UOC retains its positions in Zaporizhzhya region

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church maintains a significant presence in the Zaporizhzhya region. Despite the full-scale invasion, none of its congregations in the region has filed documents to transfer to another church jurisdiction. This was reported by Inform.zp.ua.

According to the director of the department of culture, tourism, nationalities and religions of the Zaporizhzhya RSA, Alena Vlasova, a total of 384 religious organizations are registered in the region, of which 138 operate in the Ukrainian-controlled territory. On the territory of the region there are 162 religious buildings of the UOC, of which more than 50 are located in Zaporizhzhya. At the same time, Vlasova specified that more than half of the parishes of Zaporizhzhya and Berdyansk dioceses of the UOC were in the temporarily occupied territory.

Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhzhya and Melitopol stated that for all time only two priests have transferred from the UOC to the PCU. “For all the time of the existence of the structure supported by the authorities, I mean the artificially created structure called the PCU, only two priests left our Church. This happened even before the full-scale war”, – said the Metropolitan.

We shall remind you that earlier regional mass media reported information about the number of religious communities operating in the controlled territories of Donetsk Region. According to the published information, before the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in the region there were 1, 879 religious organizations, namely 1,805 religious communities, 23 religious centers, 13 monasteries, 1 Lavra, 26 missions, 1 brotherhood, 11 spiritual educational institutions.