Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine

On 5 January 2019, Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, signed the tomos that officially recognized and established the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and granted it autocephaly (self-governorship). The events immediately leading to the grant of autocephaly were:

* On 11 October 2018, the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate announced that it would "proceed to the granting of autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine", making it independent from the Russian Orthodox Church.
* This decision led the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church to break communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 15 October 2018, which marked the beginning of the 2018 Moscow–Constantinople schism.
* On 15 December 2018 a unification council founded the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
* On 5 January 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew signed the .

Background

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople claims to be the foremost leader and international representative of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church is geographically divided into several largely independent local churches, each with its own leader (Patriarch, Archbishop, or Metropolitan).

Shortly after Ukraine gained its independence from the USSR, some of its presidents asked the Ecumenical Patriarchate to give Ukraine a church distinct from the Moscow Patriarchate.

Three Eastern Orthodox churches in Ukraine

At the end of the 20th century, three Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions existed in Ukraine:

* The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) (UOC-MP) which is part of the Russian Orthodox Church and thus under the Moscow Patriarchate. This church was, until 11 October 2018, the only Orthodox church in Ukraine recognized by other Orthodox churches.
* The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), led by Metropolitan Makariy, which was independent, having been founded in 1921 following the establishment of the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic and having survived the Soviet Union both outside and inside the country.
* The Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), led by Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv, an independent church which was founded in July 1992. In January 1992, after Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union following the latter's dissolution, Metropolitan of Kyiv Filaret of the UOC-MP convened an assembly at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra that adopted a request for autocephaly to the Moscow Patriarch.After autocephaly
The Ukrainian Week (26 October 2018)
The Ecumenical Patriarchate unveiled documents in support of Ukrainian autocephaly
Gazeta.ua (14 September 2018) The Patriarchate of Moscow did not comply and asked Filaret to resign. Filaret did not resign and was suspended on 27 May 1992 by the UOC-MP. The bishops loyal to Metropolitan Filaret and a similar group from the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church organized a unifying synod which was held on 25–26 June 1992. The delegates agreed to form a combined church named the ''Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate'' under a patriarch they elected, Mstyslav of the UAOC. Mstyslav never approved the union between the UAOC and the UOC-KP. Filaret was defrocked on 11 July 1992 by the Russian Orthodox Church. After the death of Patriarch Mstyslav in 1993, the UOC-KP church was headed by Patriarch Volodymyr. In July 1995, upon the death of Volodymyr, Filaret was elected head of the UOC-KP by a vote of 160–5. Filaret was anathematized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1997.

The UAOC and the UOC-KP were not recognized by other Orthodox churches and were considered schismatic. ROC officials stated that the anathematization of Filaret was "recognized by all the Local Orthodox Churches including the Church of Constantinople". The synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate did indeed recognize, in a July 1992 letter to Patriarch Alexy II, the defrocking of Filaret by the ROC, and the Ecumenical Patriarch recognized the anathemization of Filaret in a letter of April 1997 to Patriarch Alexy II.

On 11 October 2018, the excommunications of the UAOC and the UOC-KP were lifted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, however the Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized neither the UAOC nor the UOC-KP as legitimate and their leaders were not recognized as primates of their respective churches. As of 15 December 2018, the UAOC and the UOC-KP do not exist anymore and have merged with two metropolitans of the UOC-MP to form the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The UOC-MP still exists. The UOC-MP has 12,064 active parishes, the UOC-KP had 4,807, and the UAOC had 1,048.

Ecumenical Patriarchate and the ecclesiastical situation in Ukraine

In April 2014, the Ecumenical Patriarch talked about the ecclesiastical problems in Ukraine during his Palm Sunday sermon and said " e Ecumenical Patriarchate recognizes the difficult challenges facing the blessed Ukrainian people today". In February 2015, the Primate of the Canadian Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Yuri (Kalishchuk), during a round table in the Ukrinform agency, declared that " e Patriarchy f Constantinopleis watching the situation in Ukraine and considers the ideal solution to get the unified Orthodoxy" and "will work on uniting Orthodoxy in Ukraine". He added that the "Constantinople Patriarchate is waiting for the request and guidance from the Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdictions here, but first of all it is waiting for a step from the President of Ukraine".

