Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)
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.
This article is about a disputed branch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Not to be confused with Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Moscow Patriarchate (disputed)
Metropolitan Onuphrius
114[1] (53 governing)
12,551 (2022)[1]
2,727
8,097 (May 2024)[2]
4,620 (2022)[3]
161 (2022)[3]
Ukraine
988 establishment of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv
1990 (self-rule within the Moscow Patriarchate)
6% of the Ukrainian Orthodox population[c]
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.[10][7]
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.[4]
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.[11][12][13][14]
The Russian Orthodox Church does not currently recognize a change in their relationship to the UOC.[15][6][16] 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.[17]
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.[18][19]
In October 2023, the Verkhovna Rada 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.[20][21] However, the UOC has never declared full autocephaly from Moscow.[22]
Name[edit]
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church insists on its name being just the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,[23] stating that it is the sole canonical body of Orthodox Christians in the country,[23] a Ukrainian "local church" (Ukrainian: Помісна Церква). The church rejects being labeled "Russian" or "Moscow."[24]
It is also the name that it is registered under in the State Committee of Ukraine in Religious Affairs.[25]
It is often referred to as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) or UOC (MP)[26] in order to distinguish between the two rival churches contesting the name of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Following the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, on 20 December 2018, 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]
On 27 December 2022 the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ordered the UOC to change its name and indicate its affiliation with Russia.[2][32] It took into account the verdict of the European Court of Human Rights in the case "Ilin and others against Ukraine" that stated Ukrainian law could force "religious organization, wishing to be registered, to take a name which makes it impossible to mislead the faithful and society as a whole and which makes it possible to distinguish it from existing organizations."[32]
In May 2024 of the 8,097 UOC parishes 22 of them directly indicated their affiliation in their name.[2]
Relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church[edit]
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").[33][34][35]
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.[15] Despite claims that the church did not publish its new statute,[5] the new statute is publicly available on government,[36] news,[37] and official church[38] websites.
The ROC defines the UOC-MP as a "self-governing church with rights of wide autonomy".[33] 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.[15][6]
According to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Primate of the UOC-MP is the most senior[39] 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.[40] In June 2022 the Moscow Patriarchate claimed to transfer Crimea from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the Moscow Patriarchate.[41] 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.[42] On 27 March 2023, Archbishop Viktor (Kotsaba) said that the territories of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church include the Crimea and Donbas areas of Ukraine.[43]
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.[17]
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.[16] 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.[44] 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."[45]
The UOC publicly distended itself from the World Russian People's Council headed and led by ROC head Patriarch Kirill of Moscow of late March 2024.[46] During this Congress a document was approved that stated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a "Holy War."[46] The document also stated that following the war "the entire territory of modern Ukraine should enter the zone of Russia's exclusive influence".[46] This was to be done so "The possibility of the existence of a Russophobic political regime hostile to Russia and its people on this territory, as well as a political regime controlled from an external center hostile to Russia, should be completely excluded."[46] The document also made reference to the "triunity of the Russian people" and it claimed that Belarusians and Ukrainians "should be recognised only as sub-ethnic groups of the Russians".[46] The UOC stated on 28 March 2024 that they "dissociates itself from the ideology of the Russian world."[46]