywhere and they would be deserving of losing citizenship at a minimum. >
  
  So do they get deported to Russia? Then get sent back to the front line Ukraine to get killed as a Russian Conscript? >
  
  Pretty much. >
  
  Send them to Russia to be conscripted!! >
  
  Good, fuck the corrupted scumbags. >
  
  How can you strip them of citizenship if they were born there? >
  
  Many countries do so or consider doing so under certain conditions. UK for instance did exactly that to a girl that decided to fly off and join ISIS (technically speaking she had double citizenship). >
  
  
  technically speaking she had double citizenship
  
  Only according to the UK Home Office. Bangladesh responded with confusion. >
  
  Shes automatically a citizen of Bangladesh because she was born to at least one Bangladeshi parent. Of course, Bangladesh also has no intentions of taking her in even if that's the case. >
  
  I'm automatically a citizen of NZ for the same reason, but I still don't hold an NZ citizenship because I haven't registered my birth with them.
  It's the same situation for her, she only actually held one citizenship. As a result of that, she's stateless and stuck in a camp in Syria where her kid died of pneumonia. >
  
  You don't have to register the birth to legally be a citizen in this case - I read the relevant laws when this particular bit of news came out.
  It's still a bullshit thing to happen though - I'm legally a British/Italian dual citizen by descent so even though I've never filled out the paperwork to get it acknowledged and get a passport, I could have my British citizenship stripped by the British government, whereas someone without said second citizenship couldn't have it stripped.
  It would be really hard for me to actually prove my second citizenship, too - it would certainly require documents that I wouldn't be able to obtain if I had my British citizenship stripped due to lack of money/inability to travel internationally >
  
  With Spain you can not have two nationalities though. I also could get it but never saw the point, until the UK left the EU. Because if I got it I'd have to give up my UK and NZ citizenships. >
  
  There are a LOT of Russia lovers in here.  I wish this cesspool didn’t show up in my feed. >
  
  The brigading is always insane in these threads. >
  
  So many angry people in this thread. There is no problem here, they aren't in prison, they are free to return to their native land, Muscovy. >
  
  All commentators who said this is some human rights violation did not bother to open the link and read the article. Well done! >
  
  Given how the church behaved early on I wonder if a lot of them were getting paid by Russia. >
  
  The Russian Orthodox Church is literally an extension of the Russian intelligence agencies >
  
  Fox News: “Totalitarian monster Zelensky wages war on Christianity.” >
  
  He can have Greg Locke too. >
  
  LOL their gods played them. >
  
  This sounds eerily familiar to other historic times when priest were encouraged to be killed or persecuted by different groups. Lord have mercy that his won't lead to violence towards any clergy but it will just add fuel to fire when priests are already getting attacked. >
  
  I recall that the Berrigen brothers and other religious anti-war protesters were also prosecuted by our government, as well as many others who had the courage to take a stand against US foreign policy. >
  
  Time to get rid of dead weights. >
  
  Good for him. Get that trash out. >
  
  Priests? FSB shills who pimp their religion to criminal scum. >
  
  I got hammered with a Ukrainian Jew last night. Great guy. Fuck Russia >
  
  Better than getting hammered with a Russian deserter. >
  
  What >
  
  Fucked aroun, found out >
  
  Glad he’s not becoming a dictator >
  
  It’s very simple. Ukraine does not allow dual citizenship. This is smart considering the unique level of danger Ukraine is in. If somebody wants to get another country’s citizenship, they can, but then must forfeit their Ukrainian citizenship. These priests didn’t do that, thus breaking the law. Investigation by the Security Service identified this and Zelenskyy did what these priests should have done themselves when they acquired Russian citizenship. There is no problem here, no ethical violation, no violation of human rights principles. >
  
  It's incredible to read the majority of comments in here blindly supporting an unambiguous breach of human rights. Sure they might have a shit opinion, but being stripped of citizenship over opinions is anti-democratic and anti-humanist. This is exactly the kind of shit we hate Putin for but it's being cheered on in Ukraine cause it's being done by Our Guy. Surreal to see. >
  
  Have you tried reading the article? Ukraine doesn't allow double citizenship. They were found to have Russian citizenship. >
  
  Do you really think that they would do that if they wasn't pro russian? This is a pure political play, and this is just an excuse >
  
  Put it another way, do you really think it would be news if they weren't pro Russian? >
  
  lol @ the amount of propogandists in this thread, Russian nazis are really getting desperate >
  
  What if the US did this for imams that were pro iraq? >
  
  
  What if the US did this for imams against the Iraq war?
  
  ... Are you being sarcastic or do you honestly think that's equivalent to what's described in the article? >
  
  Well, if the US really wants to do this, they just need to fabricate evidences that those immigrants supported Al Qaeda with materials. It’s not like the average joe is going to care or even try to dig into the evidences to see if they’re false. Morality never stops the US from falsifying evidences to go to war. Why does arresting people for political reasons matter to them. 
  I’m not going to say Ukraine did that, because they’re obviously don’t want the West to question if supporting them is really correct. Just that governments around the world have always done shit like this in the name of greater good. >
  
  
  I’m not going to say Ukraine did that
  
  No you’re just going to imply it. >
  
  This is the right way to separate church and state.   
  The US also has evangelical ministers & pastors who actively proselytize sedition; wish our justice department had half a measure of Zelensky's balls to ship them to Russia. >
  
  The fuck does depriving people of citizenship without due process have to do with 'separation of church and state'? >
  
  It doesn't, but some people on this sub can't understand the nuance of this situation, they made their minds and for then ukraine can do no bad, and If they do it's excusable because war. >
  
  
  As reported by Ukrinform, the SBU raided a number of UOC (MP) dioceses in various regions of Ukraine.  Many clergymen were found to hold Russian citizenship, store pro-Russian propaganda literature and millions in cash.
  
