Sofia, July 28, 2026
Photo: basilica.ro
His Holiness Patriarch Daniil of Bulgaria has sent a letter to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, expressing his unwavering support for the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church amid the ongoing case seeking to dissolve its Kiev Metropolia.
The letter, addressed to the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, follows earlier reports that Pat. Daniil and several Bulgarian hierarchs had appealed to the court hearing the dissolution case. The contents of the letter to Met. Onuphry were published by Archpriest Nikita Chekman, a lawyer for the UOC.
Pat. Daniil writes that he and the Bulgarian Church’s clergy and faithful felt “deep concern” upon learning of “the new trials facing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church entrusted to you by God.”
“Against the backdrop of the endless tragedy of the bloody four-year war through which the fraternal Ukrainian people is passing, we are especially troubled by the news of a possible revocation of the judicial registration of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” he writes. “Such an act would represent an attempt to restrict the religious rights and freedoms of millions of our brothers and sisters, as well as an interference in the internal affairs of Orthodox religious life.”
Pat. Daniil draws a comparison to the Bulgarian Church’s own history, stating that “all attempts at forcible state interference in the affairs of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine remind us of the grave, politically inspired schism through which the Bulgarian Orthodox Church—the Bulgarian Patriarchate—passed, and which was overcome at the cost of great sacrifices.”
He adds: “History proves that internal Church divisions cannot be resolved through political engineering, but only conciliarly—in the spirit of the Holy Gospel and the sacred canons of the Church.”
The Patriarch affirms his “unreserved support for the right to religious confession, the legally guaranteed status, and the judicial registration of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” noting that this was also “the consistent position of our predecessors—the ever-memorable Bulgarian Patriarchs Maxim and Neofit.”
He concludes by praying that “our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ will end the war in Ukraine, bring the longed-for peace to His people, and strengthen and protect His Church,” and asks that Met. Onuphry be granted “firm health, strength, courage, and boldness” in leading his flock.
The dissolution case stems from a lawsuit filed by Ukraine’s State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) in September 2025, seeking to dissolve the Kiev Metropolia of the UOC. The Metropolia filed a counter-lawsuit in response.
On April 6 of this year, the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal canceled the order approving the 2023 analysis of the UOC’s charter, which had concluded that the UOC remains part of the Russian Church. Despite the cancellation of the order underlying that conclusion, DESS has continued to pursue the dissolution case.
Last week, OrthoChristian reported on His Eminence Metropolitan Gabriel of Lovech’s letter to the Ukrainian court in defense of the UOC.
Follow OrthoChristian on Facebook, Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, and MeWe!
