Khmelnytskyi Eparchy declares assembly on transfer in Kuzmyn illegal

Meeting on the transfer of the UOC church in Kuzmyn. December 21, 2025 Photo: FB page of the Khmelnytskyi Eparchy of the OCU

On December 21, 2025, in the village of Kuzmyn of Khmelnytskyi District, a meeting was held in the local House of Culture concerning the transfer of the UOC Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. This was reported by the press service of the Khmelnytskyi Eparchy of the UOC on its Telegram channel.

According to the eparchy, the main initiators of the meeting – Anatolii Mykhailiuk, head of the board of the agricultural cooperative “Kuzmynskyi,” and his son Oleksandr Mykhailiuk – brought in people from other localities. Most of those brought in were employees of the “Kuzminskyi” cooperative.

Deputy of the Khmelnytskyi District Council Oleksandr Cherniievych and the “head of the initiative group,” Bohdan Biliavets, assumed the powers of a religious community with the aim of transferring the church to the OCU. The eparchy recalls that Cherniievych had previously organized a provocation near St. Nicholas Cathedral in Khmelnytskyi and was involved in mass seizures of UOC churches in the region – in Medzhybizh, Zahontsi, Novokostiantyniv, Pylypy, and other localities. As early as the summer of 2022, Cherniievych publicly stated that he had transferred 16 UOC churches to the OCU within a single month.

The eparchy’s statement stresses that these actions contradict Article 8 of the Law of Ukraine “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations,” which stipulates that a general meeting of a religious community may be convened only by its own members.

The rector of the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in Kuzmin, Archpriest Heorhii Sikaliuk, as well as the parishioners, did not take part in the meeting.

For this reason, the eparchy states that any possible re-registration of the religious community’s statute on the basis of such a fictitious meeting would be unlawful. The actions of the organizers, according to the statement, violate Part 2 of Article 19, as well as Articles 11, 35, and 140 of the Constitution of Ukraine, and the provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations.”

Representatives of the eparchy add that, due to what they describe as gross interference in the internal affairs of the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in Kuzmin, the parishioners intend to use all lawful means at the national level and, in parallel, to inform international human rights organizations in Europe and the United States about the illegal actions of the organizers and signatories, specifying their names and official positions.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that in the village of Myrony, the OCU seized the Intercession Church of the Balta Eparchy of the UOC.

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