Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)

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Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Metropolitanate of Kyiv
1990 (self-rule within the Moscow Patriarchate)
Recognition27 May 2022[a]
24 March 2023[b]
Members6% of the Ukrainian Orthodox population[c]
Official websitechurch.ua

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC),[d] commonly referred to by the exonym Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP),[e] is an Eastern Orthodox church in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church was officially formed in 1990 in place of Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, under the leadership of Metropolitan

Filaret, as the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church.[9][6]

On 27 May 2022, following a church-wide council in Kyiv, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church announced its full independence and autonomy from the Moscow Patriarchate. The council made this decision in protest of the February

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and particularly in response to Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill's support for the invasion.[3]

The UOC is one of the two major Eastern Orthodox ecclesiastical bodies in modern Ukraine, alongside the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Since the Unification Council on 15 December 2018 which formed the OCU, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople has disputed the claims by the Moscow Patriarchate of its ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the territory of Ukraine.[10][11][12][13]

The Russian Orthodox Church does not currently recognize a change in their relationship to the UOC.[14][5][15] However, in June 2023 ROC hierarch Metropolitan Leonid (Gorbachev) of Klin, scorned the UOC's decision to separate from the Moscow Patriarchate, saying, "When the opportunity presented itself to get out from under the wing of Moscow, they did it," and declared that the ROC would absorb the UOC's dioceses in Russian occupied areas of Ukraine.[16]

By late April 2023 the local/regional councils of (the city of) Lviv, Rivne Oblast, Volyn Oblast and Zhytomyr Oblast had voted to ban the activities of the UOC-MP.[17][18]

In October 2023, the Ukrainian Parliament initiated steps to ban the UOC due to its alleged ties with Russia. This came in spite of the UOC claiming it had severed ties with Moscow following Russia's invasion.[19] However, UOC has never declared full autocephaly from Moscow.[20]

Name

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church insists on its name being just the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,[21] stating that it is the sole canonical body of Orthodox Christians in the country,[21] a Ukrainian "local church" (Ukrainian: Помісна Церква). The church rejects being labeled "Russian" or "Moscow."[22]

It is also the name that it is registered under in the State Committee of Ukraine in Religious Affairs.[23]

It is often referred to as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) or UOC (MP)[24][25][26] in order to distinguish between the two rival churches contesting the name of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Following the creation of the

Ukrainian parliament voted to force the UOC-MP to rename itself in its mandatory state registration, its new name must have "the full name of the church to which it is subordinated".[27][28][29] This was protested by UOC-MP adherents.[30] On 11 December 2019 the Supreme Court of Ukraine allowed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to retain its name.[31] The UOC had argued that their governing center is in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, not in Russia's capital, Moscow, and therefore it should not be renamed.[31]

Relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church

Prior to the

February 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine the church stated that it was one of the "self-governing" churches under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, i.e. the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). (In the terminology of the current Statute of the ROC, a "self-governing Church" is distinguished from an "autonomous Church").[32][33][34]

The UOC claims since May 2022 that 'any provisions that at least somehow hinted at or indicated the connection with Moscow were excluded'; since then it is a matter of dispute as to whether the Church is under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church.[14] Despite claims that the church did not publish its new statute,[4] the new statute is publicly available on government,[35] news,[36] and official church[37] websites.

The ROC defines the UOC-MP as a "self-governing church with rights of wide autonomy".[32] It has also ignored all UOC-MP's declarations of it not being connected with it anymore and continues to include UOC-MP clerics in various commissions or working groups.[14][5]

According to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Primate of the UOC-MP is the most senior[38] permanent member of the ROC's Holy Synod and thus has a say in its decision-making in respect of the rest of the ROC throughout the world.

Despite the de facto annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, the eparchies of the UOC in Crimea have continued to be administered by the UOC.[39] In June 2022 the Moscow Patriarchate claimed to transfer Crimea from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the Moscow Patriarchate.[40] The UOC continues to list the Crimean eparchies as its own, and has not recognized any change to its territorial boundaries based on decisions taken by the ROC.[41] On 27 March 2023, Archbishop Viktor (Kotsaba) said that the territories of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church include the Crimea and Donbas areas of Ukraine.[42]

On 21 June 2023, Metropolitan Leonid (Gorbachev) of Klin, a hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, decried the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's decision to separate from the Moscow Patriarchate and declared that the Russian Orthodox Church would absorb UOC dioceses in areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia.[16]

In a Patriarchal calendar for 2024 released by the Russian Orthodox Church in December 2023 all the then bishops of the (designated itself as not connected to Russia) UOC were listed as bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church.[15] In response, Archbishop Jonah (Cherepanov) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church said that the UOC does not recognize any of the ROC's attempts to make decisions affecting Ukrainian dioceses.[43] Later, the UOC's official website stated the following: "In order not to become an object of manipulation, everybody wishing to obtain official information about the UOC and its episcopate should refer solely to official sources of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This pertains also to information included in church calendars."[44]

History

Under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

Metropolises in Moscow, Lithuania and Galicia

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church considers itself the sole descendant in modern Ukraine of the

Kingdom of Galicia and Volhynia to the south-west, a separate metropolis was erected - the Metropolis of Halych. Similarly, in the north-west, another metropolis was erected at the behest of Algirdas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania - the Metropolis of Lithuania
.

Revival

In 1596, the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Galich and all Rus' Michael Rohoza accepted the Union of Brest transforming dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople into the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church under the Holy See's jurisdiction. In 1620, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople Cyril Lucaris reestablished Orthodox dioceses for the Orthodox population of what was then the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth — under the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Galicia, and all Russia Job Boretsky as the Patriarchal Exarch.

