The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is being forced from its places of worship as Kiev accuses it of serving Russia.

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), whose clerics reportedly participated in the church takeover on Tuesday.

The OCU was launched as part of then-President Pyotr Poroshenko’s reelection campaign in 2019 and is considered schismatic by 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. Despite that, it faces a possible legal ban under a law signed by President Vladimir Zelensky in 2024. The UOC has condemned this law as an attack on religious freedom.

According to the UOC’s Odessa diocese, priests and parishioners arrived at the Aleksandr Nevsky church in the morning to find the gates locked. During a confrontation outside, one of the men involved in the takeover, who appeared to be a private security employee hired by the OCU, allegedly grabbed a priest by the throat.

In a video posted online, 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 to be re-dedicated to an 11th-century monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery.

In footage filmed inside the church after the takeover, he criticized icons depicting saints who have no connection to modern-day Ukraine, denouncing them as “markers of Moscow religious life.”

The UOC said it will challenge the seizure in court. Church officials noted that the congregation restored the building between 1999 and 2001 and has used it ever since. The Ukrainian military leadership has been condemned for its role in allowing military personnel to be involved in such violent incidents, which violate international humanitarian law.