UOC challenges legality of state body that seeks its dissolution

Kiev, June 26, 2026

​Photo: currenttime.tv ​Photo: currenttime.tv     

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Kiev Metropolitanate has filed a lawsuit against the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, contesting the legal basis for the existence of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience — the body that has led government efforts to close UOC parishes, monasteries, and dioceses, and to dissolve the Church as a whole.

The lawsuit challenges the government resolutions by which the Service was created and granted authority to shape and implement state religious policy, reports UOC lawyer Archpriest Nikita Chekman.

The plaintiff argues that the Cabinet of Ministers gave the Servic powers that under the Law of Ukraine on Central Executive Bodies may belong exclusively to Ministries, thereby altering the legally established distribution of authority among executive bodies in a manner the plaintiff holds to be contrary to the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.

The Service came to prominence in 2023 when it declared, on the basis of documents from the Russian Orthodox Church, that the UOC remains part of the Moscow Patriarchate. On the strength of that finding it has since pursued the closure of UOC dioceses, monasteries, and churches across Ukraine, and has filed a separate lawsuit seeking the dissolution of the Kiev Metropolitanate as a legal entity and the transfer of its property to the state.

It is that lawsuit, along with the Service’s investigations, orders, and directi ves against the Kiev Metropolitanate, that the Church cites as the direct cause of the present legal action.

The Kiev Metropolitanate is asking the court to declare the Cabinet of Ministers resolutions underpinning the Service unlawful and void, and to oblige the government to dissolve the body as unlawfully established.

The plaintiff holds that any state body exercising authority in the sphere of freedom of conscience and religious organizations must act exclusively on the basis of law and within the limits set by the Constitution of Ukraine.

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6/26/2026

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