State Ethnic Policy tells how many UOC parishes were re-registered to OCU in 2024

The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (SSEPFC) reported the number of parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that the state managed to “transfer” to the OCU in 2024. It is reported that the number of UOC communities re-registered in 2024 is half as many as in 2023. This was reported by the State Emergency Service in response to an information request from Interfax-Ukraine.

According to the response of the SSEPFC to the request of Interfax-Ukraine, since 2018, when the OCU was created, two religious communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were re-registered in favor of the OCU in 2018; in 2019 – 319 communities; in 2020 – 30; in 2021 – 25; in 2022 – 496; in 2023 – 471; in 2024 (as of December 23) – 218 communities. In addition, according to the SSEPFC, the state has no data on how many UOC communities have gone through the process of self-liquidation.

As reported, on November 7-8, 2024, an international seminar on “Protection of Freedom of Conscience and the Rights of National Minorities (Communities) in the Context of the Start of Negotiations on Ukraine’s Accession to the EU” was held in Kyiv. The event was organized by the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience. The seminar addressed various issues of church-state relations, in the context of which the “Law on the Prohibition of the UOC” was also considered. The head of the SSEPFC, Viktor Yelenskyy, reiterated that the law is not aimed at banning the UOC, but is intended to force the Church to break ties with the Moscow Patriarchate.