Fr Ivan Levytsky 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.
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 Bohdan Heleta, 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. At that time, a video of Fr Levytsky’s interrogation was published online; there, the consequences of physical and mental exhaustion were visible in his appearance.
Rev. Bohdan Heleta said in an interview that Rev. Levytsky was arrested on 16 November 2022, when he was praying with parishioners near the I Love Berdyansk sign on Primorskaya Square. He was taken to a filtration camp in Berdyansk; he and Geleta spent there about four months. After that, the priests were transferred to no. 77 colony in Berdyansk, where they spent about five months. The priests were kept separately from each other for all nine months. With bags over their heads, they were kept in the basement of a transit point for three days. They were transferred to the Horlivka colony where POWs were held. The priests spent about ten months in this colony. There they were tortured, their hair was cut and shaved forcibly, and they were beaten almost daily. Levytsky was beaten twice until he lost consciousness. 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.
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, Bohdan Heleta. 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.
