Expert: Half of churches destroyed by shelling in Ukraine belong to UOC

Destroyed St Michael's Church in Kamyshevakha, Zaporizhzhia region. Photo: ukrinform.ua

The head of the Religion on Fire project, Ruslan Khalikov, said during a press conference at Ukrinform that 530 religious buildings, half of which are churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, have been damaged in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion.

According to him, as a result of the hostilities, both Christian and Muslim, as well as Jewish religious structures, were damaged.

Khalikov noted that more than 100 churches came under fire in the Donetsk region, more than 80 – in the Kyiv region, more than 60 – in Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, more than 55 in the Kherson region, more than 30 – in the Zaporizhzhia region, and dozens of religious buildings were damaged in Sumy, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Information about the dead priests and destroyed churches as a result of hostilities was previously published by the Synod of the UOC. According to this information, since 24 February 2022, 119 churches and prayer rooms have been destroyed by shelling, and another 329 churches have been damaged. In addition, 30 monasteries of the UOC have been destroyed or significantly damaged since the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation.

As reported, in 2023, the UOC donated more than 88 million hryvnias to the AFU and war victims

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