120 clerics of the UOC have moved to the OCU since the beginning of the open Russian invasion. This figure was announced on May 24 by the head of the OCU, Epiphany Dumenko, according to the press service of the religious structure.
“Since the great aggression of Russia against Ukraine, approximately 400 religious communities, 120 clerics and 2 monasteries have joined the OCU from the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. Why am I talking about? When preparing this report, we collected the relevant data in the dioceses, but they are constantly changing: every day it is reported about the holding of a meeting of religious communities and their decision to get out of dependence on the Russian Church,” says the “Metropolitan”.
According to him, the total number of OCU communities is approximately 7600, and clerics – approximately 4900.
120 is about 1% of the total. According to the UOC, by the end of 2021, there were 12,513 clerics in the canonical Church.