  Ukraine does not allow dual citizenship. >
  
  
  Ukraine does not allow dual citizenship.
  
  And that's wrong.
  Freedom of association should be considered a fundamental human right. >
  
  Sure and I agree, but since that isn't the law in Ukraine then you shouldn't break it.
  You respect the laws of the country you're in. Do your best to give feedback and try to get them changed if possible, but at the end of the day you gotta respect the law. >
  
  
  You respect the laws of the country you're in.
  
  This is such a chickenshit excuse.
  Would you say the same thing about a woman in Iran, or anyone in North Korea? >
  
  It’s not like Ukraine is under some kind of existential threat from one of the largest armies in the world and has its citizens tortured, raped, killed by that army. And it’s not like Ukraine needs to protect itself from a network of that country’s spies which include people who got dual citizenship. It’s almost like this case is nothing like Iranian authoritarian laws meant to repress its citizens but rather on the contrary- a defense mechanism to protect the citizens from above mentioned tortures, rapes and murder. >
  
  Lol @ everyone tiptoeing around the realization Ukraine devolved to straight up fascism. >
  
  Consequences for actively supporting an invading force = fascism? >
  
  Not allowing other views or opinions = fascism. >
  
  Aiding a country you're at war with typically constitutes treason which is illegal in most places. >
  
  Man, whaaat. That's wild. >
  
  They had ruzki passports, so it's not like they're left stateless. >
  
  Good for Ukraine. The really sad thing is, if we were attacked by Russia tomorrow, and portion of Americans would be defending Putin over Biden. And call themselves Patriots. >
  
  I am not even American but am aware of several publicly vocal Republicans that support Putin. They made it about Republicans and if Republicans don't like it, they should call those people out or kick them out of the party. It's disgusting. >
  
  kick their asses to the curb >
  
  A few quick thoughts:
  
  Fuck Putin.  Let's start there.
  I'm gonna try as much as possible to apply this to any/all nations, and not simply Ukraine.  But it's fair to say few countries in modernity have faced what Ukraine is facing.  It's a very specialized case.
  In general, I am against stripping people of citizenship.  States who are claimed by citizens have a power of responsibility, both for their wellbeing and for their actions.  A non-citizen can't commit treason, for example.  So I view it as both unethical and counter-productive.
  This goes double without some kind of due process, which I confess I am far from having the knowledge of.  Did it happen?  I don't know.  The article uses the word "decree," which leads me to believe that the legal cases against them that are cited are still pending.
  The article uses the word "suspend," which might be different than the headline suggests.  I'd be much more on board with executive-issued suspensions, assuming they are within the laws of the host nation's parliament/constitution.
  
  That's me.  That's my thoughts.  Why did I write this?  I have no idea.  I guess it was just in my head. >
  
  According to the article all 13 had dual RU/Ukraine citizenship and were allegedly providing material support to Russia. These clergymen aren't stateless, they've just been denied Ukranian citizenship based on their actions and alleged treasonous activities. It's the Ukranian government's prerogative and interpretation of treasonous activity >
  
  When American shores were attacked we put the Japanese and Germans nationalists into camps. >
  
  Not nationalists. Japanese people put into concentration camps for being Japanese, not their political views. >
  
  Please strike 'of citizenship' >
  
  Fuckem >
  
  A well-built fifth column. >
  
  America needs to do this with the priests that are pro-pedophile >
  
  I've always wondered this. What happens if your country strips you of citizenship...and you simply don't belong to any country?? Where do you live? >
  
  If you are in a country with actual rule of law, they cannot deport you. So you just keep living there. If you're in a country that ignores it's laws when convenient then you get to be the ball in a pinball machine of deportations. >
  
  Good for zelensky and ukraine. FK THOSE PRO RUSSIAN A**E. AND FK RUSSA!!!! >
  
  yes yes good >
  
  Weird, when Israel declared stripping the citizenship of an Imam who was found guilty of inciting and conducting terror acts, there were riots and very loud UN condemnation, although that Imam had a Jordanian citizenship... >
  
  How brave of him, truly a man of the year... He should ban some more stuff for freedoms sake >
  
  Derussify Ukraine and Europe. >
  
  Aka ethnic cleansing >
  
  If some third world country or china does something similar to this Reddit will go batshit crazy. But since this is Ukraine and supported by daddy USA no issue at all. Double standards. >
  
  Yeah if an authoritarian regime did the same without civilians being massacred by an invading army it would be the same. /s
  I'm not even going to justify this comment with a list of reasons why it's idiotic. >
  
  Good for President Zelensky! >
  
  What is fascism? 
  Edit: Did you finally read the article? >
  
  the US should do the same to all the j6 maga traitors and fake church leaders across the country >
  
  This is why I don't believe in dual citizenship. Citizenship carries with it an implicit oath of loyalty, and you can't be ultimately loyal to several groups at once.