Descendants of the Hutsuls in Pervomaisk transferred their church to the OCU

Parishioners of St. Michael’s Church in Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv Oblast—including descendants of forcibly resettled people from Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast—voted to transfer from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

According to Suspilne, 34 parishioners participated in the general meeting. Thirty-one people supported the transition to the OCU, two voted against it, and one participant abstained.

 The issue of the congregation’s transition was actively discussed after the start of the full-scale war.

Many of the parishioners are descendants of people from the village of Rivnya in the Verkhovyna District of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. In 1951, they were forcibly resettled to Pervomaisk. 

One of the parishioners, Kateryna, said that her parents were also forcibly resettled to the city. According to her, some of the believers wanted services to be conducted in Ukrainian, but there were also opponents of the transition. In the end, no serious conflict arose—those who did not support the decision began attending other churches.

After the full-scale war began, the church’s rector, Archpriest Roman, joined the territorial defense forces and also advocated for the parish’s transition. He noted that he had previously, along with other priests, appealed to church leadership to reconsider the church’s relations with Moscow, but these appeals were unsuccessful.

According to the priest, active parishioners who regularly attend the church cast their votes during the most recent meeting. Following the transition, St. Michael’s Church remains under the jurisdiction of the religious community.

The Mykolaiv Regional State Administration reported that this community became the ninth in the region to decide to transition from the UOC to the OCU.

There are 779 officially registered religious organizations in the region, including 166 OCU congregations and 290 UOC congregations. The legal process for the transition usually takes about a month, and in complex cases, up to three months.

Ірина Глухова