Shevchuk to MinCulture: UGCC must have access to Ukraine’s national shrines

Sviatoslav Shevchuk and the Minister of Culture of Ukraine. Photo: UGCC press service

On March 25, 2026, a meeting took place in Kyiv between UGCC head Sviatoslav Shevchuk and Ukraine’s minister of culture and deputy prime minister for humanitarian policy, Tetiana Berezhna, the UGCC press service reported. During the talks, Shevchuk voiced his Church’s claims to access to Ukraine’s largest Orthodox shrines.

The Greek Catholic leader proposed that the state compile a list of “national shrines” – sites that symbolize unity and therefore cannot remain in the “exclusive use” of a single confession. Shevchuk named St. Sophia of Kyiv and other monuments of the Kyivan Rus era among such sites. In his view, these shrines should unite, not belong to one particular structure.

Although Shevchuk said the UGCC is not officially claiming ownership of these churches, he openly demanded that his confession be guaranteed “equal access to prayer” at them. He assigned the role of “arbiter” – the one who would regulate confessional access to the shrines – to the state.

As a “symbolic gift,” Shevchuk presented the culture minister with a book about “Soviet agents in the Orthodox episcopate of Ukraine.” In response, the minister assured him that she was ready for “open dialogue” on all the claims he had raised.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that Sviatoslav Shevchuk had called the UGCC the second largest structure in Ukraine.

Read also