State Ethnopolitics expert: UOC believers are no less than 5-6 million

The cross procession of the UOC in Kyiv in 2021, attended by 350 thousand believers. Photo: UOJ

Religionist and expert of the State Ethnopolitics Service Liudmyla Filipovych told the resource "Apostrophe" that at least 5-6 million people identify themselves as members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

"There are no exact statistics on the number of believers, but, according to our data, in Ukraine parishioners of the UOC-MP account for no less than than 5-6 million, young and old," said Filipovych.

Commenting on the SBU statements about open criminal cases against clerics of the UOC, she said that as a percentage of the total number of clerics of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, it is not much.

"60 priests out of 12,000 is certainly not much. But this does not mean that the SBU is working badly," Filipovych said and expressed confidence that many clerics are charged under several articles at once.

As earlier reported, according to the ex-advisor to the head of the OP Arestovych, UOC believers are 6 million, and the authorities behave "like idiots" towards them.

Read also