UOC-KP bishop calls OCU decree defrocking “Patriarch” Nikodym “null and void”

Filaret Denisenko and Ioasaf Shibaev "ordain" Nikodym Kobzar. Photo: Shibaev's FB

“Metropolitan” Ioasaf Shibaev of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) has called the decree issued by the synod of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine to defrock “Patriarch” Nikodym Kobzar and two other “bishops” “null and void.” He made a corresponding statement in his Facebook post.

According to Shibaev, the UOC-KP remains a separate church structure independent of the OCU, whose leaders, he claimed, “achieved church power illegally by deceiving the elderly patriarch” – referring to Filaret Denysenko – “and the majority of their own episcopate.”

“Having seized power in the Church through deception and violence, they automatically placed themselves and all their actions outside the Church’s legal framework. Therefore, their decisions and decrees, as well as all their unlawfully appropriated titles and positions, are null and void,” Shibaev wrote.

Paraphrasing a well-known theologian of the last century, he added: “All your decrees are worth no more than the decrees of several idle women gathered by a well to wag their tongues.”

On May 11, 2026, the synod of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, chaired by Epifaniy Dumenko, announced the “defrocking” of the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate, “Patriarch” Nikodym Kobzar, along with two other “bishops.”

As previously reported by the UOJ, the new “patriarch” of the UOC-KP accused the Ukrainian authorities of complicity in OCU-backed church raiding. The UOC-KP was founded in 1992, and in December 2018 its legal entity was dissolved during the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine at the so-called Unification Council. Part of its clergy, however, continued operating under the former name. Following the death of Filaret Denysenko in March 2026, “Archbishop” Nikodym Kobzar was elected head of the structure.

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