24 December 2025
(ILLUSTRATION: Opendatabot)
As of December 2025, 411 churches affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate continue to operate in the Odesa region. Despite the ban on religious structures with ties to the Russian Federation, there has been no massive cessation of their activities or court decisions.
This is evidenced by data from the Opendatabot resource.
In total, as of December 2025, 7,826 religious communities affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate continue to operate in Ukraine. This is only slightly less than at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, when there were 8,782 such churches. In the nearly four years of war, 934 communities have officially transferred to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, while the OCU itself now has about 9,000 religious organizations.
In the south of the country, the situation remains illustrative. In Odesa region, according to analysts, there are 411 churches of the Moscow Patriarchate. There are 189 such communities in Mykolaiv region, and 328 in Kherson region, despite the war, the occupation of part of the territory, and the state's declared policy of breaking with religious structures associated with the Russian Federation.
In general, the largest concentration of churches with a "Russian trace" was recorded in the Dnipropetrovs'k region - 522 communities, in Vinnytsia - 495, and in Zakarpattia - 487. At the same time, communities from Khmelnytsky (205), Kyiv (196), and Vinnytsia (105) regions were the most active in joining the OCU. The peak of transitions occurred in 2023, when 386 communities registered the change of jurisdiction. In 2024, the number was 191, and in 2025 - another 157.
Despite the adoption of a law in September 2024 that banned the activities of religious organizations with ties to the Moscow Patriarchate, there have been few practical consequences so far. Only two lawsuits against such institutions were recorded in Ukraine during the year, and both are far from over.
Communities that formally hide their affiliation remain a separate problem. At the end of 2022, there were 67 religious organizations in Ukraine with so-called "forced names" that did not indicate a connection with the MP. Now there are 39 of them left - all of them are concentrated in the Chernivtsi region. Only three of them have officially joined the OCU, while the rest have either ceased operations or changed their names.
Recently, the religious community of Myrony village, Podil district, Odesa region, decided to move from the jurisdiction of the UOC-MP to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The community expressed indignation at the MP priest for his refusal to pray for the victory of Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers and to commemorate the dead in funeral prayers.
Анна Бальчінос