OCU bishop urges authorities not to re-register Kremenchuk cathedral to UOC

OCU cleric Feodosiy Ovcharuk with members of the seized UOC cathedral community. Photo: UOJ

“Archbishop” Agapit, Secretary of the Kyiv Metropolis of the OCU, has sent an appeal to Vitalii Diakyvnych, head of the Poltava Regional Military Administration, according to Kremenchukska Hazeta.

In his appeal, the OCU hierarch demanded that the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kremenchuk not be returned to its lawful owners. The representative of Epifaniy Dumenko’s structure officially notified the authorities about what he described as an “unlawful assembly” held by UOC believers on June 14, 2026.

The OCU characterized the actions of the parishioners as a “criminal offense” and accused them of “forging documents.” “Archbishop” Agapit called on the Poltava Regional Military Administration not to carry out any registration actions based on the protocols adopted by members of the canonical Church.

Should the community submit documents seeking the restoration of its rights, the OCU leadership is asking the administration to initiate the inclusion of information in the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations (ERDR) in order to pursue criminal proceedings against the organizers of the meeting.

Earlier in Kremenchuk, OCU cleric Feodosiy Ovcharuk locked the doors of Holy Trinity Cathedral in front of hundreds of parishioners who had spent 30 years building the shrine. Outside the church, 229 actual members of the community held a meeting and unanimously expressed no confidence in the OCU-appointed “rector.”

As the UOJ previously reported, a UOC archimandrite was beaten during the seizure of the cathedral in Kremenchuk.

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