DESS finds Boryspil UOC diocese tied to banned ROC; Metropolitan Anthony rejects administrative order

Ukraine’s State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) said a review that began on August 24, 2026, found signs that the administration of the Boryspil Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is affiliated with a foreign religious organization whose activity is banned in Ukraine, Ukrinform (September 11) and UA.NEWS (September 10) reported, citing DESS. Those accounts said the diocesan administration is a structural unit of the UOC and part of the Kyiv Metropolia, which Ukrainian law already treats as affiliated with that banned foreign organization; that the Boryspil charter places the diocese in the Kyiv Metropolia; and that the Russian Orthodox Church’s charter provides for the Boryspil head to sit on ROC governing bodies. This brief records DESS’s administrative finding as those outlets stated it. It does not collapse the UOC into the Moscow Church except where a named source makes that claim, and it is not a court ban on the diocese. It is also distinct from the September 10 Chernivtsi Holy Spirit Cathedral enforcement attempt.

Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanych) of Boryspil and Brovary, chancellor of the UOC, rejected the order, the Union of Orthodox Journalists reported on SPZH.eu. He said officials had not asked the eparchy for current documents or its present position and had relied on material published a decade ago. He said the findings showed no legally substantiated violation of Ukraine’s freedom-of-conscience law, and he stressed that DESS itself treats the decision as an administrative review, not a court ruling that can terminate a religious organization — only a court can do that, he said. Those remarks are his rebuttal, not a judicial holding.

Separately, UOJ (uoj.news, September 11) said DESS on September 8 published an updated list of “critically important” religious organizations under Order H-145/11 — about 11,220 legal entities. UOJ counted more than 3,500 Orthodox Church of Ukraine structures, about 2,300 Ukrainian Greek Catholic, and 648 Roman Catholic, and said zero UOC parishes appear on the list, which is used for mobilization-exemption eligibility. Those counts are UOJ’s. This brief does not treat the list as a finding that the UOC is the ROC.