Supreme Court Returns Case of UOC Temple "Transfer" in Kremenchuk for Review

The UOC Dormition Church in Kremenchuk. Photo: Kremenchukska Gazeta

On July 29, 2026, the Supreme Court partially granted the cassation appeal in the case of the illegal re-registration of the Holy Dormition community of the UOC in Kremenchuk into the structure of the OCU and referred it for re-examination to the appellate instance, reports "Kremenchukska Gazeta".

The lawsuit was filed by the rector of the UOC Dormition parish, Archimandrite Iosif (Bogaychik). He demanded that the decision of the assembly of July 1, 2024, on changing the community's subordination be declared invalid, that the order of the Poltava Regional Military Administration on the registration of the new charter be annulled, and that the charter itself in its new version be declared invalid.

Archimandrite Iosif indicated that the decision on the "transfer" was made by people who were not members of the UOC religious community, and that the assembly was held without the required quorum. Following the re-registration of the parish, the rector was effectively denied access to the church and the ability to conduct services therein.

In September 2025, the Commercial Court of Kyiv dismissed the lawsuit. However, in April 2026, the Northern Commercial Court of Appeal overturned that decision and ruled in favor of the UOC community, finding that the defendants had not proven the voting participants' membership in the parish.

The Supreme Court overturned the appellate ruling and returned case No. 910/14325/24 for re-examination, without issuing a final decision on the legality of the "transfer." Judge Volodymyr Studenets expressed a dissenting opinion, according to which the appellate court's conclusions regarding the invalidity of the assembly's minutes and the community's new charter should have been upheld.

The Union of Orthodox Journalists previously reported that OCU activists in Kremenchuk summoned the TCC to a service of the persecuted UOC community.

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