How the OCU and the UGCC Are Turning the Perpetrators of Volhynia into Heroes
Two confessions claiming a special role in the state are heroizing figures behind whom stand thousands of civilian victims. How and why are they doing this?
On May 26, 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded the Special Operations Forces' Separate Special Operations Center "North" the honorary name "named after the Heroes of the UPA." The decree explained this as "the restoration of historical traditions of the national army."
The decree provoked a sharp reaction from Poles, who recalled that the OUN-UPA units were involved in the destruction of tens of thousands of peaceful Polish civilians. The President of Poland stripped Zelensky of an order for glorifying the UPA, the Minister of Defense stated that Ukraine will not join the EU with Bandera, and the European Parliament linked the issue of the Volhynia Massacre to Ukraine's European integration.
And it cannot be said that all of this is happening unexpectedly. For many years, the Ukrainian authorities have been promoting the narrative of the heroism of individuals responsible for genocide and ethnic cleansing, creating a cult around historical figures who shed blood. From politicians, this is at least explicable. However, two religious organizations — the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine — are also actively participating in the creation of such a cult. They lend it ecclesiastical legitimacy and an almost sacred status.
OCU: "We are proud when they call us Banderites"
Back in 2016, UOC-KP "Metropolitan" Mykhailo Zinkevych, in a sermon following the consecration of a church in the Vovchak tract, declared that UPA insurgents are "all people of holy life" and that "today we have shown love for the soldiers of the UPA, for whom we have laid a church, naming it in their honor, naming and numbering them among the saints — All Saints of the Ukrainian Land!"
In April 2019, the official website of the OCU published a speech by Serhii (Epifaniy) Dumenko at the Lviv National Agrarian University. The head of the OCU called Stepan Bandera "a genius of the Ukrainian national and nation-building spirit" and declared: "And when they call us Banderites, we are proud of it. <…> For some, such a name is an insult, but for us it is an honor."
This is not the private opinion of an ordinary "priest." This is a statement by the head of a religious organization that calls itself a local church and claims the role of spiritual pillar of Ukrainian statehood. Its leader not only does not distance himself from the Banderite identity, but appropriates it and declares it an "honor."
The rhetoric then transitions into liturgical and memorial practice. In that same year of 2019, Serhii Dumenko, during a visit to the Ternopil region, "consecrated" a memorial cross for UPA soldiers.
In 2021, OCU "priests" in Ivano-Frankivsk for the first time recorded a video performing the song "Bat'ko Nash Bandera". In organizations that call themselves Christian, "Our Father…" is an address to God; "Father Bandera" is a challenge to the Christian worldview. For a flash mob bordering on blasphemy, the "priests" should have received at least a reprimand. But OCU head Serhii Dumenko himself supported it, declaring that the song had become a kind of anthem for Ukrainians in defense of "their God-given Ukrainian land."
In the same year, Epifaniy signed a memorandum of cooperation with young Banderites.
At the same time, "Archbishop" of Ternopil and Kremenets Nestor Pysyk performed a memorial service for UPA soldiers whose remains were found near the village of Velyki Zahaytsi and reburied "according to the Christian rite." This was not simply a prayer service, but an entire memorial event with the participation of Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen, representatives of the authorities, and participants in military-historical reenactment; it was less a prayer for the forgiveness of sins than a glorification of "heroes."
And this is not an isolated episode for Pysyk. Even before the formation of the OCU, in September 2018, he "consecrated" a chapel and a restored symbolic grave of "48 heroes" of the UPA in the village of Zymo, calling it a place of prayer for "fighters for the freedom of Ukraine." His diocese contains the Antonivtsi tract — the former headquarters of the UPA military district "Volyn-South," and now a UPA museum-camp, where the anniversaries of the UPA's founding are regularly commemorated with the participation of Pysyk himself, OCU "clergy," local authorities, and youth from "Plast." And in 2022, near Pochaiv, he led the solemn reburial of the remains of 10 UPA soldiers, who, as directly stated in the message of the Ternopil diocese, were buried as "true Heroes <…> with all honors and Christian customs."
