Representatives of the OCU and UGCC jointly “consecrate” a site for the construction of a new church in Kyiv

On June 8, 2025, at the Omega Special Training Center in Kyiv, representatives of the OCU and the UGCC jointly “consecrated” a site for the construction of a new church in honor of the Ascension of the Lord. The OCU side was represented by the notorious representatives of the organization – Alexander Drabinko and Ivan Yaremenko, and the UGCC was represented by “chaplains”. This is reported on the official website of the Department of Military Chaplaincy of the UGCC.

It is reported that the event was attended by the head of the Omega Center, Major General Pavlo Yatsyuk, the heads of the Omega Center, OCU hierarchs Oleksandr Drabynko and Ivan Yaremenko, Deputy Head of the Department of Military Chaplaincy of the Patriarchal Curia of the UGCC Oleh Ladniuk and military chaplains. In his turn, Drabynko handed over to the Center an icon with parts of the holy relics of St. George the Victorious and St. Demetrius of Thessalonica.

Earlier, we reported on the acute shortage of military chaplains in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which leads to the fact that candidates for vacant positions are sought through job search sites. For example, the well-known Ukrainian platform Work.ua has 51 chaplaincy vacancies with salaries ranging from 15 to 100 thousand hryvnias. One of the few conditions is that you do not belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.