FORCED RE-REGISTRATION OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS IN THE TEMPORARILY OCCUPIED TERRITORIES OF UKRAINE

Abstract

The purpose of this study is a comprehensive comparative legal analysis of the mechanism of forced re-
registration of religious organisations in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine – the Autonomous
Republic of Crimea, certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and the additionally seized regions after the
full-scale invasion of 24 February 2022 – aimed at identifying the legal grounds, administrative instruments, and
consequences of this mechanism for various religious confessions. The comparative legal method was used to
compare the regulatory and legal regulation of state-religious regulation in Ukraine (Law No. 987-XII of 1991)
and the Russian Federation (FZ No. 125-FZ of 1997 and the «Yarovaya package» of 2016) according to the
following parameters: registration conditions, grounds for refusal, legal status of unregistered communities,
sanctions for activities without registration. The formal legal method was used to analyze the provisions of Articles
43 and 64 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as Article 18 of the ICCPR in the context of their application to
occupation registration practices. The system-analytical method allowed us to reconstruct the re-registration
algorithm as a four-stage repressive system. Content analysis aims to identify recurring patterns of violations in
reports by USCIRF, Forum 18, the UN Monitoring Mission, and materials from the Kharkiv Human Rights Group
for 2014–2026. The chronological boundaries of the study cover the period from the annexation of the Autonomous
Republic of Crimea in March 2014 to April 1, 2026. The study establishes that re-registration is a targeted state
mechanism for eliminating religious diversity, securing a monopoly for the Russian Orthodox Church in the
occupied territories. The mechanism is implemented through an insurmountable system of legal barriers,
administrative pressure, armed raids during worship services, criminal prosecution, and deportation of clergy,
in gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Over the years of occupation, more than 1,200 religious organisations have been expelled or
forcibly closed in Crimea; Baptists and Pentecostals in Donbas have lost approximately 95% of their communities.
The article proposes a conceptualization of the forced re-registration of religious organizations as a mechanism
of occupation-based selective legal personality, which turns the registration procedure into a tool for admitting or
displacing religious communities depending on their loyalty, confessional acceptability, and willingness to act
within the legal order of the occupying state. The findings may be used to build evidentiary bases in international
judicial instances, develop restitution claims regarding seized property of religious organisations, and improve
Ukraine’s state monitoring policy on freedom of conscience in the occupied territories.

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