7,826 churches of the Moscow Patriarchate continue to operate in Ukraine. Most of them are in Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsia, and Zakarpattia regions. Only 934 religious communities have officially transferred to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in almost 4 years of full-scale war. This is reported by UNN with reference to Opendatabot data.
Details
Last year, a law came into force in Ukraine that banned the operation of religious institutions with ties to the Russian Federation. However, after a year, there are only 2 lawsuits against such religious institutions — and those are far from being resolved.
8,782 churches of the Moscow Patriarchate operated in Ukraine at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. In almost four years of war, 934 religious communities officially transferred to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Thus, there are currently 7,826 churches with ties to the aggressor country. At the same time, the OCU notes that it currently has about 9,000 religious communities under its jurisdiction.
Most often, religious institutions from Khmelnytskyi (205), Kyiv (196), and Vinnytsia (105) regions converted to the Ukrainian church. The peak of transfers occurred in 2023: then 386 communities changed jurisdiction. In 2024, there were already 191 such communities, and in 2025 — 157.
Most churches with a Russian trace are concentrated in Dnipropetrovsk (522), Vinnytsia (495), and Zakarpattia (487) regions. It is worth noting that currently only 18 religious institutions out of almost 8,000 openly show their ties. Last year there were more such communities, but 3 of them joined the OCU, and one, according to registry data, ceased its activities.
67 religious organizations with so-called "forced names", which the Ministry of Justice, in accordance with the law, provided in 2022, were counted in Ukraine at the end of 2022. The Unified State Register stated that the religious organization did not indicate its affiliation with the Moscow Patriarchate. Over time, some of these communities ceased their activities or changed their name, hiding their ties with the Russians. At the same time, only three of these organizations officially transferred to the OCU. Currently, there are 39 communities with a forced name, all of them concentrated in the Chernivtsi region.
Another 22 religious communities that concealed or did not declare ties with the MP ceased their activities or are in the process of termination voluntarily.
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine notes that the duration of the transition of religious organizations depends on the organization of the community and the time it takes to complete legal procedures. There are no clear timeframes, as some communities complete the procedure in a month, while others need six months or more.
It is worth noting that the transition of a church from one metropolis to another takes a long time, so the data in the Unified State Register may differ from the information "on the ground" and in the OCU.
Addition
On September 23, 2024, the Law of Ukraine "On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activity of Religious Organizations" came into force. It prohibits the activities of religious organizations on the territory of Ukraine that belong to or have signs of connection with the Moscow Patriarchate. The legislation clearly defines the signs by which such affiliation can be established, and also prescribes the procedure for its detection. A special commission received the right to apply to the court to terminate the activities of organizations for which these ties have been proven.
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