On June 18, 2023, the cult of "UPA heroes" reached a qualitatively new level. Serhii Dumenko, while visiting an OCU monastery at the Cossack Graves, "consecrated" an icon depicting Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevych, and Yevhen Konovalets. The icon is called "With Weapons in Hand and God in the Heart." Although these figures are depicted alongside Cossacks, UPA soldiers, and contemporary Ukrainian servicemen, this does not change the essence: a nationalist movement associated with the killing of civilians is transferred into the space of icon veneration and ecclesiastical symbolism.
There is also a less egregious but telling example of the penetration of the Banderite cult into the ecclesiastical-public style. On October 1, 2024, on the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God according to the new calendar, Serhii Dumenko served in vestments whose ornamentation reproduces the embroidery of Stepan Bandera — it was restored from a historical photograph and named "Banderivka".
The case of chaplain Vasyl Fedorenko also testifies to how deeply the cult of "UPA heroes" has embedded itself in the consciousness of the "OCU clergy." Zelensky awarded Fedorenko the medal "For Military Service to Ukraine" on the occasion of Constitution Day, June 28, 2026. In his acceptance speech, Fedorenko called the front line of the current war "the line of our resurrection" and concluded with the words of Roman Shukhevych: "We must not fear death, because we have long since been victorious… through our readiness to die for Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine, glory to Ukrainian chivalry."
A Christian does not fear death because Christ has conquered death — and for no other reason. Here, however, a different cult takes center stage.
It is telling that the UPA cult is becoming a platform for joint action between the OCU and the UGCC. In 2024, Nestor Pysyk served a memorial service for fallen UPA soldiers in Panasivka together with clergy of both confessions. Church canons strictly prohibit such concelebration, but the OCU and the UGCC violate them for the sake of a shared cult of "UPA heroes."
UGCC: Bandera, UPA Chaplains, and the Church's Memory of Nationalism
Unlike the OCU, which was created just over seven years ago, the UGCC traces its history to 1596 and directly participated in the events that are now being assigned the status of "heroic." It played a major role in the very creation of the UPA, many of whose members — from rank-and-file to leaders — were Greek Catholics. Therefore, the UGCC has a far longer tradition of heroizing and sacralizing the UPA.
On October 17, 2009, a solemn memorial service was held at Stepan Bandera's grave in Munich on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death; in the official statement, Bandera is called "the leader of the Ukrainian nation." The memorial service was served by the Apostolic Exarch for Ukrainians of the Byzantine Rite in Germany and Scandinavia, Bishop Petro Kryk, together with UGCC and UOC-KP clergy.
Ten years later, in 2019, the auxiliary bishop of the UGCC's Stryi diocese, Bohdan Manyshyn, consecrated the renovated Stepan Bandera museum-estate. The event took place within the framework of the "Year of Stepan Bandera" and the Day of the Defender of Ukraine. In his sermon, Manyshyn stated that the estate is the home not only of the Bandera family, but of all of Ukraine, since it was here that the "patriotic spirit of the leader of the Ukrainian nation" was formed.
In the same year, a solemn memorial service was held at the Bandera monument with the participation of UGCC Archbishop Volodymyr Viytovshyn, as well as students and faculty of the Ivano-Frankivsk Theological Seminary of the UGCC. In the sermon, Bandera was called "a hero of Ukraine" and "the person one should look up to".
At the same time, UGCC Bishop of Kolomyia Vasyl Ivasyuk consecrated the Shukhevych family museum-estate in Tyshkivtsi; in the official statement, Roman Shukhevych is called "a legendary figure of the national liberation struggle of the 20th century".
In 2021, the UGCC Synod published a laudatory piece under the headline "Confessors of the Faith. Father Vasyl Shevchuk — UPA Priest and Khorunzhyi 'Kadylo'," in which Shevchuk is called one of the "most self-sacrificing chaplains of the UPA."
In October 2022, a prayer service was held at the UGCC Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Rome on the occasion of the Day of Defenders of Ukraine and the 80th anniversary of the founding of the UPA. It was attended by the State Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Oleksandr Yarema, and Ukraine's Ambassador to the Vatican, Andrii Yurash — here the symbiosis of the state and the UGCC in the veneration of "UPA heroes" is clearly visible.
