PCU supporters summoned military commissars to a UOC community service in Kremenchuk

In Kremenchuk, Poltava region, representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PCU) summoned employees of territorial recruitment centers (TRC) to a worship service held by a community of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).

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

According to the UOJ, the UOC community has been forced to pray in the open air following the seizure of the Trinity church. It was during one such service that PCU representatives arrived, led by Feodosiy Ovcharuk and activist Olga Ponomarenko.

Eyewitnesses, as quoted by the UOJ, report that those who arrived attempted to provoke a conflict during the service itself and demanded that permission for holding the worship service be presented. They then summoned police officers and TRC employees.

“TRC employees took away two worshippers. One of them is a monk who has health problems,” the UOJ reports.

The persecution of the UOC in Ukraine began after the 2014 coup under President Petro Poroshenko. Ukrainian authorities have been actively facilitating the transfer of UOC religious communities to the jurisdiction of the PCU, which was created in 2018 from two schismatic religious organizations. Local authorities have stripped the UOC of the right to lease land under its churches, PCU supporters — with their encouragement — have forcibly seized churches of the canonical church and attacked priests. Law enforcement agencies have brought charges of state treason and other crimes against UOC priests, and sanctions have been imposed against them.

In August 2024, Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law aimed at effectively banning the activities of the canonical UOC in Ukraine. On July 2, 2025, he stripped UOC primate Metropolitan Onufriy of Ukrainian citizenship.