Authorities open the doors of UOC Dormition Cathedral in Kaniv to OCU

Tochytskyi with Dumenko after the "interfaith prayer service." Photo: Tochytskyi’s Facebook

On May 22, 2025, the Ministry of Culture, represented by Minister Mykola Tochytskyi, transferred the St. George Cathedral in Kaniv to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Tochytskyi announced that Epifaniy Dumenko had held “the first large-scale nationwide interfaith prayer service” in the cathedral to mark what he called a historic step.

“The church where the Ukrainian people bid farewell to Taras Shevchenko 164 years ago is finally part of Ukraine’s spiritual space, freed from the parasitism of Moscow clerics. The cleansing of Ukrainian shrines is a priority that demands effective action,” the official declared.

It will be recalled that on August 10, 2024, the Dormition parish of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church held a meeting at which it confirmed its allegiance to the UOC and refused to join the OCU. In March 2024, the Commercial Court ordered the transfer of the UOC’s Dormition Cathedral in Kaniv to state ownership. In March 2025, the land beneath the cathedral was also transferred to the state. Former head of the Shevchenko National Reserve, Valentyna Kovalenko, commented that the UOC-MP had finally cleared out of the Dormition Cathedral.

The UOC community had been holding services in the Dormition Cathedral since 1990. After decades of Soviet-era devastation, parishioners restored the sanctuary with their own efforts and returned it to a state of beauty and reverence.

Read also