Dechurching of Ukraine: When everything is allowed and nothing is required
In any religious organization, there will be clergy who behave unworthily. In itself, this proves nothing. What does prove something is the reaction — or rather, the absence of a reaction — to such behavior. Therefore, this article is not about the actions of individual people, but about the fact that no one considers these actions a problem: neither the people involved, nor their audience, nor the church leadership.
At the same time, the purpose of this article is not to document unsightly episodes from the lives of OCU clergy, but to answer the question: what is practically happening to the religious consciousness of people in Ukraine? What does the OCU have to do with it? The point is that we see how a church structure that has effectively merged with the state is naturally losing its ability to keep people in the faith, leading the people toward de-churching and, ultimately, toward paganism. This is the thesis we will attempt to prove.
Let us begin with a disclaimer. All the episodes described below are video materials posted in the public domain by their own authors. They were not obtained through hidden cameras, were not taken out of context by ill-wishers, and do not amount to retellings by eyewitnesses. They filmed it themselves, edited it themselves, and posted it themselves — expecting approval from their audience. Certain episodes are interviews and comments broadcast on television, meaning they are also public, pre-prepared statements. This is an important point: what we have before us is not compromising material, but self-presentation.
Don't Want to Fast — Don't Fast
The well-known OCU blogger-"priest" Alexei Filyuk, who has amassed an audience of millions, explains to his viewers that fasting is unnecessary. In his logic, fasting is an activity for those who have leisure time and are not working. "Some fasters have shown up here… Eat boiled sausage. Don't eat each other's livers. We are working," he tells his viewers during the Dormition Fast. And this is not an accidental slip — it is a systemic position: during Great Lent, Filyuk similarly urged people to eat sausage rather than engage in fanaticism.
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Moreover, the OCU cleric does not merely call on people not to observe the fast — he discredits it. According to him, fasting was invented by Russians: "Eat, cook yourselves dairy dishes, there is no sin in it. They invented diets for themselves — all of this comes from the Mokshantsы" (a derogatory term for Russians).
The claim that fasting was invented in Russia does not withstand any scrutiny: the Forty-Day Fast, as well as the "fasting" days of the week, are recorded in historical sources long before the emergence of not only the Moscow Patriarchate, but of Moscow itself. The Didache, a monument from the turn of the 1st–2nd centuries, already prescribes fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays.
It is unlikely that Filyuk is unaware of this. But to his audience of millions, he says something different — precisely what they want to hear.
After all, fasting is a small feat of endurance, and a strict fast — Great Lent or the Dormition Fast — is a quite tangible one. Many find it difficult. And then a pastor appears who gives permission: "Don't engage in fanaticism, if you don't want to fast — don't fast." Everyone is satisfied: the viewers get a "kind and modern priest," and Filyuk gains new admirers.
Want to Have Sex Before Marriage — No Problem
OCU clergy offer Ukrainians the same principle in relations between the sexes. In August 2026, OCU "priest" Ruslan Usmedinsky stated on the show of stand-up comedian Dmytro Tyutyun, "A Non-Serious Conversation," that sex before marriage is not a sin.
Responding to the stand-up comedian's direct question, "why is sex before marriage a sin," Usmedinsky replied that it is not: the OCU does not prohibit anything, but can only make recommendations. "It is not a sin," he declared, which provoked delight from Tyutyun and the audience, who clearly did not expect such an answer. "Our Orthodox Church never prohibits anything to people."
In the previous episode of the same program, the OCU cleric stated that using a cassock as a prop for role-playing sex games strengthens couples' relationships: "Love him, buy him a cassock and use your imagination — especially since it strengthens your family." In another fragment of the interview, he recounted that when he sprinkles people with holy water, some women get water in their mouths and spit it out. To such women, Usmedinsky says: "We don't spit!" The "priest's" last phrase caused the host to burst into laughter: he clearly heard a very specific subtext in it.
As with Filyuk's "abolition" of fasting, we again have a "good priest" who prohibits nothing and even allows himself crude jokes — and is therefore perceived by the audience as "one of the guys."
Also worth mentioning here is a video by OCU cleric Artem Fakhrutdinov, who stated that a young man choosing a monastery should go exclusively to a women's monastery. "A guy wants to go to a monastery and doesn't know which one? Only a women's one. Only a women's one, don't think about it. What is there to do in a men's one? Only a women's one. Oh, all the beauty of God's creation is there," says the "priest."
Crude jokes about nuns and women's monasteries have long been a common genre in secular humor. But how can a person who calls himself a priest say such things? And again: the words of Fakhrutdinov, like those of Usmedinsky, are not an accidentally blurted-out unfortunate joke. This is a video that was recorded, edited, and revised. At every stage, it was possible to abandon such content. Nevertheless, OCU clergy considered it entirely appropriate coming from a person in a cassock.
People like it — why not?
Want to Seize a Church from an "Enemy of the People" — Follow the Example of an OCU Pastor
"Priest" Serhiy Yanchuk personally cut the locks off the St. Paraskeva Church of the UOC in the village of Chernyavka, Zhytomyr region. Usually, OCU clergy leave the "dirty" work of seizures to others, and even try to obstruct filming: they cover cameras and knock phones out of people's hands.
In this case, everything was different: Yanchuk happily posed for a photographer from a local media outlet. Here is a shot of him drilling the lock with a drill, here — cutting it with an angle grinder, here — knocking it off with a hammer.
Let us once again emphasize an important detail: this is not about parishioners, activists, or outsiders. This is a person "in holy orders."
