DESS: Over two thousand religious communities have joined the OCU since the start of the full-scale war
From February 24, 2022 to June 1, 2025, 2,022 religious communities in Ukraine changed their canonical affiliation by joining the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. This was reported to LIGA.net by the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) in response to a request.
Of the total number, 1,285 communities previously belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC, affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate).
The distribution by year looks like this:
← 2022 – a total of 635 religious communities, of which 483 are Ukrainian Orthodox Church;
← 2023 – a total of 692 religious communities, of which 471 are Ukrainian Orthodox Church;
← 2024 – a total of 488 religious communities, of which 233 are Ukrainian Orthodox Church;
← 2025 – a total of 207 religious communities, 98 of which are Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
As of January 1, 2025, there were 10,118 UOC religious organizations in Ukraine, of which 9,792 were religious communities, the DESS report states.
The department emphasized that they do not record cases of possible obstruction of community crossings, as such actions are not within their competence according to current legislation.
According to data provided by the DESS by region, as of January 1, 2025, the OCU has 8,511 organizations across Ukraine, with the largest number in Ternopil (630), Khmelnytskyi (704) and Lviv (1,013) regions.
The UOC-MP has 10,118 organizations. The largest number is in Vinnytsia (836), Dnipropetrovsk (649) and Khmelnytskyi (621) regions. At the same time, only five are registered in Lviv region.organizations .
The Ecumenical Patriarchate has a minimal presence – only oneorganization in Kyiv.
The data also indicate the following regional differences:
← Western regions (Lviv 3299, Ternopil 1876, Ivano-Frankivsk 1453) have the largest number of religious organizations.
← Eastern regions, such as Donetsk (546) and Luhansk (869), have fewer organizations.
← There are 1,327 religious organizations in Kyiv, including a number of Protestant and Jewish communities.
In total, according to the report, there are 34,663 religious organizations registered in Ukraine, including 382 religious administrations and centers, 33,086 religious communities, and 15,506 clergy.
In addition, there are 554 monasteries, 244 missions, 300 religious brotherhoods, and 361 religious educational institutions operating in the country. There are also 127 religious schools and 46 other religious organizations registered.
- On May 13, 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved an inspection of the use of propaganda of the "Russian world" ideology by religious organizations.