The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a religious organization with the largest number of parishes in all regions of the country. According to Podrobnosti, this was stated by Sergei Bortnik, Doctor of Theology at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), Master of International Information at the KNU named after Shevchenko, professor of the Kiev Theological Academy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, analyzing summary data on the leading confessions of the “Kiev Tradition”.

“In the current discussions about the prospects of the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine, we need to appeal to the statistics figures that make these discussions more substantive. One of the possibilities is sociological data, in particular the Razumkov Center, which provide figures based on sociological surveys of the population of Ukraine. “State and Church in Ukraine-2019: Results of the Year and Prospects for the Development of Relations” data for 2019 is provided, according to which 13.2% of respondents consider themselves to be OCU (Metropolitan Epiphanius), 7 to UOC-KP , 7%, to “UOC (MP)” – 10.6%, and 30.3% consider themselves to be “simply Orthodox.” figures on the presence of seven thousand parishes in the OCU have been repeatedly met, and the UOC (MP) has been calling the figure “more than 12,000 parishes for several years in a row.” But more reliable figures are taken from a relatively impartial truth. source book – state statistics “, – said Sergei Bortnik.

Analyzing the data of the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, the scientist stressed that they differ significantly from the existing stereotype about the superior popularity of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is provided by the statistics of opinion polls.

“Galicia is different: on the one hand, there are quite a few parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but the parishes of the UGCC clearly dominate with the Lviv region as the record holder (65.5%). At the same time, more than a third of all registered OCU communities are located in this region (35 The imbalance of the UOC communities is striking: in Galicia they make up up to 10% of the total number of communities of the “Kiev Tradition”, while in all other regions – from 60%, and in six regions – even more than 80% “, – explained Sergey Bortnik.

He noted that in most regions (this also includes two regions of western Ukraine – Transcarpathian and Chernivtsi), the number of parishes of the UOC is several times higher than the number of parishes of the OCU.