After UOC’s exclusion, Zoria claims UCCRO covers 90% of country's believers
A "hierarch" of the OCU spoke at an international conference about the religious affiliation of Ukrainians.
On November 11, 2026, at the conference of the International Religious Freedom Alliance in Prague, OCU spokesman Yevstratiy Zoria claimed that the UCCRO (the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations) covers 90% of Ukraine's believers.
"The Council unites, on the basis of equality, 16 main religious communities of Ukraine, which represent about 90% of the religious network of our country and cover all its main religious traditions," Zoria assured in his report.
Recall that in February 2025 Zelensky stated that the UOC had been excluded from the Council of Churches of Ukraine, which, in his opinion, indicated that "the whole population was against it.
At the same time, according to DESS reports, the UOC remains the largest denomination in Ukraine, with about 10,000 communities affiliated with it in 2025.
The UOC's participation in the AUCCRO's work actually ceased back in late 2023, when its representatives were not allowed, without any explanation, to attend a meeting with the Cabinet of Ministers. Later, OCU head Dumenko reported that the Council members had then voted to ban the UOC.
However, for a long time the status of the UOC in the organization remained uncertain — there was no information about its exclusion. Only recently, a footnote appeared in the section on the Council's composition on the UCCRO website: "the membership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been suspended since 30.06.2026 in accordance with the decision of the UCCRO". No official statements regarding the adoption of this decision followed.
As UOJ reported, the UCCRO spoke in favor of continuing the persecution of the UOC.
