Court declines to hear UOC department's counterclaim against DESS
The court declined to examine whether one person's criminal conviction could justify dissolving an entire Church organization, directing it to file a separate lawsuit instead.
The Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal has returned a counterclaim filed by the UOC Synodal Department for Family Affairs challenging the actions of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) in proceedings seeking the department's dissolution. The court's ruling is dated November 5, 2026.
DESS filed its lawsuit on August 10, seeking to dissolve the department and transfer its property, excluding religious property, to state ownership. The agency cites a June 18, 2025, conviction handed down by the Desnianskyi District Court of Chernihiv against one individual – Vasyl Povorozniuk, Metropolitan Panteleimon of Luhansk and Alchevsk.
The court sentenced him in absentia to 11 years in prison after finding him guilty of aiding an aggressor state under Part 1 of Article 111-2 of Ukraine's Criminal Code. The metropolitan was also barred from holding any position in religious organizations for 13 years, and his property was confiscated. He remains in the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk Oblast.
On October 23, the department filed a counterclaim seeking to have DESS's actions declared unlawful. It challenged the agency's conclusion that the entire organization should be dissolved solely on the basis of that conviction, without establishing whether the conduct described in the verdict was connected to the department's activities or whether the convicted individual had acted on its behalf.
The court declined to consider those claims. According to the judges, cases involving the dissolution of religious organizations follow a special procedure that does not allow challenges to DESS's actions to be incorporated into the proceedings. The ruling states that hearing the claims together would "complicate the resolution of the dispute." The court cited a similar position taken by the Supreme Court on June 3, 2026.
As a result, the court did not assess the merits of the department's arguments. The question of whether one person's criminal conviction can serve as grounds for dissolving an entire Church organization will not be examined separately in these proceedings.
The department may appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court within 10 days or file a separate lawsuit against DESS under the standard procedure. However, filing such a lawsuit would not automatically suspend the dissolution proceedings, which are being handled under an expedited procedure and could conclude before the separate case is resolved.
Notably, the ruling refers to the "findings of the court of first instance," even though the court itself is hearing the case as the court of first instance.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that the Supreme Court had rejected the UOC's appeal concerning the Epiphany Monastery in Kremenets.