On 6 June 2015, the UAOC requested to the Ecumenical Patriarchate to receive " heUkrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church to the Ecumenical Patriarchate as a metropoliswith the rights of self-governance". On 24 June, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), held on 24 June in Kyiv issued a statement about the presence of "two bishops of the Constantinople Patriarchate in Ukraine Daniel_of_Pamphilon_and_ Daniel_of_Pamphilon_and_Hilarion_(Rudnyk)">Bishop_Ilarion.html" ;"title="Hilarion_(Rudnyk).html" ;"title="Daniel_(Zelinsky).html" ;"title="ishop Daniel (Zelinsky)">Daniel of Pamphilon and Hilarion (Rudnyk)">Bishop Ilarion">Hilarion_(Rudnyk).html" ;"title="Daniel_(Zelinsky).html" ;"title="ishop Daniel (Zelinsky)">Daniel of Pamphilon and Hilarion (Rudnyk)">Bishop Ilarionand their meeting with Ukrainian clergy". The bishops of the UOC-MP "expressed concern" about [Bishop Daniel of Pamphilon and Bishop Ilarion's] activities in the "canonical territory" of the UOC-MP without consent of the hierarchs of the UOC-MP. On 27 July 2015, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate, UOC-KP, after its Holy Synod the same day, decided to plan to ask the Ecumenical Patriarch to recognize its autocephalous status.

On 2 February 2016, the Patriarch of Moscow officially declared that "it is important that there is already a common understanding of the need for consensus among all the Churches, excluding any unilateral actions in granting autocephaly." The same day he warned that "the unilateral recognition of the schism n Ukrainewill unavoidably have atastrophic consequencesfor the unity of the Orthodox Church"; on this occasion, the Ecumenical Patriarch declared: "We all recognize that Metropolitan Onufry is the only canonical head of Orthodoxy in Ukraine."

In June 2016, the 2016 Pan-Orthodox Council was held in Crete. However, a few days before it began, the Russian Orthodox Church refused to participate. Previously the Orthodox churches of Georgia, Bulgaria, and Antioch had also refused to participate. One of the issues cited was the method of proclaiming the autonomy of the Orthodox churches. On 16 June, Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, asked Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople for autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and thus independence from the Russian Orthodox Church. On 11 June, before the adoption of the resolution by the Rada, the Moscow Patriarchate sharply criticized the appeal of the deputies. However, the council in Crete did not consider and did not officially comment on the Ukrainian question.

On 15 December 2017, Filaret in Kyiv met with personal representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople: Daniel of Pamphilon ( UOC of USA) and Bishop Hilarion ( UOC of Canada) and discussed with them issues "of mutual interest".

Situation of the

UOC-MP since 2014

Process of granting autocephaly to the Orthodox church in Ukraine

June 2016 request of autocephaly

On 16 June 2016, the Ukrainian parliament successfully voted a resolution to appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarch "to recognize invalid the act in 1686 as the one adopted in violation of the sacred canons of the Orthodox Church", "to take an active part in overcoming the church schism by convening Ukrainian unification council under the auspices of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which would solve all controversial issues and unite the Ukrainian Orthodox Church", and to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox church in Ukraine. On the same day, the Russian Orthodox Church protested fiercely against this resolution. On 19 July, the Ecumenical Patriarchate said it would create a synodal commission to "examine" the Ukrainian parliament's request to grant autocephaly to Ukraine. On 1 August 2016, Archbishop Job of Telmissos of the Ecumenical Patriarchate declared in an interview given to the ''Religion Information Service of Ukraine'' that "Constantinople has always believed that the territory of Ukraine is the canonical territory of the Church of Constantinople."

April 2018 request of autocephaly

On 9 April 2018, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had a meeting in Istanbul with the Ecumenical Patriarch during which Poroshenko "noted the importance of the introduction of a Single Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine aspired by the Ukrainian people". At that time, an article published on the pro-Moscow anonymous website ''Union of Orthodox Journalists'' declared that no relevant progress concerning the question of a local Orthodox church for Ukraine had been made.