Why does he allow himself to do this? Because he considers the rector of the UOC church — who has served there for many years — an "enemy of the people," to whom he would not even "extend his hand."
How should OCU parishioners act when they see all the actions of their pastor? Of course, they copy all of it.
Murder as a Joke
In June 2025, following the failed seizure of the Holy Spirit Cathedral of the UOC in Chernivtsi, OCU "priest" Roman Hryshchuk effectively called for the murder of the believers who had defended their shrine.
He published a clip from the film "World War Z," in which an army mows down a crowd of zombies with machine guns, and wrote: "Briefly about what happened yesterday in Chernivtsi near the Holy Spirit Cathedral. We are still tolerantly treating this sect of the Moscow Patriarchate. It should be as in the video."
At the same time, Hryshchuk replaced the original audio track of the film with a speech of gratitude by Metropolitan Meletiy to the parishioners who had defended the cathedral. That is, there is no doubt as to whom exactly he is calling to kill.
Some time later, OCU propagandist from Kharkiv E. Akopov published a video in the genre of a staged sketch: he supposedly throws the body of a UOC priest, who had refused to serve in the Ukrainian language, into the trunk of a car.
The author presumably considers this a joke. But in the context of what is happening to UOC clergy, the joke falls very flat. As does another example.
On the Threads social network, military medic Ulyana Kashchiy recounted a dialogue with her father about a UOC priest wounded in the war.
"Dad, can you imagine, a wounded man was brought to me — a priest of the Moscow Patriarchate. He says this is the only true faith," wrote Kashchiy. According to her, her father advised her to "finish him off."
In the comments, the medic stated that it was a joke: the priest remained alive and received the necessary care.
Nevertheless, as with Akopov's case, one cannot help but note that every joke contains only a grain of humor — everything else is truth. The persecution of the UOC by the authorities and society has led to a situation where the topic of killing its clergy is received calmly and even approvingly.
Murder at the Holy Mountains Lavra
On August 23, 2026, unknown individuals killed monk Varsonofiy and wounded two others. According to novice Andrei, who received stab wounds, before the attack three men in uniform demanded the "correct" response to the greeting "Glory to Ukraine!" Upon hearing in response "Glory to our Lord God. Save and preserve," they attacked.
The investigation into the case has not been completed, and we will not anticipate its conclusions. But the context in which this became possible is evident. The call to murder by Roman Hryshchuk, the "joking" murder performed by Akopov, the "humor" about "finishing off" a wounded UOC priest by Kashchiy — all of this has been forming, over the course of years, an environment in which the murder of a monk has ceased to be something unthinkable. These are the consequences of a policy of inciting hatred toward UOC believers and clergy — a policy in which the leadership and clergy of the OCU take the most active part.
A feedback loop is also at work here: the more actively OCU representatives participate in incitement, the stronger the demand in part of society for criticism and even reprisals against "Moscow priests" — and the louder this demand, the more eagerly it is served from the pulpit.
What Do They Have in Common?
If we summarize the episodes presented, related to the public activities of OCU clergy, several things can be noted.
1. Demonstrativeness. OCU clergy do not hide — and, judging by the absence of consequences, not without reason. In none of the listed cases did there follow any canonical censure, any public distancing by the church hierarchy, or even a routine statement that "this is a personal opinion." The silence of the OCU leadership here is not neutrality, but a form of consent. All the more so since almost all the individuals featured in our article have received awards personally from Dumenko on multiple occasions, rather than reprimands.
2. A vector toward the destruction of the sacred. Fasting is unnecessary, monasticism is ridiculous, premarital chastity is excessive, a UOC priest is an object of violence. Not a single episode points in the opposite direction.
3. The desire to please and cater to the audience. If all the examples given are compressed into a single phrase, what remains is this: food, sexual instinct, and a thirst for violence. Everywhere the Church calls its children to abstinence and restraint, the OCU calls for complete "freedom" of desires.
Is fasting difficult? Don't engage in fanaticism — eat some sausage and meat. Are hormones raging? Don't restrain yourself — sex before marriage is not a sin. Want to go to a monastery — choose a women's one, there is "the beauty of creation" there. Don't like "Moscow priests"? They are enemies of the people and deserve death.
But what will become of the spirituality of those who listen to such pastors? Imagine a teacher who advises not wasting time on a textbook and relaxing on social media instead. A doctor who, instead of a strict diet, recommends fatty food and alcohol to a patient. A coach whose only advice is to lie on the sofa and eat cake. All three will be loved, and not one of them will help.
Today the OCU represents a structure that is religious in form and secular in content. Its pastors do not lead people to Christ, but themselves adapt to the demands of secular society — for the sake of an approving nod from an official or a like on social media.
To destroy the religious consciousness of a people, nothing more is required. It is enough to consistently mold faith into what is expected of it. The result of such a process can be seen in many examples in the West, where churches actively support LGBT causes, set up restaurants or gyms in their sanctuaries, or even hand them over to mosques altogether. The number of parishioners in such denominations is rapidly declining. People, as they say, vote with their feet.
Today the state needs a "correct church" — a structure that supports the authorities. But tomorrow this need may disappear, and it will then become clear that such a church has nothing left with which to retain people. A religion without demands is not needed by society itself either: it is no different from a club of shared interests, and there are enough such clubs without it.
And people will seek the true Church — one that demands something of them. The one that leads them along the true path: through fasts, self-restraint, through spiritual growth. Along the same path that led many generations of their ancestors.
