The media showed the empty St. Andrew's Church of the UOC in Cherkasy, which was seized by supporters of the OCU

On Sunday, June 15, 2025, when the Orthodox Church celebrates All Saints’ Day, representatives of the Cherkasy branch of the OCU held religious services in the seized St. Andrew’s Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Cherkasy. Judging by the photos published on the official social media accounts of the Cherkasy branch of the OCU, on Sunday, the seized St. Andrew’s Church of the UOC was practically empty. This was reported by “First Cossack.”

«The Cherkasy diocese of the OCU simply does not stop disgracing itself. It seems that our theory about the migratory urban activity of Epiphany’s structure is being confirmed. June 15, All Saints’ Day, is a great holiday for Orthodox Christians. And in the captured St. Andrew’s Archiepiscopal Court, there is emptiness. In addition to the clergy of the OCU, there are four other people in the occupied shrine. The local authorities and Epiphany’s raiders violated all possible laws and involved the security forces to take away the temple from the Cherkasy diocese of the UOC and thousands of Orthodox Christians. And here is the logical result — a disgraced, empty church,» — the comment to the photo says.

Earlier, we reported that the Cherkasy diocese of the OCU published a statement arguing its claims to the churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church within the Cherkasy diocese of the UOC, in particular, the Church of the Nativity of Christ and the Church of St. Andrew the First-Called in Cherkasy. The OCU claims that the communities of these churches allegedly voted independently to transfer to their structure, and that the head of the Cherkasy Diocese of the UOC, Metropolitan Theodosius (Snigirov), has no right to represent the canonical Church in the region, since he is not listed as its head in the Unified State Register of Organizations and Enterprises.