Official sentenced to 3 years for registering UOC church in Ternopil region

An illustrative image of a court in Ukraine. Photo: UOJ

On August 3, 2026, the Kremenets District Court convicted former registrar Oleksandr Smolynchuk for violations in the registration of a UOC church in the village of Andruha. He was sentenced to three years of imprisonment with a two-year probationary period, Antikor reports.

As the court established, in November 2020 Smolynchuk entered into the State Register of Real Property Rights a record of ownership of the building of the St. Apostle Luke Church, with an area of 49.5 square meters, belonging to the religious community of the Ternopil Eparchy of the UOC. The prosecution argued that the registration was carried out without some of the required documents, including documents confirming that the building had been commissioned and that an address had been assigned to it.

The criminal case concerned the actions of the state registrar, not the religious community of the UOC itself. The case materials also included a separate 2022 episode related to the registration of rights to a land plot without the proper set of documents.

In court, Smolynchuk fully admitted his guilt and expressed remorse. A representative of the local OCU community said that after the disputed registration actions were discovered, the information was passed on to law enforcement authorities.

The court found the former official guilty under Part 3 of Article 362 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, banned him for two years from holding positions in government bodies and engaging in registration activities, and also ordered him to reimburse 15,599.50 UAH in court costs.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that a prosecutor spoke about court cases over the Pochaiv Lavra's property.
 

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