On 17 April, Ukrainian President Poroshenko met in Turkey with the Ecumenical Patriarch and made an appeal, supported by various Ukrainian MPs, for the granting of autocephaly to Ukraine; both parties reached an agreement after a 7-hour long negotiation. The full appeal was later published on the official website of the president of Ukraine. The UOC-KP and the UAOC also sent a similar appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in what Poroshenko described as "a rare united move of the two churches he UOC-KP and the UAOC. On 18 April, the draft resolution on the support of Poroshenko's appeal was submitted to the Ukrainian parliament, and on 19 April it was adopted. The text of the appeal of the Ukrainian parliament was longer and contained more arguments in favor of Ukraine's autocephaly compared to Poroshenko's appeal. On 20 April, the official request to issue a Tomos of Autocephaly was delivered to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. On the same day, 20 April, the Holy synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate "voted to proceed with taking the necessary steps for granting autocephaly to the Orthodox Christians of Ukraine". On 22 April, the Ecumenical Patriarchate issued an official communiqué declaring that the synod had "examined matters pertaining to the ecclesiastical situation in Ukraine, as done in previous synodal sessions, and having received from ecclesiastical and civil authorities ..a petition that requests the bestowal of autocephaly, decided to closely communicate and coordinate with its sister Orthodox Churches concerning this matter." The same day, President Poroshenko declared on his official Facebook page that "the Ecumenical Patriarchate had commenced the procedures necessary for granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church." The agreement assigned the property of Ukrainian churches and monasteries to the autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

On 23 June 2018, a delegation of the UOC-MP held talks with Patriarch Bartholomew and other members of the hierarchy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The negotiations ended up with neither signed documents nor a joint statement. The goal of these talks were, according to the UOC-MP, "for the purpose of obtaining reliable information from Patriarch Bartholomew himself regarding initiatives for the possible granting of a Tomos for Autocephaly, as well as for the purpose of communicating the position of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on this issue. The hierarchs also informed the patriarch about the current situation of church life in Ukraine."

On 25 June, the UOC-MP declared it had "heard the message" of Metropolitan Onufry and the permanent members of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) on the meeting that took place on 23 June in Istanbul between the delegation of the UOC-MP and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and members of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Therefore the hierarchs of the UOC-MP adopted a joint statement in which they "expressed their vision for the further development of the mission of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukrainian society". The statement concludes that " e current canonical status is quite sufficient for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to fruitfully carry out its mission among the people of Ukraine".

On 31 August 2018, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew met with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow to discuss Ukrainian autocephaly, informing him that they "are implementing already this decision" to grant autocephaly.

On 1 September, in Istanbul, a Synaxis of Hierarchs of the Ecumenical Throne began. Patriarch Bartholomew delivered the keynote address to over 100 Hierarchs of the Throne, stating, among other things: "the origin of difficulties and reactions in Ukraine are neither a recent phenomenon nor something created by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Already from the early 14th century, when the See of the Kyivan Metropolis was moved without the canonical permission of the Mother Church to Moscow, there have been tireless efforts on the part of our Kyivan brothers for independence from ecclesiastical control by the Moscow center. ..The Tome proclaiming Moscow as a Patriarchate does not include the region of today's Metropolis of Kyiv in the jurisdiction of Moscow. Moreover, ..the canonical dependence of Kyiv to the Mother Church of Constantinople remained constant and uninterrupted. .. nce Russia, as the one responsible for the current painful situation in Ukraine, is unable to solve the problem, the Ecumenical Patriarchate assumed the initiative of resolving the problem in accordance with the authority afforded to it by the Sacred Canons and the jurisdictional responsibility over the eparchy of Kyiv, receiving a request to this end by the honorable Ukrainian Government, as well as recurring requests by "Patriarch" Philaret of Kyiv appealing for our adjudication of his case."

On 12 December 2018, 47 Ukrainian MPs, most of them from the Opposition Bloc, had asked the Constitutional Court of Ukraine "to recognize as contradicting the Constitution the Rada's decision supporting the tomos, which they believe violates the principle of separation of state and church". However, on 12 March 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine declined to initiate the case and justified itself saying the issues addressed in the Ukrainian parliament's decision "cannot be considered by the Constitutional Court as they are political, not legal in nature." On 25 April 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine considered the case of religious organizations that wanted to repeal the same 19 April 2018 appeal of the parliament. The Constitutional Court rejected their claim, saying the court had "concluded that it does not have any evidence of administrative jurisdiction."

