Frontman of Odessa rock band ‘Hatespeech’ Dmitry Odnorozhenko reportedly made the call during the nation’s largest music festival
Ukrainian Hatespeech rock band’s lead singer has called for violence against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and against all Christian priests, according to a video shared on Wednesday by People’s Deputy of Ukraine Artyom Dmytruk.
The rock band was formed in April 2022 in the wake of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. It was repeatedly blocked on social platforms TikTok and Instagram, and their song ‘Satan’s Children’ was removed from YouTube.
“Nothing unusual…” Dmytruk wrote on Telegram captioning the recording. “It’s just the frontman of the Odessa music group Hatespeech Dmitry Odnorozhenko at the largest festival of Ukraine calling for the killing of priests,” he wrote.
In the footage Odnorozhenko could be seen on the stage in front of a cheering crowd exclaiming: “F*** the Ukrainian Orthodox Church! F*** Russian priests! These FSB bastards are worth the f***.”
He further claims: “They don’t give us back the Azov people [neo-Nazi Azov Regiment], they don’t give us back our elite, our stormtroopers, marines.”
“Even if they are not an exchange fund [of POWs], these f***ing pests will at least sit in the basements, and not in their temples surrendering positions of the military. You need to take it into your own hands and publicly, at your level, shake this shit.”
The video was apparently recorded during Ukraine’s largest music festival Atlas Weekend Festival, which kicked off on Sunday in Kiev.
Authorities in Ukraine have launched massive persecution of the UOC despite calls to ensure fundamental human rights.
On Wednesday, the head of the humanitarian committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Nikita Poturaev, announced that the next session of the parliament will start with the second reading of the bill that would close down the canonical UOC.
In October 2023, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a bill on the banning of the UOC in the first reading. The government has moved to restrict the church’s activity since the conflict with Russia began in 2022.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has reportedly opened dozens of criminal cases against UOC priests, has sanctioned clerics, and stripped dozens of bishops of their Ukrainian citizenship. Church property has been seized, and monks evicted from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, an ancient monastery and the most prominent Orthodox site in Ukraine.
The UOC has deep historical ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which it renounced following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. Despite declaring autonomy from the ROC, Vladimir Zelensky has accused the UOC of functioning as an “agent of Moscow,” and promoted the government-created Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) as its replacement.
A non-canonical organization, the OCU was established by the government of President Pyotr Poroshenko after the US-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014.
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