Kiev, July 22, 2026
Photo: svoboda.org
His Holiness Patriarch Daniil of Bulgaria and several metropolitans of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church have sent letters of appeal to the court hearing the case seeking to dissolve the Kiev Metropolia of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).
The development was reported by Archpriest Nikita Chekman, one of the lawyers representing the UOC.
Pat. Daniil and several hierarchs of the Bulgarian Church, including His Eminence Metropolitan Gabriel of Lovech and His Eminence John of Varna, have consistently proven themselves to be defenders of Orthodoxy in Ukraine. On the other hand, several Bulgarian hierarchs concelebrated with Ukrainian schismatic hierarchs in Istanbul in 2024.
According to Fr. Nikita, letters were also sent to the Kiev Metropolia itself. The contents of the letters have not yet been published.
He also reported that approximately 10,000 petitions have been received by the court from believers seeking to join the case as a third party.
The case stems from September 2025, when the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the Kiev Metropolia of the UOC. The Metropolia filed a counter-lawsuit in response.
On April 6 of this year, the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal canceled the order approving the 2023 analysis of the UOC Charter, which had concluded that the UOC remains part of the Russian Church. The UOC’s Legal Department emphasized that the court had found the expert analysis itself to be “defective” and lacking legal force.
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