Security Service of Ukraine Accidentally Acknowledges UOC as Ukrainian Church—What's Next?

On April 22, 2025, amazing information appeared on the official Facebook page of the SBU. The Security Service of Ukraine "reported suspicion to another 14 "high-ranking officials" of the Russian Orthodox Church, who contributed to the seizure of Ukrainian churches in the temporarily occupied territories. These "high-ranking officials" turned out to be bishops who were members of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2022-2024 and, according to the SBU, ensured the decision of the Synod to "join" the Dzhankoy, Berdyansk, Rovenky and Kherson dioceses of the UOC to the Russian Orthodox Church (i.e., in the territories occupied by Russian troops) and appointed bishops "controlled by Moscow" there.

The "high-ranking officials" are suspected of committing a crime under Part 5 of Article 27, Part 3 of Article 110 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (aiding and abetting deliberate actions to change the borders of the territory or state border of Ukraine in violation of the procedure established by the Constitution of Ukraine, by prior conspiracy by a group of persons that entailed other grave consequences).

From this message on the official page of the SBU on Facebook, three fundamental points can be drawn:

1. Ukrainian churches, not Russian churches, were seized;
2. These dioceses were annexed to the Russian Orthodox Church, which means that they did not previously belong to it;
3. Bishops "controlled by Moscow" were appointed to these dioceses, which means that the previous bishops (bishops of the UOC) were not under its control.

And now let's see what is written in the "Religious Expertise of the Statute on the Administration of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for the Presence of Church and Canonical Relations with the Moscow Patriarchate (Russian Orthodox Church)" approved by the Order of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience of January 27, 2023:

"The UOC in relation to the Russian Orthodox Church has an ecclesiastical-canonical connection between the part and the whole. The relations of the UOC with the Russian Orthodox Church are not the relations of one independent (autocephalous) church with another independent autocephalous church. The UOC also does not have the status of an autonomous Church, which would be recognized by other churches, and, therefore, from the point of view of ecclesiology and canon law, it is a structural subdivision of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has separate rights of an independent formation without its own canonical subjectivity. <… >The current activities or inaction of the supreme bodies of church authority and administration of the UOC testify to the fact that the UOC continues to be subordinate to the ROC."

As we can see, the Examination of the HESS directly contradicts what follows from the suspicion of the SBU, presented in absentia to the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. The examination of the GEOS asserts that these bishops, in principle, could not have committed the crime they were charged with, since the above-mentioned dioceses already belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church, and their bishops were already subordinate to Moscow (again, according to the GEOS).

The examination of the HESS is an official legal act, but the allegations that the UOC is part of the Russian Orthodox Church are heard from the mouths of a variety of people, politicians, public and church figures. Here are just a few examples:

"Archbishop" Mark of Kropyvnytskyi and Golovanovsky (OCU): "After all, everyone understands that the UOC-MP is not independent, it is only part of the ROC."

People's Deputy Nikolai Knyazhytsky: "The UOC-MP has not severed canonical ties with the ROC and will continue to remain an "autonomous part of the ROC with the rights of broad autonomy."

More radical statements can often be found. For example, People's Deputy Natalia Pipa: "And in the charter of the UOC-MP it is written that the charter can be changed in agreement with the primary organization, that is, with Moscow. This is not a church, but a controlled structure of the FSB."

As you know, the SBU mercilessly fights pro-Russian narratives and prosecutes those who spread these narratives. And this is what happens: both the experts of the State Educational System, who claim that the UOC is part of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian officials who sign the relevant documents, and everyone who declares that the UOC is the "Russian Church", are in fact spreading pro-Russian narratives.

All such statements play into the hands of Russia, since they claim that the Russian Orthodox Church has every right to dispose of dioceses and parishes on the territory of Ukraine.

These statements completely discredit the SBU and make a mockery of it, since in this case there is no corpus delicti in the actions of the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. These statements mean that the ROC has the right to dispose of the UOC as its part, that by transferring the dioceses in the occupied territories to its direct control, changing bishops there and performing other administrative actions, the ROC is acting quite legally. After all, according to the position of the HESS, Yelensky and many "state patriots" from the Verkhovna Rada, it does not seize anything. What are these, if not outright Kremlin narratives?

Based on all of the above, it is necessary to raise before the SBU the issue of bringing to criminal responsibility for crimes against the Ukrainian state the experts of the HESS, as well as all persons involved in the dissemination of the pro-Russian thesis that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is part of the Russian Orthodox Church. And to present them with suspicion under the same Part 5 of Article 27, Part 3 of Article 110 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, under which suspicions were brought against the Russian bishops. After all, both act on the basis of the same statements.

Or publicly declare what really is—that the UOC is an independent Church, which is guided by its Charter, the decisions of its Synod and is not subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church in anything.

But then it is necessary to completely destroy this entire false pyramid about the "Russian FSB Church in Ukraine", which the authorities, the media and other SBU have been diligently building in recent years. And on the basis of this lie, they came up with a whole law banning the Church of millions of their fellow citizens.

In fact, this is a classic example of the famous Jewish joke about the cross and underpants. Or, to put it in clever words, a case of cognitive dissonance. But today in our high offices, intelligence is not held in high esteem. Apparently, this is the time.

Update: The SBU has now removed its Facebook post.

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