In western Ukraine, TCC employees mobilized a priest of the canonical UOC

Employees of the territorial center for recruitment (TCC, the equivalent of a military enlistment office) in the Khmelnytskyi region mobilized a cleric of the Kamianets-Podilskyi diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), Mykhailo Shved.

This was reported by the Union of Orthodox Journalists (SPZh).

According to the SPZh, Mykhailo Shved is the rector of the Intercession Church in the village of Kurazhyn and has a serious heart condition. The cleric is currently in Khmelnytskyi, where he was taken to undergo a military medical board.

This is not the first case of mobilization of priests of the canonical UOC. Previously, TCC employees brutally beat and mobilized a UOC monk in Kharkiv, and in the Khmelnytskyi region, they abducted a UOC priest with a heart condition. International religious centers have repeatedly pointed out to the Kyiv authorities the inadmissibility of mobilizing clergy.

Since February 2022, general mobilization has been declared and repeatedly extended in Ukraine. Clergy in the country are not exempt from general mobilization if they fall under it by age and health status. At the end of 2024, the Ukrainian cabinet allowed granting deferments to priests of “critically important religious organizations,” and in early June 2025, the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience approved a list of more than 7,700 such organizations.

Local media immediately noted that this list, with a few exceptions, does not include communities and parishes of the canonical UOC, but widely features communities of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and even religious organizations with questionable reputations. As explained by the state service, the decision to include religious organizations in the list of critically important ones was made based on “special criteria.”