Editor’s note: This article has been updated to add the statement of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
The leader of Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, met with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow on Aug. 31 and reportedly supported independence — known as “autocephaly” — for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
“The main issue discussed at the meeting was the situation in Ukraine. You know that there has been a split for over 25 years,” Metropolitan Emmanuil, a bishop of the ecumenical patriarchate, said on Aug. 31, according to Hromadske TV.
“The ecumenical patriarch decided to use all means to resolve the issue of granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The decision was made in April. And we are implementing the decision. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow was informed about it during his visit (to Istanbul).”
However, on Sep. 1, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate released a statement saying Hromadske misinterpreted the words of the Metropolitan and “deliberately or inadvertently published an incorrect translation of his speech in English.”
“In particular, instead of the original phrase: (the ecumenical patriarch) ‘made the decision to explore all the ways of issuing autocephaly,’ Hromadske wrote ‘decided to use all means to resolve the issue of granting autocephaly.’”
In other words, no clear decision on the formation of an independent Ukrainian church has been made, the statement concluded. Instead, Patriarch Bartholomew I told Patriarch Kirill that, since April, the Constantinople Patriarchate has been exploring various options of how autocephaly could be granted to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Ukraine has three Orthodox churches and only one, part of the Moscow Patriarchate, is recognized by the universal ecumenical church. In 1992, a breakaway church formed under the name of the Kyiv Patriarchate, which was deemed schismatic by Moscow.
The third one, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, appeared in 1921 during the short-lived Ukrainian National Republic and declared independence from the Moscow Patriarchate. It was revived in the 1990s after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Since Russia launched its war in Ukraine in 2014, Kyiv has sought autonomy from the mother church in Russia to create its own autocephalous united church that would be recognized by canonical Orthodox churches worldwide.
The divide is, in part, political: Russian Patriarch Kirill has repeatedly expressed support for Vladimir Putin’s aggressive intervention in Donbas and Crimea.
In April, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made autocephaly his political initiative, which many viewed as a populist move in the run-up to the 2019 presidential election.
