Yelensky admits UOC Cherkasy cathedral's "transfer" was not voluntary
DESS head Viktor Yelensky, answering Metropolitan Luke's question, stated that the Cherkasy cathedral did not join the OCU voluntarily, and acknowledged other similar cases.
On November 13, 2026, during a meeting with the clergy of the Zaporizhzhia Eparchy of the UOC, the head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) Viktor Yelensky confirmed that the transfer of the Cherkasy Cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the OCU was not voluntary. The question was asked by Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye and Melitopol, who was discussing with the DESS head the circumstances of the so-called transfers of UOC religious communities to the OCU.
"Did the cathedral in Cherkasy transfer voluntarily?" the hierarch asked. "No, Vladyka, there are several such cases," Yelensky replied.
The DESS head clarified that these are cases mainly in cities, where the transfers were "extremely controversial" and were accompanied by beatings and clashes.
At the same time, Yelensky stated that, according to his agency's data, since the OCU received the tomos, about 1,900 religious communities have joined this structure voluntarily. The official also disputed the clergy's claims about hundreds of churches taken by force. He objected to remarks about people in balaclavas with angle grinders: "No, that is not so." As examples, he cited several transfers that, according to him, DESS staff have observed in recent months, stating that only one of them – in the village of Kuzmin, Khmelnytskyi region – was accompanied by a scandal.
After that, Metropolitan Luke asked Yelensky to explain why the agency does not prevent the re-registration of UOC community statutes in favor of the OCU on the basis of a vote by non-parishioners of the respective churches, while the existing communities, together with their priests, are deprived of their churches.
In response, Viktor Yelensky said that his agency does not deal with the registration or re-registration of religious communities. According to him, the service registers the statutes of eparchial administrations, monasteries, missions, brotherhoods and sisterhoods.
Earlier, the UOJ wrote about Yelensky's complaints that the courts are hearing hundreds of cases on "transfers" to the OCU.
