Authorities forcibly transfer UOC church to OCU in Stadnyky

Officials arrive to transfer the UOC church to Dumenko's followers. Photo: UOC Press Service

On May 2, 2025, in the village of Stadnyky, Rivne region, an act of transfer was signed to hand over the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos from the UOC religious community to representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), according to the press service of the Rivne Eparchy of the UOC.

On that day, a commission from the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Rivne Regional Military Administration, headed by Yuriy Kalitynskyi, arrived at the church. The purpose of the visit was not to conduct an inventory, but to directly carry out the formal handover of the church building to the OCU.

“I saw today how the law was turned into lawlessness. Today our community – the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – was not just excluded from the paperwork, we were ignored altogether. As if we don’t even exist,” commented Archpriest Oleksandr Maksymyuk, dean of the Ostroh deanery of the UOC’s Rivne Eparchy.

After the procedure was completed, the keys to the church were handed over to local authorities, presumably for subsequent transfer to the OCU.

The event occurred in the context of a long-standing inter-confessional conflict in Stadnyky, ongoing since 2022. From 1988, services at the church were held by the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In 2022, the OCU registered its own religious organization and filed documents to claim the church building. The UOC community filed a lawsuit, and the matter of ownership was being addressed in court.

For three years, UOC parishioners conducted services in a small house located on church grounds. Meanwhile, the registered OCU community held services only sporadically.

“In my view, the actions carried out today in the church are reminiscent of those by Soviet-era officials, who would come into churches, remove the faithful and clergy, and then turn the buildings into museums or grain storage,” said Archpriest Vasyl Nachev, head of the legal department of the Rivne Eparchy of the UOC.

It will be recalled that OCU activists had been attempting to seize the church in Stadnyky for many years. As early as 2019, they staged a falsified meeting using people brought in from other villages and attempted to storm the church. After the war began in 2022, they launched a new assault which turned violent, resulting in the church being sealed. Since then, the UOC community conducted services outdoors, and later in a house located on the church grounds.

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