Lviv court rejects Protestant pastor's request to serve unarmed on religious grounds

The Lviv District Administrative Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by a pastor of a Protestant community from the city of Stryi, who requested to change the conditions of mobilization and to perform military service without carrying and using weapons, citing religious beliefs. The court concluded that the current legislation does not provide for such a possibility for persons called up under mobilization under martial law.

According to the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, the court order was issued on January 19, 2026 and published in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions on January 22 of the same year. The clergyman of the religious organization Religious Community of the Christian Church «Good News» was mobilized in June 2025 to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine as part of the draft to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

After mobilization, the pastor was appointed to a position which, by its terms, provides for the carrying and use of firearms. In this regard, he appealed to the judicial authorities, demanding a change in the conditions of service, emphasizing that the church canons and his personal religious beliefs forbid him to take up arms.

However, having considered the arguments presented by the plaintiff, the court ruled that the current legislation did not contain provisions that would allow alternative (non-military) service or service without weapons for citizens mobilized under martial law. Thus, the court refused to satisfy the stated requirements of the pastor.

We will remind, earlier we reported that the Supreme Court of Ukraine adopted a legal decision, according to which religious beliefs are not grounds for exemption from military service on mobilization and do not abolish criminal liability for evasion. This position was expressed by the Joint Chamber of the Cassation Criminal Court, stressing that the legislation does not provide for exemptions from military mobilization duty on the basis of religion.