The Supreme Court of Ukraine satisfied the cassation appeal of the OCU against the decision of the Kyiv Court of Appeal dated September 30, 2020 and ruled that the UOC-KP was legally liquidated, reports Religious Truth.

The full text of the judgment in case No. 761/25084/20 dated May 19, 2021 is available here.

In particular, the decision states that the resolution of the Local Council of the UOC-KP, which took place on December 15, 2018, in front of the Uniting Council itself, is valid. By this decree, which was personally signed by lord Filaret, the activity of the religious organization “The Kyiv Patriarchate of the UOC-KP” was terminated.

This decision “was made by the statutory bodies of the religious association within the limits of their powers, and therefore is exclusively an internal activity of the religious organization, the interference of state authorities in which is not allowed… no court as a state authority can consider disputes about the validity/invalidity of this decision”.

In addition, the Supreme Court noted in its reasoning that the UOC-KP ceased its activities by merging and joining the UOC (OCU), and all the functions of the statutory bodies of the UOC-KP passed into the competence of the corresponding statutory bodies of the UOC (OCU), which received all the powers and legal grounds for making decisions in relation to religious organizations that are part of the former religious association of the UOC-KP, including the RO “Kyiv Patriarchate of the UOC-KP”.

As previously reported, in April 2021, Filaret sent a second claim to the ECHR.