Sloviansk authorities re-register UOC cathedral under OCU

Onyshchenko in front of the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sloviansk. Photo: Onyshchenko’s YouTube channel

In Sloviansk, authorities have re-registered the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The corresponding entry appeared in YouControl. The organizer of the transfer and head of the “re-registered” community is Ukrainian Armed Forces serviceman Oleksandr Onyshchenko, who said on his YouTube channel that his actions were guided by the desire to inflict maximum damage on Russia.

“If from the first day of the full-scale war I had killed one Moscow infantryman every day, I would not have caused as much harm to the Muscovites or brought as much benefit to Ukraine as freeing even a single church in the Donetsk region from Moscow occupation – occupation by the Moscow Patriarchate, occupation by this FSB-linked rabble,” Onyshchenko said.

The basis for the re-registration was a meeting of unidentified individuals led by Onyshchenko, held on September 28, 2025, in an administrative building at 5 Olimpiiska Street. Despite the fact that the actual parish community of the cathedral held its own meeting and expressed its desire to remain within the UOC, the authorities re-registered it to the OCU. Following the meeting, Onyshchenko submitted documents to the military administration.

“They (the real parish community – Ed.) tried to stage some kind of separate meeting with a fantastical vote in favor of the ‘UOC–FSB,’ but that circus didn’t work,” Onyshchenko said.

According to him, the cathedral has not yet been physically taken over, and the UOC community continues to serve there.

“The Moscow riffraff has been putting up – and in fact continues to put up – maximum resistance to our actions. However, we have already completed the formal side of the matter, and soon, dear residents of Sloviansk, I believe we will be enjoying services and liturgies in the Ukrainian language in this cathedral,” Onyshchenko said.

He also stated that he considers controversial OCU activist Roman Hryshchuk in Bukovyna to be his role model.

Following its re-registration in favor of the OCU, the cathedral was renamed. In official documents it is now listed as the community of Faith, Hope, Love, and their mother Sophia.

The church dedicated to the Holy Right-Believing Prince Alexander Nevsky was built and consecrated in 1895. In the 1930s, Soviet authorities handed it over to the Renovationists. In 1937, the church was closed, its bells were taken down, and many icons were burned. The building was later used as a gym and then as a canteen. It was reopened in 1944.

The cathedral is the second episcopal cathedral of the Horlivka and Sloviansk Eparchy.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the OCU had announced plans to seize a UOC episcopal cathedral in Cherkasy.

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