The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) said on 27 July 2026 that the Holy Dormition Pochaiv Lavra (EDRPOU code 14035189) is required to remedy the violations of the legislation on freedom of conscience and religious organisations within 30 days of receiving the prescription. According to DESS, prescription No. P-2 of 27 July 2026 followed a study (24 June to 21 July) of the Lavra’s signs of affiliation with a foreign religious organisation whose activity is banned in Ukraine.
Under the prescription’s text, the Lavra’s superior, together with the Spiritual Council, the monastery’s governing body, is to provide a decision on leaving the structure of the Kyiv Metropolia of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), with confirmation.
The superior is also to state, orally or in writing, disagreement with an appointment to that foreign organisation’s statutory governing bodies, prepare a statement on terminating the powers and severing ties, and provide confirmation. A report on remedying the violations, with supporting evidence signed by an authorised person, is to be sent to DESS.
DESS announced the result on 22 July: signs of affiliation exist. Among them, it said: the Lavra is a structural subdivision of the UOC and part of the Kyiv Metropolia of the UOC, which, in its words, is recognised under Ukrainian legislation as affiliated with that organisation; the Lavra’s charter attests to that belonging; and the foreign organisation’s charter provides for the Lavra’s head to sit in its statutory governing bodies.
Radio Svoboda wrote on 27 July that the Lavra had not publicly reacted to DESS’s statements. The outlet also wrote that DESS recognised the Kyiv Metropolia as affiliated in August 2025 and that the UOC contested that decision; Ukrinform reported on 3 September that the court case on DESS’s claim to terminate the Metropolia continues.
On 3 September 2026 Ukrinform reported that the head of DESS, Viktor Yelenskyi, had said that the service had extended the prescription’s term by 60 days in response to the Lavra’s lawyers’ petition. He said the law allows this on a substantiated petition.
According to him, the petition says that the superior has no right to decide alone on leaving the Metropolia and that the Lavra’s Spiritual Council must be convened under the statute, which takes more time, and that the materials the Lavra received as confirmation of its ties with that foreign organisation are in Russian and need translating.
Yelenskyi said DESS expects that after 60 days the Lavra will either carry out the prescription or, if it does not and its Spiritual Council takes a different decision, this organisation will be recognised as affiliated with the foreign organisation and a claim to terminate it will be filed in court immediately.
Sources: DESS, 27 July 2026; DESS, text of the prescription (PDF), 27 July 2026; DESS, 22 July 2026; Ukrinform, 3 September 2026; Radio Svoboda, 27 July 2026.
