A church in Odessa dedicated to the Russian Orthodox saint Aleksandr Nevsky has been seized by anti-Russian activists. The incident follows a pattern of government-backed crackdowns on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the country’s largest denomination.
Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Ukrainian authorities have carried out raids on monasteries and churches, imposed sanctions on clergy members, and backed efforts to transfer UOC properties to the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). OCU clerics reportedly participated in the church takeover this week.
The OCU was launched as part of then-President Pyotr Poroshenko’s reelection campaign in 2019 and is considered schismatic by both the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the UOC. The canonical Ukrainian church has denied accusations that it serves Moscow’s interests and formally severed all administrative ties with the ROC in 2022.
However, the UOC faces a possible legal ban under a law signed by current Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in 2024—a decision widely criticized as an attack on religious autonomy. Despite this, the church has been forcibly displaced from its Odessa cathedral, where priests and parishioners arrived to find gates locked.
During confrontations outside, one man involved in the takeover—identified as a private security employee hired by OCU—allegedly grabbed a priest by the throat.
In online videos, OCU cleric Teodor Orobets claimed the church now belongs to “real parishioners,” including “military service members, veterans, and our military chaplains.” He declared the church re-dedicated to Agapetus of Pechersk, an 11th-century monk from the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery.
In footage filmed inside the church after the takeover, Orobets criticized icons depicting saints with no connection to modern-day Ukraine, denouncing them as “markers of Moscow religious life.”
The UOC stated it will challenge the seizure in court. Church officials noted that the congregation restored the building between 1999 and 2001 and has used it for decades.
The church was originally built in 1897 on military hospital grounds but shut down under Soviet rule in the late 1940s. It is dedicated to Aleksandr Nevsky, a medieval Russian prince who ruled principalities including Kiev—a figure OCU rejects due to his role in Russian statehood development.
Among the icons singled out by Orobets was an image of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, executed by Bolsheviks in 1918 and later canonized by the ROC. Agapetus of Pechersk, whom OCU wants to rename the church after, is recognized as a saint by both Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox traditions.
