By the beginning of the war, there were 8 parishes of the UOC in the Drohobych district of the Lvosk region, and only one of them transferred to the OCU. The rest do not intend to change their religious affiliation. This was stated by the head of the Drohobych regional military administration, Stepan Kulinyak, who, together with the head of the Drohobych-Sambir diocese of the OCU, Yakov Makarchuk, is “looking for ways” to make sure that there is no UOC in the region.

“The territorial communities have studied the legal basis for their functioning. However, everything is not so simple from a legal point of view: each parish has valid permits for the land and the buildings themselves. So, it will not work to use the practice of Drohobych, where the church did not have ownership of a land plot or a building,” Kulinyak said.

But, he says, “the main thing is that the church does not exist without parishioners. If people themselves realize what they are doing and what the Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is preaching and want to get out of it, then the problem will disappear by itself, ”Kulinyak hinted.