Investigation finds Ukrainian Orthodox Church still tied to Moscow

The activities of the Russian Orthodox Church and affiliated religious organisations in Ukraine are banned under a 2024 law aimed at ensuring ‘spiritual independence’.

Ukrainian authorities found evidence that the Kyiv Metropolis of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is still linked and subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate while acknowledging it had taken certain steps towards independence.

The investigation was carried out by the Ukraine’s State Service on Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS). Its findings were published shortly after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revoked the Ukrainian citizenship of the head of the UOC, Metropolitan Onufry, because he allegedly obtained Russian citizenship in 2002.

According to the DESS, the main evidence for subordination is the UOC’s continued reliance on the 1990 Gramota (Charter) issued by Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow, which remains in official UOC documents, stating the church is “connected through our Russian Orthodox Church to the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”.

The DESS said it found no official documents from the UOC’s governing bodies formally and fully severing ties with the Moscow Patriarchate, and that senior UOC bishops continue to be involved in the work of the Russian Orthodox Church’s governing bodies.

The activities of the Russian Orthodox Church and affiliated religious organisations in Ukraine are banned under the 2024 law “On protecting the constitutional order in the field of the activities of religious organisations”, aimed at ensuring “spiritual independence”.

Under the law, the findings of the DESS investigation can be used in court proceedings against the UOC if it does not completely sever ties to Moscow.

“The church will have 30 days to comply, with a possible 60-day extension upon request. If they meet the requirements, the matter closes. If not, the Kyiv Metropolitanate will be officially recognised as affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church, and the case goes to court,” said Andrii Smyrnov, professor at the National University of Ostroh Academy

He told The Tablet that the UOC could address the DESS directive if Metropolitan Onufry were to convene a bishops’ council and declare the UOC autocephalous. However, taking such a unilateral step “would place [the UOC] in a schism” with the rest of Orthodoxy, Smyrnov said.

The UOC disputed the DESS findings, raising, what it says are serious doubts about how the investigation was conducted. In a statement to The Tablet, it said it would use international legal instruments to challenge the conclusions.

“The conclusion of the state experts is based upon documents which belong not to the UOC but to Russian organisations, which were taken from websites banned in Ukraine, and whose authenticity will never be actually proven,” it said.

State officials “did not ask our Church for explanations even once, let alone request the necessary documents, which would present the UOC’s position”.

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