Kyiv Metropolis challenges court decision on renaming UOC structures

On June 14, 2023, the Kyiv Metropolis of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church appealed against the decision of the Kyiv District Administrative Court (KDAC) to recognize as lawful the ruling of the Ministry of Culture of January 25, 2019, which obliges the religious organizations of the UOC to reflect the “connection” with the Russian Orthodox Church in their names. This was reported by the Legal Department of the UOC.

The Metropolis filed an appeal against the decision of the KDAC with the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal.

In the commentary of the Legal Department, it is noted that in 2019 the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC and the Pochaiv Lavra filed a lawsuit with the District Administrative Court of Kyiv city to recognize as illegal and cancel the order of the Ministry of Culture, issued in 2019, and the “religious expertise” conducted on its basis, which “confirmed” the connection of the UOC with the ROC.

On April 22, 2019, the court granted the Church's petition to secure the claim, forbidding the renaming of religious organizations of the UOC.

Due to the liquidation of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv, the case was transferred to the Kyiv District Administrative Court.

On May 15, 2023, the KDAC made a decision on the merits of the case: it refused to satisfy the claim of the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC and Pochaiv Lavra to cancel the order of the Ministry of Culture. The Legal Department of the UOC notes that this decision was made "with a significant violation of substantive and procedural law."

“The appeal is substantiated by the incorrect application by the court of the norms of substantive law and the violation of the norms of procedural law, as well as by the fact that the Statute of the Kyiv Metropolis of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church does not contain a single provision that its governing center is located outside Ukraine, since the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC is a registered religious organization and acts as the center of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” the UOC lawyers say.

They point to "flagrant violations of the law" when making a decision by the KDAC. In particular, it concerns the fact that the result of the “religious expertise” in 2019 was received on the day the order was issued to conduct it. The legal department notes that the conclusions of the “expertise” were probably prepared by one person “without meeting the requirement to involve representatives of religious organizations and relevant specialists,” and that “it was not possible for the Ministry of Culture, in one day, to request and properly investigate and analyze the constituent documents of religious organizations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, of which there are more than 12 thousand.

In addition, when making a decision, the KDAC took into account the documents published four years after the issuance of the ruling of the Ministry of Culture, namely the conclusions of the “religious expertise” of the State Ethnic Policy Service, made in 2023.

The Legal Department of the UOC emphasizes that as a result of this, “the decision was made on the basis of inadequate and inadmissible evidence in the case, i.e. the evidence that does not contain information about the subject of proof and obtained in violation of the procedure established by law.”

As reported by the UOJ, the lawyer of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Archpriest Nikita Chekman, is preparing a lawsuit to challenge the conclusions of the "religious expertise" of the Charter on the administration of the UOC, organized by the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience.