In the Russian-occupied territories of four regions of Ukraine, the number of religious communities has more than halved - from 1967 to 902 organizations.
This is reported by Radio Liberty, citing a study by the Novaya Gazeta Europe.
As stated in the publication, organizations that are not subject to the Moscow Patriarchate have suffered the most. For instance, the number of the UOC-MP parishes, which were later incorporated into the ROC, decreased by 1.4 times, and the number of Protestant communities - by 3.6 times.
The parishes of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (which is independent of the ROC) and the Catholic Church were completely destroyed. There is only one of the 15 parishes of the Roman Catholic Church left, while none of the 49 parishes of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church remained.
In most cases, pressure exerted on religious communities has no legal basis, and religious leaders are subjected to violence and repression, journalists emphasize. Church buildings are seized by representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church or the occupation authorities. The church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Mariupol was appropriated by the ROC, a church of the OCU in the Novoazovsk district was turned into a morgue, and a Protestant church in Melitopol is used as a concert hall for Russian military personnel.