The DESS initiated the dissolution of the Synodal Department for Family Affairs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) filed a lawsuit with the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeals seeking to compel the “Mission of the Synodal Department for Family Affairs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church” to cease its activities. The authorities are also demanding the confiscation of this religious organization’s property and financial assets in favor of the state.

According to , based on case materials No. 855/12/26—for which a ruling was issued on September 22, 2026—officials are seeking the dissolution of the legal entity registered in Kyiv. The claims include the seizure of real estate and funds—with the exception of properties designated as religious property—and their subsequent transfer to the state budget.

As the formal basis for the lawsuit, representatives of the DESS cite paragraph 5 of part one of Article 16 of the Law of Ukraine “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations.” This provision allows for the dissolution of a religious organization through judicial proceedings if its authorized representatives have been convicted of committing offenses against the foundations of the country’s national security.

Currently, a panel of judges chaired by Serhiy Zlatyn has opened proceedings in the case under a simplified procedure. The next court hearing, at which the parties will be summoned, is scheduled for October 9, 2026. It was previously reported that the DESS’s initiatives regarding the activities of UOC structures have repeatedly been the subject of criticism from church leadership.

It is worth noting that the aforementioned Synodal Department was long headed by Metropolitan Panteleimon (Povoroznyuk) of Luhansk and Alchevsk, a hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In 2022, after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the hierarch announced that he was placing himself under the direct authority of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, and that the diocese he headed was joining the Russian Orthodox Church.

Later, on June 18, 2025, the Desnyansky District Court of Chernihiv found Metropolitan Panteleimon of Luhansk and Alchevsk, head of the UOC’s Synodal Department for Family Affairs, guilty of “committing a series of criminal offenses.” The court sentenced him in absentia to 11 years of imprisonment and also banned him from holding any positions in religious organizations for a period of 13 years.