Poturaev: City residents should decide on jurisdictions of churches
The People's Deputy called on city mayors to consider the confessional preferences of territorial communities, although the law grants such right only to members of religious communities.
On June 3, 2026, the head of the Verkhovna Rada committee on humanitarian and information policy, MP Nikita Poturaev, called at a conference in "Ukrinform" to give territorial communities of cities the right to determine which jurisdictions churches on their territory should belong to.
Poturaev believes that "it is worth asking local self-government at the level of local communities" in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Dnipro, "which denomination the territorial community identifies with." According to the MP, city mayors should deal with this issue.
"I am not calling to take something away from someone. I am calling to help people. Let communities decide based on their religious self-identification to whom the city should provide use of certain religious objects," Poturaev stated.
He reminded that cities have many churches in communal ownership, and called on territorial communities "based on their religious self-identification, to whom the city should provide use of certain religious objects."
Poturaev did not specify on what basis he proposed that city residents determine the denominational affiliation of churches. The MP's words directly contradict the current legislation of Ukraine. Article 8 of the Law "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations" clearly establishes: decisions on changing the subordination of a religious community and on related property issues are made exclusively at a general meeting of members of the religious community. The law does not provide for any role of territorial communities, city councils or mayors in this process.
Thus, transferring the right to vote from a religious community to a territorial one would actually mean redistribution of church property according to political rather than religious principles – which directly contradicts both the letter of the law and the constitutional principle of separation of Church and state, which Poturaev himself referenced in his speech.
Earlier, the Union of Orthodox Journalists wrote that, according to Poturaev, after the ban of the UOC, its believers can even open casinos in churches.
