Fve communities “transferred” to OCU in Poltava region in 2005, – DESS

Metropolitan Philip prays with the persecuted UOC parish in the village of Shyshaky. Photo: Poltava Eparchy

As of November 2025, five religious communities and several priests have “transferred” from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the OCU in the Poltava region. This was reported by the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) in response to an inquiry from Suspilne.

The publication notes that the region still has no fewer than 100–200 UOC parishes.

According to the DESS, “in 2024, only three religious communities and several priests changed their jurisdiction, and in 2025 – five communities and some priests.”

“Metropolitan” Fedir of Poltava and Kremenchuk of the OCU in turn stated that during the first two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, 14 UOC religious communities and six clergy in the Poltava region transferred to the OCU.

As the UOJ reported, MP Kniazhytsky earlier complained that “very few” UOC communities had transferred to the OCU.

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