SSEFC tells how many UOC communities the state has managed to transfer to OCU since the beginning of the war

The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience has published updated data on how many communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church the state managed to re-register in favor of the OCU. According to the published information, 1123 religious communities “changed” their jurisdictional affiliation, and most of the “transitions” from the UOC to the OCU took place in the western regions of Ukraine. This is reported by Babel.

Thus, from February 24, 2022, to September 1, 2024, 279 religious communities were “transferred” from the UOC to the OCU in the Khmelnytsky region, 271 in the Kyiv region, 119 in the Vinnytsia region, and 76 in the Volyn and Cherkasy regions. In Zakarpattia, Kharkiv, and Kyiv, only four religious communities changed their denominational affiliation. Three in Ivano-Frankivsk region and only two in Dnipropetrovs’k region. In Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk regions, no religious community has changed its subordination to the UOC. At the same time, as of January 1, 2024, there were 10,919 religious organizations of the UOC in Ukraine. Of these, there were 10,586 religious communities, 51 religious centers, 214 monasteries, 34 religious fraternities, 17 missionary societies (missions), and 17 theological educational institutions.

We recently reported that a new opinion poll conducted by the Institute of Social and Political Psychology of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences in conjunction with the Association of Political Psychologists of Ukraine indicated that supporters of the UGCC and the OCU were most interested in banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.