“Epiphany just blinks his eyes”: Popular Ukrainian media outlet publishes article criticizing the OCU

The popular Ukrainian publication Glavkom published a critical article in which the author described the difficult situation of the OCU. The publication points to the main problems of the organization, including internal conflicts, the inability to establish dialogue with Orthodox Ukrainians, a sharp personnel crisis, and others. The author of the article names the head of the OCU, Epiphany Dumenko, as the main culprit for this state of affairs, as he has been unable to form a “church” in seven years that could support state policy and unite all Orthodox Ukrainians under its umbrella. The article is published on the Glavkom website.

The article notes that despite the state’s support for the OCU, the organization is still unable to surpass its direct competitor, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Even when Ukrainian special services join in putting pressure on the UOC, it does little to promote the development of the Ukrainian schism, as reflected in the low level of “transfers” of religious communities from the UOC to the OCU. In addition, the personnel crisis has become a serious test for the OCU, as the expectation that UOC priests would begin to defect en masse to the schism has not been fulfilled.

“The head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk, regularly reports on the fight against ‘agents in cassocks,’ while at the local level, officials and representatives of the special services openly complain that churches that have remained after the UOC-MP since the de-occupation or exposure of clergy working for the enemy often remain simply unmanaged. A striking example is the Kharkiv region. Why is this so? The explanation is trivial: the OCU chronically lacks priests (at the end of 2024, there were just over 4,500 priests for 8,300 parishes). The OCU leadership also complains about problems with insufficient funding,” – the article notes.

In addition, the article points out that the so-called transitions from the UOC to the OCU often occur with serious conflicts, and the churches taken away from the UOC are left unmanaged and empty.

“The process of changing the ownership of temples and churches has been and remains conflictual: clergy and ordinary supporters of the UOC-MP refused to recognize the decisions of the communities and tried to prevent the transfers – either through lawsuits, or with fists and improvised means. Subsequently, the transition process slowed down, but such confrontations flare up from time to time to this day. […] If the state forces the UOC-MP to vacate churches en masse and priests refuse to transfer to the OCU, the problem of staff shortages will only deepen. This is especially noticeable in regions where the Ukrainian Orthodox Church still lags behind its Russian-backed competitors in popularity. Let’s be honest: even Russian aggression has not significantly reduced the flock of the UOC-MP in many regions. In addition, religious life in the east and south is complicated by the proximity to the line of hostilities,” – the author of the publication notes.