Almost 300 parishes of the UOC continue to operate in Kherson region

About 300 religious communities affiliated with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church continue to operate in Kherson Region despite the entry into force of the law banning the activities of religious organizations affiliated with Russia in Ukraine. According to the Opendatabot monitoring service, these communities have been given a nine-month deadline to completely sever ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. This was reported by the regional publication Intent.

According to official data, 295 such religious communities are registered in the region. Their largest number is concentrated in Kherson and adjacent territorial communities (49), as well as in Beryslav (31), Novotroitsk (29), Kakhovsky (24) and Skadovsky (20) districts. The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine confirmed the information about the links of these communities with the Moscow Patriarchate.

In its turn, the local cell of the OCU expressed its readiness to accept communities that decide to break ties with the UOC into its membership, but on certain conditions. According to the representative of the OCU Theodore Orobets, negotiations are underway, but the synod will make the final decisions. He emphasized that «priests seen in cooperation with the country-aggressor will not be accepted».

Recall, earlier we reported that over the past eleven years the authorities of the Ternopil region re-registered about 50 religious communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the UOC-KP, and later to the OCU. Despite an active process in the past, local self-governments failed to implement such procedures over the past year.