Opendatabot: More than 8,000 churches of the Moscow Patriarchate remain in Ukraine

There are still 8,097 churches in Ukraine that belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

This was reported by the digital service for the analysis of state data "Opendatabot".

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 8,782 churches of the Moscow Patriarchate were active in Ukraine. Of them, only 685 joined the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The peak of transitions took place in 2023, when 386 communities converted to the OCU. However, from December last year to April 2024, their number increased by only 96 churches.

The largest number of institutions that have changed their religious orientation is in Kyiv region — 164, as well as in Khmelnytskyi and Vinnytsia — 155 and 75, respectively.

Instead, 8,097 churches in Ukraine are still connected with the aggressor country. The largest number of such religious institutions in Donetsk region — 683 communities. Dnipropetrovsk and Vinnytsia regions are followed by 526 churches each.

At the same time, only 22 of them indicate affiliation to the Moscow Patriarchate in their name.

Another 42 churches located in the Chernivtsi region, the Ministry of Justice independently added names such as "the religious organization did not indicate affiliation to the Moscow Patriarchate."

• The UOC MP is a part of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which officially has the status of a "self-governing church with the rights of wide autonomy" in Ukraine. At the cathedral on May 27, the UOC MP declared its independence (made changes to the charter) and expressed disagreement with the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill, who supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but did not condemn him.
• The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience established that the decisions of the UOC MP "did not lead to the severance of church-canonical ties with the ROC" and the administration of the UOC MP "continues to be subordinate to the ROC."