In Kyiv, only 4 parishes of the UOC transferred to the OCU

In the period from 2022 to 2025, only three religious communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Kyiv were re-registered to the OCU. The low dynamics of transitions from the UOC to the OCU in the capital is observed despite the relevant decision of the Kyiv City Council to ban the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the city. This was reported in an interview with Glavkom by the head of the Kyiv City Council’s Standing Committee on Culture, Tourism and Information Policy, Victoria Mukha.

“The expert commission of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience is authorized to inspect religious organizations. The Department of Culture of the city registers changes to the charters of religious organizations, in particular, in the case of voluntary transitions. Over the three years of the full-scale invasion, only four religious communities in Kyiv have changed their canonical affiliation and moved from the UOC (MP) to the OCU. All of these transitions took place in 2023. As of today, there are no known new transitions of communities that would take place in 2024, in particular after the adoption of the law,” — Mukha said.

The official added that in general, despite the adoption of anti-church laws and regulations, there are still 313 religious communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Kyiv, which is an order of magnitude more than the OCU.

“To date, in the context of the aforementioned law, out of about 1,300 religious associations and organizations in the capital, 313 of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which removed the prefix “Moscow Patriarchate”, including 267 communities, 14 monasteries and three higher religious educational institutions, continue to operate. For comparison, these figures are lower for the OCU — 241 organizations, including 192 communities, 10 monasteries and three higher religious educational institutions,” — she said.

As we reported earlier, since the beginning of 2025, 16 communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been re-registered in favor of the OCU in the Chernivtsi region. The Chernivtsi Regional State Administration noted that since 2025, all requests for registration of the new version of the statutes of religious organizations have been satisfied.