A court in Cherkasy recognized the OCU’s ownership of the St. Michael’s Cathedral of the UOC

The Commercial Court of Cherkasy Oblast ruled to transfer St. Michael’s Cathedral and the entire church complex to the ownership of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). The property, with a total area of more than 5,000 square meters and including the diocesan administration building, an orphanage, and other structures, was deemed an “unauthorized construction,” which allowed it to be transferred to the OCU community as the lawful user of the land.

According to the court registry, Judge Oleg Chevguz granted the claim in the absence of representatives from the OCU and the city council. Notably, the court denied the actual owner and builder of the complex—the Administration of the Cherkasy Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)—as well as more than 700 parishioners, permission to participate in the proceedings. The court justified this by stating that their rights were allegedly “not violated” by the transfer of the property to the OCU.

According to the case file, the Mikhailovsky Cathedral was built by the entire Cherkasy Diocese of the UOC over the course of 24 years under the leadership of the late Metropolitan Sofroniy. The diocese’s title to the property was registered in 2018; however, in March 2024, the Ministry of Justice revoked that registration. Following this, city authorities declared the cathedral an “ownerless unauthorized structure” and re-registered the land in the name of an OCU entity.

As a reminder, earlier, Metropolitan Theodosius of Cherkasy and Kaniv revealed details of a multi-pronged strategy which, he claims, is being used by city authorities and representatives of the OCU to legally secure rights to the seized Archangel Michael Cathedral. The hierarch emphasized that all actions by the authorities are aimed at legalizing the forcible seizure of the cathedral through the courts.