In October 2024, UGCC Bishop Petro Holinei with clergy consecrated a "Monument of Insurgent Glory" in the Kosiv region. In the report on this event, the village of Kosmach is called the "Banderite capital," and the monument, according to the authors, "further underscores the immortal glory of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army." After the consecration, Holinei declared: "Today we do not weep. We celebrate the memory of the valiant moments of battle…"
In December 2024, the UGCC Department of Military Chaplaincy and Pilgrimage Center organized a pilgrimage trip for the families of fallen Ukrainian soldiers to the shrines of Europe. Among the "shrines" was the grave of Stepan Bandera, at which a prayer was offered "for all fallen soldiers who gave their lives for the freedom of Ukraine."
The UGCC also has iconographic depictions of Bandera — for example, a fresco in the UGCC Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God in Ternopil.
Finally, in May 2026, a state reburial of OUN leader Andrii Melnyk and his wife Sofia took place in Ukraine. For several days, their remains lay in the UGCC Patriarchal Cathedral in Kyiv, where the UGCC episcopate and clergy performed the burial rite, after which they were interred at the National Military Memorial Cemetery. The ceremony was attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other senior officials. At the cemetery, UGCC Bishop Yosyf Milyan and OCU "Archbishop" Yevstratiy Zorya, with clergy of both churches, performed a joint prayer service.
The words of Yosyf Milyan during the burial are telling: "This moment is not only an act of reburial. This is not merely the return of remains; it is the return of meaning. It is a reminder to us, the living, that a state cannot be built without memory, a people cannot stand without unity, and freedom has no future without a moral foundation."
That is to say, the veneration of individuals associated with the killing of civilians and collaboration with the Nazis is being laid as the foundation of Ukraine's future.
Where Prayer Ends and Cult Begins
It is necessary here to draw a boundary between prayer for the departed and glorification, heroization, and the creation of a cult. In response to criticism, representatives of the UGCC and the OCU usually say that this is the ordinary practice of praying for those who have passed into the other world. The Church prays for all — and this is true. But prayer can be distinguished from cult.
Prayer is addressed to God; a cult is addressed to a person and to society. In prayer we ask the Lord to forgive sins; in creating a cult we make a person into a role model and endow them with a sacred status. Prayer is an act of mercy toward the deceased; a cult is an act of violence against the memory of innocent victims.
It is precisely the creation of a cult that the UGCC and the OCU are engaged in. Figures who are, to put it mildly, historically controversial and morally deeply flawed are presented as "heroes," "fighters," "leaders of the nation," "knights," and "warriors of light." Their memory is consecrated with solemn liturgical services, iconography, and high-profile events.
When a church leader publicly calls Bandera "a genius of the national spirit," when a hierarch consecrates his museum-estate and speaks of the "leader of the Ukrainian nation," when seminarians are told after a memorial service that he is a person to be emulated, and when UPA figures are depicted on an icon alongside the Most Holy Mother of God — this is no longer a prayer for the forgiveness of sins, but the sacralization of a national myth.
It is telling that in all the statements of OCU and UGCC representatives, there is no call for repentance before the victims. There is no acknowledgment of the facts of massacres of civilians, no request for forgiveness from Polish families, no attempt to unite Ukrainian memory with the memory of the murdered Poles. Instead, there are words about "heroes," "leaders," and "the immortal glory of the UPA."
The Victims of the "UPA Heroes" Cannot Remain Silent
The OUN and UPA as a historical phenomenon can be assessed in different ways — one can speak of the struggle against the USSR, of the tragedy of the Ukrainian people, of a war of all against all on the lands of western Ukraine. The history of the 20th century was very complex and bloody. But the struggle for independence does not cancel historical facts: collaboration with the Nazis, the killing of civilians, the destruction of settlements, and Jewish pogroms. None of this can be consecrated or justified — neither by the anti-Soviet struggle, nor by state interests, nor by the restoration of historical justice.
Just one example: on July 11, 1943, UPA units carried out simultaneous attacks on 99 Polish villages in Volhynia and killed approximately 8,000 Poles, primarily women, children, and the elderly. In total, as a result of the actions of OUN-B and UPA in 1943–1945, approximately 100,000 Poles were killed. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance qualifies this as genocide.
In June 2026, Polish President Karol Nawrocki, announcing the stripping of Volodymyr Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, emphasized that the decision was not directed against the Ukrainian people and did not change the strategic line of support for Ukraine, but added that the naming of a Ukrainian military unit after the "Heroes of the UPA" goes far beyond Ukraine's internal affairs.
