Moscow, July 18, 2025
Photo: ria.ru
The Ukrainian state services for ethnopolitics and freedom of conscience has demanded that the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) break all ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) by August 18, reported RIA News, citing the Ukrainian television channel “Obshchestvennoe.”
“The state services for ethnopolitics and freedom of conscience has issued a directive to the Kiev Metropolia of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), in which earlier were found signs of affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church,” is how the TV channel assessed it.
Metropolitan Onuphry, head of the UOC, is required to submit a resolution from the supreme ecclesiastical authorities concerning the UOC’s withdrawal from the structure of the ROC, the invalidation for the UOC of all provisions of the ROC Statutes, the recognition as null and void of the ROC’s decisions concerning the “annexation” of UOC dioceses and the appointment by the ROC of leaders of the UOC diocesan administrations, as well as the public declaration of disagreement with appointments to the statutory governing bodies of the ROC, and the preparation of an appropriate statement for the termination of powers and severance of ties with the ROC.
On May 27, 2022, the UOC convened a Council at Feofania (a site just outside Kiev) and adopted amendments to its Charter, formally declaring full independence and autonomy from the Moscow Patriarchate. Canonically, an Orthodox Church cannot declare itself autocephalous (literally having its own head, being a completely separate Local Church) and must be granted that status by its mother Church. But UOC’s declaration of independence did not satisfy the Ukrainian state authorities, and so they sought the evidence they needed to persecute the UOC in the Moscow Patriarchate’s Charter. In essence, the authorities are demanding uncanonical actions from the UOC, and ultimately that it join itself to an uncanonical organization—the OCU, an undeclared “state Church” that is more Ukrainian nationalist than the UOC. This is in complete disregard of the patriotic work performed by the UOC, such humanitarian aid, care for soldiers and their families, and even fighting in the Ukrainian army.
Earlier, OrthoChristian reported that an OCU metropolitan complained that there was no point in taking over the Pochaev Lavra if it will only end up desolate, like the Kiev Caves Lavra after its transfer to the OCU. The underlying dissatisfaction is with the complete lack of income from the faithful. He expressed that the two organizations must have a meeting, implying that they should unite—under the naïve assumption that all the faithful would return to the churches of a forcibly enjoined structure.
