Brno, Czech Republic, August 22, 2025
The OCU has set up shot in the canonical territory of Bp. Isaiah (right), who concelebrated with the schismatics in 2019. Photo: pomisna.info
The schismatics of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) have invaded the territory of yet another Local Orthodox Church.
Vasyl Varych, Ukrainian ambassador to the Czech Republic, announced yesterday the establishment of the first “Chaplaincy Mission of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine” in the Czech Republic, set to operate in Brno with the first service planned for August 23, according to a report from the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
This move directly violates the terms of the tomos granted to the OCU by Patriarch Bartholomew in 2019, according to which the OCU has no right to establish parishes or church structures outside the territory of Ukraine.
The Czech Republic is the ecclesiastical territory of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, a fully recognized autocephalous Local Orthodox Church.
Significantly, the Czech-Slovak Church doesn’t recognize the schismatic OCU as canonical, along with the majority of other Local Orthodox Churches. Thus, any OCU activity in the Czech Republic is not only an invasion, but a further act of schism.
While the ambassador’s announcement states that the goal of the “chaplaincy mission” is to care for Ukrainian faithful in the Czech Republic, the Czech-Slovak Church has been providing spiritual, material, and humanitarian support to Ukrainian refugees since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Parishes throughout the republic hold services in Ukrainian or with Ukrainian chants, provide charitable assistance, and create space for integrating Ukrainian believers into the life of the local parish.
It is perhaps no surprise that the OCU has established its mission in Brno, where Bishop Isaiah (Slaninka) is the ruling hierarch.
Bp. Isaiah has been troublesome for the Church for several years. He was consecrated in 2015 by decision of Constantinople hierarchs Emmanuel of Gaul and Arsenios of Austria without the blessing or recognition of His Beatitude Metropolitan Rastislav or the Czech-Slovak Holy Synod, in order to create an “alternative Synod” in the Church.
Constantinople also interfered in the elections that saw Met. Rastislav ascend the primatial throne in 2014 and refused to acknowledge him as the canonical primate until the Patriarchate was forced to reconcile with the Czech-Slovak Church to assure that it would attend 2016's Crete Council. It was then that Bp. Isaiah was accepted as a hierarch of the Church as part of the reconciliation.
Bp. Isaiah caused multiple controversies in late 2019. In November, he celebrated with the Ukrainian schismatics in Kiev, in defiance of the stance of the Holy Synod and the warning of his primate, Met. Rastislav. That same month, it was reported that Bp. Isaiah was cooperating with Constantinople to establish a monastery and legal association in the Czech Republic without the blessing or even knowledge of the Czech-Slovak Holy Synod, which later strongly condemned this invasion by Constantinople.
Bp. Isaiah also concelebrated with defrocked clerics from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America’s Slavic Vicariate (Patriarchate of Constantinople) in April 2023.
This is not the first instance of the OCU violating its Tomos by establishing structures outside Ukraine. OrthoChristian has previously reported on its encroachment into Slovenia, which is Serbian Church territory, as well as Poland. The OCU also operates a structure covering America, Canada, Australia and Japan, all in violation of the terms of its own tomos.
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