Israel also reacted. Back in December 2018, Israel's Ambassador to Ukraine, Joel Lion, sharply responded to the decision of the Lviv Regional Council to declare 2019 the "Year of Stepan Bandera": he stated that he was "shocked" and asked how the glorification of people involved in antisemitic crimes could help combat antisemitism and xenophobia.
In January 2020, the ambassadors of Israel and Poland, Joel Lion and Bartosz Cichocki, issued a joint statement against Ukraine's memory policy, calling the honoring of Stepan Bandera and Andrii Melnyk an "insult" to the memory of "innocent brothers and sisters" killed on lands that are now part of Ukraine.
In 2022, the Israeli Embassy condemned a nationalist march in honor of Bandera, stating (as quoted by the European Jewish Parliament): "Any attempt to glorify those who supported Nazi ideology desecrates the memory of Holocaust victims in Ukraine."
It was not only diplomats who reacted. In 2019, following the erection of a monument to Roman Shukhevych in Ivano-Frankivsk, the World Jewish Congress called on Ukraine to put an end to the glorification of such individuals, calling it sad that people who promoted the Nazi agenda and participated in the killing of Jews are today being glorified as heroes.
And in May 2026, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted to the state reburial of Andrii Melnyk, expressing regret over the holding of an official ceremony in honor of a man who collaborated with the Nazis, and emphasizing that there is no place for ignoring historical truth. At the same time, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center stated that honoring the leader of a movement that supported Nazi Germany and collaborated with it in the persecution and murder of millions of Jews undermines the moral integrity of Holocaust remembrance.
Polish representatives ask a logical question: can a country aspiring to a European future build its national and religious identity on the heroization of a movement associated with the mass killing of civilians? We, in turn, pose a different question:
Can church structures claiming a special place in the state engage in the heroization and sacralization of individuals associated with bloody massacres of thousands of innocent victims?
The question is rhetorical — in practice they are doing exactly this, and it is quite possible that we will yet see the ecclesiastical canonization of Bandera, Shukhevych, and other such figures.
The Servility of Churches Claiming a Special Role in the State
Today in Ukraine, it is the OCU and the UGCC that claim such a role. The OCU, from the moment of its creation, was positioned as a symbol of Ukrainian statehood; the UGCC has long claimed the role of spiritual expression of the Ukrainian national idea. This imposes certain obligations upon them in relation to the state: to provide ecclesiastical support for state projects and to supply the ideological, sacred foundation for national-state myths.
But these projects and myths frequently come into contradiction with the Gospel and the teaching of Christ. The heroization of the OUN-UPA is precisely such a case.
The Church must be alongside its people and cannot stand apart from historical processes. But this does not mean that it must grant ecclesiastical legitimacy to any state initiative or perform the functions of political propaganda.
The Church can render a moral judgment on the actions of politicians and historical events on the basis of the Gospel, but it cannot tailor its rhetoric to fit the latest national pantheon. If, however, it serves the interests of the state and strives to meet the demands of society at the expense of the teaching of Christ, it is time to ask: is this truly Christ's Church?
Before our eyes, something is happening in Ukraine that should not be happening: the state is creating a cult of historical figures associated with genocide, mass killings, pogroms, and ethnic cleansing, while the OCU and the UGCC clothe this cult in a pseudo-Christian shell — endowing it with the attributes of churchliness, introducing it into liturgical practice and iconography. The Gospel does not teach this.
Conclusion
Today Ukraine is enduring a grave war. Part of its territory is occupied; soldiers and civilians are dying. Ukrainians have the right to defend their country against Russian aggression and to uphold their sovereignty. But war does not give the right to pretend that the blood of peaceful Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, and all other victims of nationalist violence means nothing, if it was shed under the banner of Ukraine's freedom and independence.
The Church can pray for the dead. But it has no right to turn the killers of civilians into shrines of national memory. Under any circumstances, it must remain faithful to Christ, and not to the latest state myth. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians: "For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ" (Gal. 1:10).
A Church that, for the sake of political expediency, pleases the authorities and consecrates their historical myths, loses precisely that for which it exists — the freedom to bear witness to Christ.
