Paul Goble
Staunton, June 17 – There are now three Orthodox churches in Ukraine – the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church formerly of the Moscow Patriarchate which declared its independence at the end of May, and those in the UOC MP who oppose that declaration and say they are directly under Moscow.
None of these churches is capable of talking to or even accepting the existence of the other, Sergey Chapnin who now works at the Center for Orthodox Research at Fordham University in the United States (rfi.fr/ru/россия/20220617-религиовед-сергей-чапнин-любые-протесты-и-содержательная-критика-воспринимаются-в-рпц-как-угроза).
If the positions of the OCU and of the UOC which has declared its independence from Moscow are well established, that of the third Orthodox church in Ukraine, which consists of those who were part of the UOC MP but now want to be directly subordinate to Moscow, is not, even though in the immediate future it may play the key role.
Within the UOC, Chapnin says, “there remain a quite significant group of those who favor unity with Moscow and criticize the decision about separation.” And one must not forget the situation in Crimea and the occupied territories, where the land is controlled by Russian forces and the church by the Moscow Patriarchate.
At the last synod of the ROC MP, Orthodox churches in Ukraine were made directly subordinate to Moscow, a total of three bishoprics. And several other bishoprics have spoken out openly against the decision of the UOC MP at its meeting of May 27, the expert on the Orthodox church says.
Chapnin says that he now predicts that “sooner or later, practically all the bishoprics, and there are more than ten of them will declare that they are leaving the UOC and directly subordinating themselves to the Moscow Patriarch.” Whether their parishioners will follow is thus likely to be the chief drama within Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the coming months.
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