UOC priest sentenced for preaching in church, Dnipropetrovsk region

According to the SBU, the UOC priest allegedly intended to send his sermons to the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Photo: SBU

At the end of September 2025, the Security Service of Ukraine detained a UOC priest in the Dnipropetrovsk region for sermons delivered during the Liturgy. According to law enforcement, the clergyman “praised the Rashists and called on Ukrainians to lay down their arms before the enemy.”

The SBU press release claimed that the priest recorded his sermons on video “to pass them on to Moscow Patriarch of the ROC Kirill (Gundyaev) in order to confirm his loyalty to the occupiers.”

The SBU did not specify why a UOC clergyman would need to “confirm” anything.

The press release also alleged that “the suspect distributed calls by Russian propagandists to seize Ukraine through Telegram channels.”

Despite the fact that no more than three weeks passed between his arrest and the publication of the SBU statement, the agency managed to conduct an investigation, draw up an indictment, transfer it to court, and the judges – to review the case and issue a verdict.

As a result, the priest was sentenced to three years of imprisonment with a one-year probation period.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the SBU disclosed how many UOC clergymen have been sentenced during the two years of the war.

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