Ecumenical Patriarch's legates in Ukraine and reactions of the Russian Orthodox Church

On 7 September, the Patriarch of Constantinople announced, on the official websites of the Ecumenical Patriarch Permanent Delegation to the World Council of Churches as well as on the official website of the Ecumentical Patriarchate, that he had appointed Archbishop Daniel (Zelinsky) of Pamphilon and Bishop Hilarion (Rudnyk) as his exarchs and legates in Ukraine. Those appointments were, according to the official announcement on the official website of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, " thin the framework of the preparations for the granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine". Daniel of Pamphlion and Hilarion had already been sent by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to Ukraine in 2015 which at the time led to an official protest by the UOC-MP.

The same day, the chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion, gave an interview to Russia 24 TV channel about the appointment of the two exarchs. In this interview, Hilarion issued his warning that the Russian Orthodox Church will "have no other choice but to break the communion" with the Ecumenical Patriarch if autocephaly is granted to Ukraine. This interview was entirely published on the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations's official website in English the next day.

On 8 September, the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church expressed its "resolute protest against and deep indignation at" the report published a day prior on the appointment of the two hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as exarchs of the Patriarchate for Kyiv. The same day, on a social network, Vladimir Legoyda, head of the , commented on the topic and stated that " e appointment by the Patriarch of Constantinople of his episcopal representatives in Ukraine, without agreement with the Patriarch of Moscow ..and His Beatitude heMetropolitan of Kiev .. is ..an unprecedentedly gross incursion into the Moscow Patriarchate's canonical territory ..These actions cannot be left unanswered". The same day, the UOC-MP published an official declaration on its website which states: " e appointment of the two Exarchs is a gross violation of the canonical territory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The decision made by the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate contradicts the 2nd Canon of the Second Ecumenical Council (Constantinople), namely that, without being invited, ''"Bishops must not leave their own diocese and go over to churches beyond its boundaries"''."

September 2018: Russian Orthodox synod's "retaliatory measures" and the aftermath

On 14 September 2018, in response to the appointment of those two exarchs, the Russian Orthodox Church decided to hold "an extraordinary session" to take "retaliatory measures after the appointment by the Patriarchate of Constantinople of its "exarchs" to Kyiv following up the decision of this Church's Synod "to grant autocephalous status to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine."" The synod of the Russian Orthodox Church decided:

A statement was released the same day explaining the situation and the sanctions taken to protest against the Ecumenical Patriarch's behavior. On the same day, Metropolitan Hilarion clarified the situation in an interview published on the official website of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations. In the interview, Hilarion stated:

On 23 September 2018 Patriarch Bartholomew, during a Divine Liturgy he was celebrating in the Saint Fokas Orthodox church declared that he "had sent a message that Ukraine would receive autocephaly as soon as possible, since it is entitled to it".

11 October 2018 communiqué of the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate

On 11 October 2018, after a regular synod, the Patriarchate of Constantinople renewed an earlier decision to move towards granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The synod also withdrew Constantinople's 332-years-old qualified acceptance of the Russian Orthodox Church's canonical jurisdiction over the Ukrainian Church contained in a letter of 1686. The synod also lifted the excommunication of Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and Metropolitan Makariy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), and both bishops were "canonically reinstated to their hierarchical or priestly rank, and their faithful ..restored to communion with the Church".

On the evening of 11 October, the day of the declaration of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Ukraine's president Poroshenko enthusiastically welcomed Constantinople's move, which Poroshenko, prematurely and therefore erroneously, described as the granting of a Tomos of autocephaly (a formal decree of church independence) to the Ukrainian Church. He presented Ukrainian Church independence as part of Ukraine's wider conflict with Russia that involves Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimea, Russia's military intervention in Ukraine, and Ukraine's desire to integrate with the West by joining the European Union and NATO (which is a perception broadly shared by both sides in the dispute).

On 12 October 2018, the day after the Ecumenical Patriarch's decision, according to the Kremlin website, Russian President Vladimir Putin "held an operational meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council" (the Security Council of Russia) that "discussed issues of the domestic Russian socio-economic agenda and international issues". Ukraine's ''Euromaidan Press'' described this as Putin convening "an extraordinary meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, where the "situation of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine" was "discussed", and it added that "This is a revealing slip of the tongue, since to assuage Ukrainians, the UOC-MP has been insisting it is independent of Moscow and in no way the "Russian Church in Ukraine."" Similar accounts were given by the Religious Information Service of Ukraine, quoting Interfax-Religion, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov

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