Merger into the Moscow Patriarchate

Following the

Hetman of Zaporizhian Host Ivan Samoylovych. In late 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople indicated that information about that it transferred jurisdiction over Ukraine to the Moscow Patriarchate was inaccurate as Constantinople temporarily provided Moscow with stewardship over the Ukrainian church.[47] The Russian Orthodox Church immediately rejected that statement and called for further discussion and revision of historical archives.[48]

Soon, Gedeon gradually lost control of the dioceses which had been under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Kyiv. In January 1688, Gedeon's title was changed by Moscow to the ″Metropolitan of Kyiv, Galich, and Little Russia″. Gedeon's successors were effectively mere diocesan bishops under the Moscow Patriarchate and later Russia's Most Holy Synod.

Before the

Carl XII, the new Metropolitan Ioasaf along with bishops of Chernigov and Pereyaslav was summoned by Peter the Great to Hlukhiv where they were ordered to declare an anathema onto Mazepa. After the battle of Poltava, in 1709 Metropolitan Ioasaf was exiled to Tver and in 1710 a church censorship was introduced to the Kyiv metropolia. In 1718 Metropolitan Ioasaf was arrested and dispatched to Saint Petersburg
for interrogation where he died.

From 1718 to 1722, the Metropolitan See in Kyiv was vacant and ruled by the Kyiv Spiritual Consistory (under the authority of the Most Holy Synod); in 1722 it was occupied by Archbishop Varlaam.

Synodal period

In 1730, Archbishop Varlaam with all members of the Kyiv Spiritual Consistory were put on trial by the Privy Chancellery. After being convicted, Varlaam as a simple monk was exiled to the

Tikhvin Assumption Monastery. In 1750 Varlaam accepted the Great Schema
under the name of Vasili and soon died in 1751.

In 1743, the title of Metropolitan was re-instated for Archbishop Raphael Zaborovsky.

On 2 April 1767, the Empress of Russia Catherine the Great issued an edict stripping the title of the Kyivan Metropolitan of the style "and all Little Russia".[49]

Fall of monarchy in Russia and Exarchate

Participants of the 1917 Local Council. Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky is to the right of Patriarch Tikhon

Metropolitan

Reingold Berzin occupied Kyiv (see Ukrainian–Soviet War
). In the evening of 25 January 1918, Metropolitan Vladimir was found dead between walls of the Old Pechersk Fortress beyond the Gates of All Saints, having been killed by unknown people.

In May 1918, the Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galich

Patriarch of Moscow at the Russian Local Council of 1917 and losing it to the Patriarch Tikhon. In July 1918 Metropolitan Antony became the head of the All-Ukrainian Church Council. Eventually he sided with the Russian White movement supporting the Denikin's forces of South Russia, while keeping the title of Metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych. After the defeat of the Whites and the exile of Antony, in 1919-21 the metropolitan seat was temporarily held by the bishop of Cherkasy Nazariy (also the native of Kazan). After the arrest of Nazariy by the Soviet authorities in 1921, the seat was provisionally held by the bishop of Grodno and newly elected Exarch of Ukraine Mikhail, a member of the Russian Black Hundreds
nationalistic movement. After his arrest in 1923, the Kyiv eparchy was provisionally headed by various bishops of neighboring eparchies until 1927. After his return in 1927 Mikhail became the Metropolitan of Kyiv and Exarch of Ukraine until his death in 1929.

In 1945, after the integration of

USSR, eastern parts of the Eparchy of Mukačevo and Prešov were transferred from the supreme jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church
to the jurisdiction of the Exarchate of Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, and a new Eparchy of Mukachevo and Uzhgorod was formed.

Dissolution of the Soviet Union and self rule

Map showing the percentage of religious organizations that were UOC-MP affiliated by oblast of Ukraine, 2006.

On 28 October 1990,[50] the Moscow Patriarchate granted the Ukrainian Exarchate a status of a self–governing church under the jurisdiction of the ROC (but not the full autonomy as is understood in the ROC legal terminology). However, the Ukrainian branch remained crucial to the Moscow Patriarchate, because of historical and traditional roots in Kyiv and Ukraine, and because nearly a third of the Moscow Patriarchate's 36,000 congregations were in Ukraine.[51]

Metropolitan

Filaret (Denysenko), was enthroned in 1992 as the Primate of the UOC under the title Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine, with the official residency in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra
, which also houses all of the Church's administration.

The UOC-MP, prior to 2019, was believed to be the largest religious body in Ukraine with the greatest number of parish churches and communities counting up to half of the total in Ukraine and totaling over 10,000. The UOC also claimed to have up to 75 percent of the Ukrainian population.

Many Orthodox Ukrainians do not clearly identify with a particular Orthodox jurisdiction and, sometimes, are even unaware of the affiliation of the parish they attend as well as of the controversy itself, which indicates the difficulty of using survey numbers as an indicator of a relative strength of the church. Additionally, the geographical factor plays a major role in the number of adherents, as the Ukrainian population tends to be more churchgoing in the western part of the country rather than in the UOC-MP's heartland in southern and eastern Ukraine. Politically, many in Ukraine see the UOC-MP as merely a puppet of the ROC and consequently a geopolitical tool of Russia, which have stridently opposed the consolidation and recognition of the independent OCU.[55]

Russo-Ukrainian War and changing allegiances of parishes