DESS approves draft exemptions for clergy – UOC not on the list

Victor Yelensky. Photo: Facebook of DESS

The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) has approved the final list of legal entities – religious organizations that are "considered critically important for the functioning of the economy and ensuring the livelihood of the population during a special period". The corresponding order is published on the DESS's official website.

In fact, this is a list of religious organizations whose clergy will be exempted from military service and will not be sent to the front as soldiers.

The publication states that DESS employees initially identified 30,148 religious organizations registered no later than December 26, 2024.

Automatically excluding terminated religious organizations, as well as those registered in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, DESS sent a list of 26,717 organizations to the State Tax Service for verification of tax requirements.

After the State Tax Service's verification for compliance with tax requirements (inclusion in the Register of Non-Profit Institutions and submission of reports on the use of income), 16,948 organizations remained.

The key point in forming the list was the application of the so-called "renaming law" from December 20, 2018, No. 2662-VIII. It was under this requirement that the UOC communities fell, which did not change their names according to the law requiring the exclusion of mentions of affiliation with the ROC (which were not initially in their documents). Thus, thousands of UOC parishes were automatically excluded from the list of critically important organizations.

Simultaneously, DESS notes that a separate investigation continues regarding the presence of signs of affiliation of UOC religious organizations with the ROC, starting with the Kyiv Metropolis.

In fact, this means double pressure on the UOC: first exclusion due to non-compliance with the "renaming law", and then additional verification for affiliation with the ROC. As a result, UOC clergy are deprived of the right to reservation from mobilization, while representatives of other denominations received such a right.

The total number of religious organizations whose employees will be granted exemption is 7,726. The number of excluded UOC religious structures is 9,222.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that Yelensky told the UCCRO about the reservation of clergy.

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