Heorhii Kovalenko: The UOC MP has established about 100 parishes abroad

Molfar analysts investigated the location of Moscow churches in 11 European countries and found that many of them are located near strategic facilities such as military bases, airports, and nuclear facilities. Grunt then found that in Kyiv, UOC-MP churches are also located near ministries, airports, strategic factories and hospitals. In addition, the UOC began to build its network outside Ukraine in the third month of the full-scale invasion, arguing that many refugees would not return home and that it was necessary to develop a mission abroad ‘to preserve their faith, culture, language and Orthodox identity’.

These parishes can be centres of Russian disinformation and narratives that influence Ukrainian refugees, as well as governments of other countries, – said Herhii Kovalenko, rector of the Open Orthodox University. – Therefore, Ukrainian special services should check the activities of this network, which already has more than 100 parishes. 

The OCU has no plans to open its parishes abroad. Ukrainian refugees can meet their spiritual needs in local churches, integrating into society. At the same time, the arrival of Ukrainian priests abroad will help keep them in touch with the church in Ukraine and their homeland.

Herhii Kovalenko, rector of the Open Orthodox University

About the parishes of the UOC  MP abroad

The Moscow Patriarchate is a structure created by order of Stalin with the direct participation of the NKVD, then the KGB, then the FSB. What is the purpose of this structure? Control over believers inside the country and foreign intelligence, which was handled by the Department of External Relations. A similar department exists in the UOC MP. Moreover, this external activity has to be coordinated with Moscow.

Very often, churches of the Moscow Patriarchate are located nearby, on the territory of embassies or are under the patronage of embassies. Often, priests of the Moscow Patriarchate receive additional support from Russian embassies. This system has existed for decades.

In May 2022, the UOC MP held a council that attempted to imitate its separation from the Moscow Patriarchate. It made a far-sighted decision to start creating parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate in European countries. In other words, in the third month of the war, they realised that many people who had gone abroad would not return, and therefore, they needed to create parishes around the world.

Herhii Kovalenko \ Margaryta Sytnyk

In 2024, we saw reports of the creation of almost 100 parishes. This is already a whole network in different countries whose activities are coordinated by the leadership of the UOC MP. This means that the activities should be analysed from both a spiritual and security perspective: who these people are, what narratives they are spreading, and what structure they are actually part of. It’s time to pay attention to this. We immediately said that this was a dangerous trend and that it could be a network that would help the Moscow Patriarchate survive in the world.

On the threats to these parishes in the world

The Moscow Patriarchate is actually no longer a religious organisation. There is Rosatom, Rosneft, the Russian Church, which fulfils its ideological function and has agreed to a holy war and other signs of modern Nazism.

For many priests and hierarchs of the UOC MP in Ukraine, the situation is not so clear. We can imagine that this narrative will be spread in Europe, and it is spoken in Ukrainian by a person with a Ukrainian passport who is fleeing both the war and the persecution of the Ukrainian authorities. This creates an alternative reality and point of view.

Ukrainian organisations are trying to convey this hybrid story to local authorities. But imagine, for example, the authorities of a Scandinavian country, for whom both refugees with Ukrainian passports are believers. And the authorities say: ‘No, no, we don’t understand this, we either help everyone or no one.’ 

On the mission of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine abroad 

The OCU is not able to build a network of parishes, because according to the Tomos, our area of church responsibility is the territory of Ukraine. That is why the OCU decided to support refugees. For this purpose, a mission was created: mostly priests leave Ukraine. I travelled several times, for example, to Lithuania, where I declared in every possible way that I was not building a Ukrainian church or creating parallel structures. There is a Lithuanian church. We are committed to working with local communities to help our people.

There, you realise that these people are not doing so well. Some of them have been through more trials than we have here in Kyiv. Especially people from Mariupol, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. You come back here and tell their stories. And people in Ukraine start to treat those abroad differently. So you knit this network of Ukrainians together. It is important that you are not abroad, but a priest who came to them from Ukraine. That is, Ukraine and the Ukrainian church remember them.

However, in the third year of the full-scale war, migrant communities are beginning to form, and they already need their own parishes and priests who share the same problems as these people. This is a more complicated situation of communication with Ukraine, churches, and society. Many different projects are now being created to weave this network of global Ukrainians.

Margaryta Sytnyk – Communications manager, Co-founder of the Civic Initiative “Holka”

Translated by Iryna Kovalenko, The Ukrainian Review