Paul Goble
Staunton, April 18 – Following international criticism of its approach to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which until 2022 was part of the Moscow Patriarchate and controlled by Russia but which since that time has become pro-Ukrainian, Kyiv appears set to accept coexistence between that church and the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
That is the judgment of Novaya Gazeta journalist Aleksandr Soldatov on the basis of a recent statement by General Kyrylo Budanov who heads the Office of the President of Ukraine. He recently said that “coercive methods don’t work in the religious sphere” and that Kyiv should give the UOC time to fully integrate itself into Ukrainian life (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/04/18/moskovskaia-tserkov-vybiraet-ukrainu
According to Soldatov, this shift in Kyiv’s position “cannot fail to cause alarm in Moscow where the theme of ‘the persecution of canonical Orthodoxy’ has been actively used to define the objectives of the Special Military Operation including at the very highest levels.” But it will also worry those Ukrainians who don’t see the UOC as having fully broken with Moscow.
Most Ukrainian Orthodox leaders both in the UOC and the autocephalous OCU do not believe that the UOC can ever return to the role it played as an agency of Russian influence in Ukraine, however; and they are confident that each of these churches will survive, a likely indication that church life in Ukraine will be both freer and more diverse well into the future.
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