Ukrinform reported on 17 September that Vitalii Panchenko, head of the Ternopil regional prosecutor’s office, told its correspondent about four cases involving religious organisations of the UOC in Ternopil oblast, concerning the return of property to the state and the reclaiming of land plots. In his words, prosecutors filed three of the claims; the fourth is the Ternopil regional military administration’s, which the prosecutors joined; the cases are heard in Ternopil and Kyiv.
According to the prosecutor’s office, one case concerns 12.3912 hectares under the complex of the Holy Dormition Pochaiv Lavra, an architectural monument of national significance: it is about invalidating a decision of the Pochaiv city council and cancelling the registration of communal ownership of the plot and of the Lavra community’s right to use it.
In the court register the matching docket is No. 921/361/25 (the same plot area): by a ruling of 23 February 2026 the Commercial Court of Ternopil Oblast transferred it to the Commercial Court of Kyiv city; the Lavra filed a counterclaim.
Another case, the prosecutors say, is in the Commercial Court of Ternopil Oblast: the administration and the prosecutors demand that the places of worship of an eighteenth-century skete (in the Directory: Holy Spirit Pochaiv Monastery) be reclaimed for the state from the Lavra’s possession, which they call unlawful.
Two more cases, the prosecutor’s office says, are about cancelling a registrar’s decision that registered private ownership of the buildings of two architectural monuments to a UOC religious community, and about returning the complex of buildings to the state: the All Saints’ church of 1773 in the cemetery in Pochaiv and the Intercession church with a bell tower in the village of Stary Pochaiv.
Earlier, in case No. 921/788/23, the administration demanded that the 2004 decision of the executive committee of the Pochaiv city council on the Holy Spirit Monastery’s ownership of a complex of buildings be cancelled. By the Supreme Court’s ruling of 22 January 2025, the court of first instance granted the claim on 14 August 2024 and the appeal court left the decision unchanged on 31 October, but the Supreme Court set both decisions aside and dismissed the claim, stating that the city council was the wrong defendant; the ruling is final.
Sources: Ukrinform, 17 September 2026; Court Decisions Register, Supreme Court ruling, 22 January 2025; Court Decisions Register, Ternopil Oblast Commercial Court ruling, 23 February 2026.
