OCU: an insider's view
A cleric of the OCU submitted a letter of resignation to Dumenko – and then gave a detailed account of what is really happening inside the structure.
Father Yaroslav Yasenets, a priest of the OCU, has left the organization and published a lengthy testimony about the situation within it. Below is a concise overview and key conclusions from his account.
Can his words be trusted?
Whenever someone comes forward with revelations like these, a natural question arises: how truthful are they? How sincere is the person making them? Might he be acting out of some personal motive or resentment?
In this case, several things deserve attention.
First, the OCU presents itself as an ultra-patriotic organization. Anyone who dares to criticize it is immediately branded an “agent of the Kremlin.” Yet Yaroslav Yasenets is known as an ultra-patriotic figure – one who could hardly be accused of sympathy for Moscow. He blessed marches in honor of Bandera, served as a military chaplain, mockingly called the Odessa Trade Unions House tragedy of May 2, 2014 – in which over 40 people were burned alive – a “Barbecue Day,” and even urged military recruitment officers to pray to St. John the Warrior for help catching draft dodgers. If one could find the most “refined patriot" within the already patriotic OCU, Yasenets would surely be among the top contenders.
Second, had Yasenets joined the UOC, one could claim he was “slandering” the OCU to win favor with his new Church. But instead he joined the UOC-KP – a structure with an uncertain legal status and an even more uncertain future. It may well disappear entirely after the death of Filaret Denysenko or be absorbed into the OCU. Why, then, would Yasenets burn all bridges behind him and close the way back? Most likely because he could no longer bear the hypocrisy and wanted to tell the truth.
Here is that truth – briefly summarized.
The nature of the OCU
As the UOJ has noted many times, the OCU is a nationally oriented religious organization that acts in the interests of the Ukrainian state and strives to conform to public expectations. Yasenets now confirms this from the inside:
“I can no longer remain in a structure that has become more of a liberal-leaning political party than the Church of Christ, for which tradition, Holy Tradition, and dogma have become mere inconveniences. It has become the norm to follow the instructions of an openly godless secular power, and there is far more imitation of activity than there are good fruits.”
His words are notable not only for the description of the OCU but also for his blunt statement that the current Ukrainian authorities are openly godless. These same authorities publicly support “the right kind” of religious organizations – and yet, in essence, are devoid of faith. And the OCU, he says, obediently follows their directives.
The character of Serhiy (Epifaniy) Dumenko
Yasenets recalls that many OCU “hierarchs” and “priests” once considered the leadership style of Patriarch Filaret authoritarian – a criticism that ultimately led to Filaret’s suspension, deposition, and anathema. When Serhiy (Epifaniy) Dumenko was elected, many hoped his style would be different.
Those hopes, Yasenets writes, were quickly dashed. He describes Dumenko as:
– rarely meeting with priests;
– immediately building a luxurious residence for himself;
– surrounding himself with guards and armored doors;
– making it nearly impossible to secure an appointment;
– being rude and arrogant with the few laypeople who manage to see him;
– serving liturgies far less frequently than Filaret;
– avoiding ordinary parishioners while constantly meeting with officials, diplomats, and embassy staff;
– dining in expensive restaurants.
Yasenets also refers to Dumenko’s behavior at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Reports circulated on social media that Dumenko had fled abroad – and while Yasenets does not state this outright, the facts he cites indirectly support it.
He also questions whether Dumenko personally wrote his theological works and dissertation.
Church attendance
According to Yasenets, OCU services in churches seized from the UOC are largely empty.
“The church transferred to the OCU stands deserted. You don’t have to take my word for it – anyone can check Google or YouTube and see the evidence for themselves,” he writes.
Despite massive government support for the OCU and equally massive pressure on the UOC, statistics still show that the UOC has more parishes than the OCU.
Education and clergy formation
Here, too, the situation is dire. OCU seminaries suffer from chronic understaffing and extremely low educational standards. As an example, Yasenets cites the Kyiv Orthodox Theological Academy of the OCU:
“Not a single professor or graduate student of the KPTA today has a publication in Scopus-indexed journals. That speaks volumes. In any real academic institution, such publications are a basic requirement even for graduate students.”
Ordinations, he adds, are granted to practically anyone: “Very often OCU priests are people with no theological education whatsoever – men who, until recently, worked in completely secular jobs.”
This problem, he notes, has existed from the beginning. In 2019, recruitment notices for “OCU priests” were posted on street poles in the Zhytomyr region, while “Metropolitan” Danyil of Chernivtsi encouraged villagers to become OCU priests without any education, assuring them they would be trained later.
Six years later, nothing has changed. As of 2025, Yasenets writes, OCU “clergy often lack even elementary knowledge of biblical studies, dogmatics, or liturgics.”
He recalls a shocking case from his own experience: “I personally witnessed a newly ordained priest in the Sumy diocese who did not know the Nicene Creed. He was ordained, as he himself admitted, simply to serve as a chaplain at the request of a military unit.”
Monastic life
According to Yasenets, the OCU’s monasticism is in an equally pitiful state: “There are catastrophically few monks in the OCU – especially women.”
He compares two “elite” monasteries – the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra of the UOC and the St. Michael’s Monastery of the OCU: “The brotherhood of the first numbered over a hundred monks, while St. Michael’s had barely a dozen.”
Describing the Theodosius Monastery in Kyiv, where he once served, Yasenets writes: “The number of monks there ranged from five to ten. Empty cells were occupied by married priests with their wives and children. There were hardly any signs of real monastic life, and the last tonsure took place back in 2017.”
And this, he stresses, refers to monasteries in the capital. What then can be said of those elsewhere?
He also mentions the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, noting that despite pressure and persuasion, only one monk – Avramiy Lotysh – joined the OCU. OCU services there stand virtually empty; relics are treated as museum exhibits; the caves are closed to pilgrims; and the “performances” staged by OCU supporters outside the Lavra, he says, resemble a neo-pagan sabbath.
In his statement, Yasenets adds that the OCU has practically abandoned Ukrainian parishes abroad, leaving them to their fate. The process of international recognition of the OCU, he notes, effectively stopped with the Church of Cyprus back in 2019.
Conclusions
Summing up Yasenets’s testimony, the following conclusions emerge:
First, the OCU as a religious organization is experiencing degradation in virtually every sphere of its activity. Yasenets could not name a single area where it has achieved genuine success.
Second, the OCU’s internal bankruptcy is becoming increasingly evident even to those within it. Many, sensing that the state’s support will eventually vanish – as it inevitably will – are already reconsidering their future in such a structure.
Third, the problems Yasenets identifies are not new. They plagued the UOC-KP long before the OCU was formed in 2018: the scarcity of monastics, empty churches, poorly educated clergy, and so forth. These are not the result of recent circumstances but of something deeper – the simple truth that departing from the true Church of Christ can lead only into a dead end.
