In July 2024, reports appeared on social networks and the media that a Ukrainian clergyman asked his flock to light candles for the repose of the soul of a US presidential candidate, because he had “succumbed to the temptation of evil.” We checked the reality of this story.
Publications about such a call by a priest of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) appeared on RuNet on July 19. For example, Telegram channel "Ukraine.ru“(315,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) reported: “A Ukrainian “priest” from the schismatic “church” of the OCU called on the flock to light candles for the repose of Donald Trump. According to him, the potential US president “entered into an agreement with evil” and there is no other way to help Trump realize his mistake (apparently, we are talking about refusing to support Ukraine without any conditions) other than “God’s judgment.” Of course, the Satanist’s flock from the OCU joyfully ran to do what he proposed. If anything, according to Orthodox canons, lighting a candle for the repose of a living person for evil reasons is a grave sin, so we do not envy those who lit it.” The post cited several screenshots from Instagram as evidence. July 21 “Ukraina.ru” repeated publication with similar text (114,000 views). The next day on the TV presenter's channel Ruslana Ostashko (103,000 views) added that the priest’s name is Father Nazariy, and provided his alleged quote: “His (Trump’s) reluctance to help Ukraine in the righteous fight against the forces of evil, to help us, Ukrainians, speaks of the demonic evil living in the heart of this vicious man.”
In total, according to TGStat, at the time of writing this analysis, about 170 similar posts appeared on Telegram, with a total of over 1.6 million views. For example, the channels “Uncle Slava"(178,000 views), Voblya (134,000) and "TV Center | TVC"(34,000). Similar publications can be found on VKontakte (examples here, here And here), social network X (here, here And here) and “Zene”, where about this wrote TV presenter Yuri Kot, as well as on the websites of the newspaper “Arguments and facts", "Union of Orthodox Journalists"(SPZh), "Podolyak", "Political analytics" And Newsland.
None of the publications mentioned above provide links to Father Nazariy’s Instagram account (according to his profile photo, he is from the city of Glukhov) or to his original publications. Of the evidence, there are only four screenshots, and two of them show the same post about Trump, which allegedly received 6,742 likes and 92 comments. The text of the publication from a user with the username @otec_nazarij reads:
“I call on all parishioners of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine to come to churches to light candles for the repose of the lost soul of @realdonaldtrump, who succumbed to the temptation of evil and entered into a conspiracy with evil. There is no other way, except the judgment of the Lord, to admonish him and bring him to an understanding of the great evil that he did during his life, conspiring with the viceroy of the enemy of the Lord and man. His reluctance to help Ukraine in the righteous fight against the forces of evil, to help us, Ukrainians, speaks of the demonic evil living in the heart of this vicious man.”
The other two images are screenshots of stories from @otec_nazarij, who allegedly reposted the posts of two other users. So, @ma_elena94ua published a photo from the church and wrote: “My mom and I came to light candles for Trump’s repose.” “Candle for Trump’s repose (it’s good that he’s at home :P) RIP @realdonaldtrump (rest in peace, Donald Trump. - Ed.),” reads the post from @ua.trepelez_l.
At the time of writing this analysis, the profile @otec_nazarij is not available on Instagram and “Verified” cannot reliably confirm that such posts existed on this page. “You may have used an invalid link or the page has been deleted,” the platform says. No archived copies of the profile could be found. The same goes for users @ma_elena94ua And @ua.trepelez_l.
Fact checkers from the StopFake project managed to study all three pages while they were still functioning. Our colleagues reportthat the account of Father Nazarius captured in the screenshots and the pages of both of his parishioners were private, that is, only subscribers could view the publications. At the same time, they had a suspiciously large number of readers, writes StopFake, suggesting that they were bots. Moreover, each of the profiles changed their username between three and six times. It is likely that they are now unavailable due to another username change.
In addition, one of the photos allegedly from a subscriber of Father Nazariy was found by “Verified” on website stock photos istockphoto.com. According to the description, the image appeared on the platform back in 2020. The photo of the girl in an unnamed Orthodox church in Romania was taken by photographer Radu Bigian.
In the city of Glukhov, Sumy region, chaplain and volunteer Nazariy Kovalev actually lives. on his Facebook page Instagram profile is also indicated - @nazariikovalov, where there are no calls to light candles for the repose of the former US President. Moreover, on July 20 in their accounts in both social networks the priest called such messages about Trump fake and called on law enforcement agencies to “take measures to neutralize Russian agents in the information space of Ukraine.”
Dear brothers and sisters! I, Kovalev Nazariy Viktorovich, am the dean of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in the city of Glukhov.
<…>
He repeatedly experienced pressure on his activities due to defending the positions of the Ukrainian Church both from the authorities in Glukhov and from Russian agents - the Moscow Church. Today I learned that, hiding behind my name, they created an Instagram account where I supposedly call for lighting candles for Trump’s repose - this is a lie! I consider this to be deliberate actions of the enemies of Ukraine, directed against Ukraine, the Ukrainian Church and me personally. Therefore, be careful and visit only the official pages listed below.
<…>
Consider other pages and accounts to be fraudulent and fake.
July 22 Kovalev called his followers to leave complaints about the fake Instagram page and attached an additional screenshot of the @otec_nazarij profile. According to the image, the fake father Nazariy had almost 3,200 followers.
The earliest publication with fake screenshots that “Verified” was able to find appeared on July 19 at 16:05 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Sheikh Tamir"(130,000 views). Our regular readers are already familiar with this channel, since it mentioned in more than 160 analyzes of misinformation posted on the site and has repeatedly become the primary source of fakes.
Thus, the Ukrainian clergyman did not call on his parishioners to light candles for the repose of the living Trump. Unknown people created a fake Instagram profile of a real-life chaplain, who denied his involvement in the viral screenshots on his real pages on social networks.
Cover photo: social media / Radu Bighian (iStock)
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