Transition of religious communities in Ukraine
From 2022 to 2025, 1378 religious communities in Ukraine transitioned from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. This process took place in several stages:
- In 2022, 483 communities made the decision;
- In 2023, 471 communities;
- In 2024, 233 communities;
- In 2025, 191 communities.
Geographical features of the transitions
Geographically, the most transitions occurred in the Kyiv region, where 306 communities changed their jurisdiction. In the Khmelnytskyi region, there were 295 transitions, in the Vinnytsia region – 159, in the Zhytomyr region – 128, and in the Cherkasy region – 104 communities. Meanwhile, in Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, and Mykolaiv regions, the least number of transitions were recorded – 6 communities each, while in Ivano-Frankivsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, there were 4 communities each. In the Luhansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia regions, there were no transitions at all.
As of January 1, 2025, there were over 10 thousand religious organizations of the UOC-MP in Ukraine, of which nearly 9.8 thousand were religious communities. It is noteworthy that on January 6, 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew handed over the Tomos on autocephaly to Metropolitan Epiphanius, which became an important stage in the formation of the independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
The process of transitioning religious communities indicates significant changes in the religious landscape of Ukraine, which may be related to political and social circumstances, particularly the war and the rise of national consciousness. Changing jurisdiction can affect local communities, their identity, and social relations, as well as the further development of the Orthodox movement in Ukraine.