Fr Bohdan Heleta is a cleric of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Berdyansk, Zaporizhzhia; a member of the Redemptorist congregation, and priest of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He suffers from diabetes.
With the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and occupation of Berdyansk, he decided to stay in the city.
On 16 November 2022, communication with him and another Redemptorist priest, Fr Ivan Levytsky, was lost. On the following day, it became known about their detention by Russian special services. On 23 November 2022, Russian media began to report that the Russian Guard allegedly found weapons and explosives on the territory of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and in the cellar of the priests’ house.
Heleta said in an interview that he was arrested on 16 November 2022. He was detained by the military in the church after the proskomedia when he was about to celebrate the liturgy. He was forced to take off his vestments and taken to a filtration camp in Berdyansk. There, Heleta and Rev. Ivan Levytsky spent about four months. After that, the priests were transferred to colony no. 77 in Berdyansk where they spent about five months. An audio speaker plating Soviet songs non-stop was attached to the priest’s cell. For all nine months, the priests were kept separate from each other. For three days they were held with bags on their heads in the basement of the transit point, and then transferred to the Horlivka colony, where prisoners of war were held. The priests spent about ten months there. They were tortured, their hair was cut and shaved forcibly, and they were beaten almost daily. The Horlivka colony was disbanded and the priests were transferred to the Kyrov colony in the DPR. On 3 May 2024, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation Tatyana Moskalkova visited the priests in the colony; preparations for the exchange followed.
He was in captivity, his whereabouts were unknown. On 28 June 2024, through the mediation of the Vatican, he was released from captivity along with another priest, Ivan Levytsky. They were exchanged for the Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Ionafan (Eletskykh) or for one of Ukrainian priests, condemened in Ukraine — Mykolay Zakroyets and Oleksandr Lunehov.
