State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience announced the number of communities that joined the OCU in 2024
According to the SEFC (responding to a request from Interfax-Ukraine), since 2018, when the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was established, the subordination in canonical and organizational matters to the religious centers (administrations) of the OCU has changed - two religious communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate; in 2019 - 319 communities; in 2020 - 30; in 2021 - 25; in 2022 - 496; in 2023 - 471; in 2024 (as of December 23) - 218 communities.
At the same time, the Ministry noted that it does not have information on the number of liquidated religious organizations of the UOC-MP.
As reported previously, on August 21, the head of the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, Viktor Yelensky, stated that if the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), Metropolitan Onufriy, approached him and expressed a desire to join the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, he would offer a fair way to do so.
On August 20, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the bill prohibiting the activities of religious organizations affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine (No. 8371 “On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Field of Religious Organizations”).
