"Once Again Without the UOC": Ukraine's State Service for Ethnopolitics Has Updated the List of Critically Important Religious Organizations

On September 9, 2026, the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) approved an updated list of religious organizations recognized as critically important to the country’s economy. According to information published on the DESS’s official website, the list includes 11,220 legal entities.

According to a source cited by , the updated list was compiled based on current data from the Ministry of Justice and the State Tax Service of Ukraine. The main reasons for the exclusion of a number of organizations from the list were the failure to submit or non-compliance with the procedure for filing the annual income report for nonprofit organizations for 2025, as well as discrepancies in the data regarding registration dates in the Unified State Register.

The highest concentration of organizations that retained their status is observed in the Lviv (1,770), Ternopil (1,104), and Ivano-Frankivsk (942) regions. The agency emphasized that an organization’s absence from the new list results in the automatic cancellation of registration for its clergy.

Leaders of religious organizations whose staff members have a valid deferment through October 9, 2026, are advised to submit documents for its renewal without delay so that the agency’s specialists can process the requests within the established deadlines.

As a reminder, Viktor Yelensky, head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, previously stated officially that his agency does not grant exemptions from mobilization to clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).