People's Movement of Ukraine demands immediate UOC ban

The symbols of the political party "People's Movement of Ukraine," which issued a statement calling for UOC ban. Photo: narodnyirukh.org

On August 7, 2025, the political party "People's Movement of Ukraine" ("Rukh") issued a statement demanding the immediate ban on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The document was published on the website of the Mukachevo-Carpathian Eparchy of the OCU.

The authors of the appeal believe that the UOC allegedly did not comply with the requirements of the law "On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Activities of Religious Organizations," adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in August 2023. Recall that the document provided a 9-month period for breaking ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. According to the authors of the statement, such steps were allegedly not taken, which they considered as grounds for banning the UOC.

Also, "Rukh" stated that, in their opinion, there should be only one Local Church in Ukraine - the OCU. From this position came the call to the authorities to complete the process of liquidating the UOC as a religious organization.

The party expressed dissatisfaction with the "lack of decisive actions" from state structures and demanded immediate intervention by the authorities in the religious sphere. According to them, this is especially important "in wartime conditions".

It should be noted that despite pressure from the authorities and constant attempts to restrict its activities, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church continues to remain the most numerous religious organization in Ukraine in terms of the number of religious communities and supporters. Even in Kyiv, the number of UOC churches is twice that of the OCU.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the leader of the "Right Sector", Dmytro Yarosh, called on Facebook for the complete destruction of the UOC.

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