A court has sentenced a hierarch of the OCU for trading his ecclesiastical office to evade mobilization

The Kalush City District Court in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast has handed down a verdict in the case involving a corruption scheme within the OCU. It is reported that OCU hierarch Kirill Mykhailiuk was found guilty of organizing the mass sale of forged ordination documents, which allowed citizens subject to military service to evade mobilization.

During the trial, it was established that between June 2023 and November 2025, the defendant issued fake ordination certificates to 291 people. The cost of the “rank” of deacon ranged from $1,000 to $2,000. To legitimize the forgeries, the documents were printed at a private printing house, and false announcements about the ordinations were retroactively posted on the diocese’s website.

The scheme was particularly brazen: Mykhailiuk personally visited the TCC to confirm the “authenticity” of his protégés’ documents, charging an additional fee for this service. Furthermore, the defendant attempted to secure “critically important organization” status for his entities in order to ensure that 291 “clergymen” were officially exempted from military conscription.

The court sentenced Mykhailiuk to five years in prison; however, taking into account the defendant’s sincere repentance, his disability, and the contributions he made to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, it imposed a three-year suspended sentence.

As a reminder, on November 13, 2025, the Synod of the OCU decided to temporarily remove Kirill Mykhailiuk from the administration of the Uzhhorod-Khust Diocese. The reason was allegations of unlawfully obstructing mobilization during martial law. Temporary administration of the diocese has been entrusted to the head of the OCU, Epiphanius Dumenko, and a special commission has been established to investigate the circumstances of the case.