Dumenko calls UOC’s continued existence a challenge to church life in Ukraine
Epifaniy Dumenko. Photo: OCU
Epifaniy Dumenko has described the continued existence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as a “challenge” to church life in Ukraine. The OCU head again accused the UOC of ties to the Moscow Patriarchate and acknowledged that there is no dialogue between the two structures, according to the OCU website.
Speaking at the Bishops’ Council on July 14, 2026, Dumenko complained that the commission he established in February 2026 under the leadership of Simeon Shostatskyi had received no response from His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.
“There has been no official response from the leadership of the Metropolia headed by Metropolitan Onuphry – just as there was no response to any of our previous statements and appeals,” the OCU head complained.
Dumenko once again demanded that UOC hierarchs and believers accept the terms of the Tomos and unite around the “Kyiv See.” The OCU head also thanked everyone who had left what he called the “uncanonical, spiritually harmful, and morally bankrupt subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate.”
According to him, “the final liberation from the yoke of the ‘Russian world’ is vitally necessary for Ukraine and spiritually beneficial for Orthodoxy.”
As the UOJ previously reported, Dumenko claimed that the OCU has 11 times more parishioners than the UOC.
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