Dumenko assures German ambassador that there is no persecution of UOC
Epifaniy Dumenko and German Ambassador to Ukraine Gaiko Thomson. Photo: OCU
On January 15, 2026, Epifaniy Dumenko held a meeting at his residence in Kyiv with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Federal Republic of Germany to Ukraine, Heiko Thoms. According to the OCU press service, during the meeting Dumenko assured the German diplomat that there is allegedly no persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, and that reports of pressure on believers are manipulative in nature.
According to Dumenko, the conversation concerned the “complete violation of the rights of believers who do not belong to the Moscow Patriarchate in the temporarily occupied territories,” as well as the law banning the activity of religious organizations connected with the ROC – a law he described as “purely security-related.”
At the same time, Dumenko characterized the process of his structure seizing churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as “isolated provocations” which, he claimed, are “deliberately created in order to manipulatively present them to the world community as an alleged manifestation of persecution and repression.”
Speaking about Ukrainian refugees in Germany, the head of the OCU stated that it is necessary to combat “destructive Russian influences and disinformation” among them as well.
In the same context, Dumenko referred to the activity of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which, he claimed, “unequivocally confirms the existence of complete religious freedom in Ukraine.”
As the UOJ reported, earlier Dumenko stated that “transfers” to the OCU are needed for Ukraine’s security.
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