Khmelnytskyi Eparchy refutes report on "transition" of 300 parishes to OCU

Archbishop Victor (Kotsaba) celebrated the liturgy in St. Michael's parish in the village of Stufchyntsi in the premises repurposed for the church on February 17, 2024. Photo: Khmelnytskyi Eparchy

On April 5, 2024, Inna Mykhailova, the Director of the Department of Information Activities, Culture, and Religions of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Military Administration, claimed at a briefing that nearly 300 religious communities had left the jurisdiction of the "UOC-MP" in the Khmelnytskyi region since the full-scale war. The Khmelnytskyi Eparchy officially stated that this information does not correspond to reality.

The press service of the eparchy, one of the three eparchies of the UOC in the Khmelnytskyi region, reported that since February 2022, "voluntary transitions of UOC parishes to the jurisdiction of the OCU have taken place, but they are counted not in hundreds, but in several dozen."

At the same time, the statement noted that over the past two years, 93 UOC churches in the Khmelnytskyi Eparchy had been illegally seized, with religious organizations illegally re-registered in favor of the OCU.

It is reported that 60 of them continue to operate today and continue their usual church life in premises adapted for worship.

"Moreover, this trend has a positive dynamic, so the number of repurposed premises will continue to grow at the request of the believers of the Khmelnytskyi Eparchy of the UOC, although they have temporarily lost the churches they built," the Khmelnytskyi Eparchy added.

It is underscored that the faithful wish to remain under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy.

As the UOJ reported, the Khmelnytsky Regional State Administration reported that they had "transferred" 300 UOC parishes to the OCU.

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