Bridging the Ecclesial, the Academic, and the Political
In Ukrainian regions controlled by Russia, Orthodoxy has been turned into a propaganda instrument, while dissenting priests are tortured, killed, or forced to flee. Maintaining neutrality is increasingly difficult; “cooperation” with the occupation authorities has become a condition for survival both for Orthodox priests and ministers of other Christian churches. On February 13, 2024, the…
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Most right-wing anti-Ukrainian propaganda is based on the narratives about “religious persecution” in Ukraine. “Defending the rights of Ukrainian believers,” Republicans like J. D. Vance propose to cede their lands to the occupiers. It’s a quite doubtful way to defend the believers, since in the occupied territories they are met with violence, torture, and deportation….
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On August 20, 2024, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the law “On protecting the constitutional order in the field of the activities of religious organisations” (No. 3894), and as early as August 24, it was signed by the President of Ukraine. This law is usually called a “law on the ban of the UOC”…
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If the Government of Ukraine decides to restrict or even ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, currently in communion with the Patriarchate of Moscow, it would gravely compromise Ukraine’s standing among pluralistic democracies. In an essay posted on Public Orthodoxy (May 22, 2024), John Burgess pleaded with Ukraine’s elected officials against taking such action. He presented…
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Current legislative proposals to restrict, even ban, the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) are bringing two divergent paths into focus. I believe that Christian teaching directs Ukraine’s believers to affirm vigorous religious pluralism, rather than the present trajectory of establishing one national Ukrainian church. I write as a theologian, not a legal expert;…
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Orthodox Christians in Russia are sometimes surprised to learn that Patriarch Kirill is only representing the Russian Orthodox Church and that his views can in no way be taken as the views of the entire Orthodox Church. Orthodox in the West sometimes complain that their church leadership has remained silent about the war in Ukraine….
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Lena Zezulin addresses the bishops of ROCOR on support for the Moscow Patriarchate two years into Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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What problems are of concern to Patriarch Kirill and the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church? This question, in particular, is answered by the documents of the Bishops’ Councils of the Russian Orthodox Church, one of the highest authorities of Church governance. However, the difficulty is that Patriarch Kirill has been unable to convene another…
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On May 11th, 2023, Moscow priest John Koval was defrocked by the ecclesiastical court after being suspended by Patriarch Kirill in February of the same year. His offense was replacing the word “victory” with “peace” in the “Prayer for Holy Rus’” mandated by the Patriarchate of Moscow to be included in all litanies. The “offensive”…
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The last year has been a difficult and conflictual one in Ukraine. It seems that war has become a way of life and thinking. It reanimates conflicts, exposes people’s feelings, opens old wounds, provokes intolerance and the search for an enemy, embitters, and most importantly, it makes people believe that there are simple solutions to…
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First, I would like to say two things. From 2009 to 2019, I was quite involved in the life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)—from singing and helping a priest-monk at a local parish near Kyiv to assisting the bishop during international trips to translating for international ecumenical guests at Lavra, the metropolia, and the…
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In his 2006 book titled The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, historian Mark Noll argued that the American Civil War of the 19th century was, among other things, a crisis not only of differing biblical interpretations but of the very concept of the Bible. The South and the North interpreted the Scriptural outlook on…
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As I write this, the drama surrounding the expulsion of the monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onuphry from the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is being played out, a drama simultaneously sad, understandable, and scandalous. I first visited the Lavra in November of 1988. A portion of the monastery had just been re-opened, and it…
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The decision of the Ukrainian government to terminate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s (UOC) lease at the Kyiv Pechers’ka Lavra monastery complex has dominated Orthodox news in recent weeks. The events leading up to the decision have stirred up emotions, generated debate, and given birth to rumors on the state’s objectives. Dispassionate analysis is at the…
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Students of Kyiv Theological Academy In 2022, the Russian Federation began full-scale military aggression against Ukraine. There are already many thousands of victims in this terrible war, not only military, but also civilians. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church took the side of the Ukrainian people from the very beginning of the war. Already on February 24,…
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On February 16, the second face-to-face meeting of initiative groups of clergy and laity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was held in Sophia National Sanctuary Complex in Kyiv. Its final appeal we published on Public Orthodox earlier. Now we follow up with the impressions and comments of…
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No official dialogue has thus far been established between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (under the Moscow Patriarchate’s jurisdiction until May 2022) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (which received autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2019), yet this is not an insurmountable obstacle to the informal dialogue on the grassroots level. Active priests and lay…
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On January 8, 2023, the Sunday after Christmas Day, Patriarch Kirill preached a sermon in the ancient Uspenskii (Dormition) Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin. The Patriarch presented a very upbeat view of the current state of the Russian Orthodox Church, which—he said—had not only revived but flourished in the post-Soviet period. He contrasted this with…
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As was noted many times, the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine is ideologically framed by a quasi-religious doctrine that promotes Russian civilizational exceptionalism and has been branded as the “Russian world.” This doctrine is not the only quasi-religious aspect of the war. Those who endorse the war try to justify it by bringing up a…
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In late May 2022, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) held a local council to announce independence from the Moscow Patriarchate. But six months since, it is still being determined what that independence means. Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv commemorates heads of other churches in the way only primates of autocephalous churches do. Still, it doesn’t seem…
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“We will never allow anyone to build an empire inside the Ukrainian soul,” President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, on December 1, 2022, stated in reference to the need to ensure the spiritual independence of the country. He signed the decree with measures to counter religious organizations and figures affiliated with the aggressor state: the Russian…
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From the moment the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was granted autocephaly by the Ecumenical Patriarch early in 2019, it has competed with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) not only over canonicity but also about the number of parishes and the number of faithful. Each claims to be the only canonical church in the country,…
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Four months ago, a UOC (Ukrainian Orthodox Church) Council in the Feofaniya monastery in Kyiv introduced fundamental changes into the Church’s statutes. That Council has already become a historic event—with possible implications for world Orthodoxy. But properly understanding the logic of its decisions means understanding what happened in the UOC after the Russian army’s full-scale…
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Most people who have written about the tensions between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) after the Russian invasion tend to focus on one thing: who is commemorated. This is not surprising. Accepting the authority of this bishop, but not that one, is an easy shorthand for where one…
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Image: iStock.com/Haidamac On May 27, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) declared its independence from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), of which it had until then been a branch. The reason is very clear: it disagrees with its (former) supreme hierarch, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who has supported the Russian war against Ukraine. The UOC did…
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War changes many things, primarily people’s minds, but also the usual flow of time. What takes years or even decades in peacetime takes a few months, or sometimes even days, during war. On May 27, the Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the highest governing body of the church, after much debate, expressed its…
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After Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, the question of the further existence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate became critical. Patriarch Kirill did not condemn the aggression and did not call the aggressor by name. He did not express any condolences to the families of the dead Ukrainians. Most of…
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Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has caught the attention of the public for multiple reasons. The humanitarian catastrophe, the sheer horror of ceaseless shelling, the shooting of protesters in the streets, the attacks on nuclear plants, the threats to assassinate President Zelensky and other leaders, and the war on democracy. One of the underreported consequences…
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Much breath and ink continues to be spent castigating the Patriarchate of Constantinople for its “uncanonical” bestowal of autocephaly upon the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Characteristic are the words of newly-elected Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia: “The actions of Constantinople in Ukraine are not in accordance with the tradition of the Church. We are on…
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When the Ecumenical Patriarchate granted autocephaly to the newly established “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU), it intended to create a single local Church which would basically comprise all the Orthodox believers in that country. The name of the new Church as it appears in the tomos, namely “Most Holy Church of Ukraine,” implies that idea,…
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