On May 31, 2023, a meeting was held between the leadership of the State Ethnopolitics and the bishops of the UOC, at which mandatory points were put forward for the UOC to withdraw from the ROC, the website of the SSEFC reports.

The side of the UOC, with the blessing of His Beatitude Onuphry, was represented by Metropolitan Kliment of Nizhyn (Vecherya) and Archbishop Sylvester of Belogorodsk (Stoichev).

The State Ethnopolitics urged to provide them with the following evidence of the withdrawal of the UOC from the ROC:

The UOC must publish an official document on its withdrawal with all structural divisions from the ROC,

Bishops and priests of the UOC participating in the activities of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church and its other divisions must write and publish statements of withdrawal from these bodies,

The UOC should officially inform other Local Churches about its withdrawal from the ROC,

The UOC should also subject to ecclesiastical punishment the clergy who “took part in the annexation of Ukrainian lands and voluntarily collaborated with the Russian occupiers,”

The UOC should also publish an official statement about “the teachings of Patriarch Kirill about forgiveness of sins to the invaders who die in Ukraine, blessing them with the war against Ukraine and the actions of church authorities to annex the dioceses of the UOC.”