The Church Situation In Ukraine

Since I get a plethora of questions from people are confused about Ukraine, the acronyms for the churches, what’s happening, etc. I have decided to make a full on explication that I can just reference to everyone who asks. This is not about the war itself between Russia & Ukraine, but specifically the Church situations occurring in Ukraine. I will try to keep it as brief as I can, as if speaking to someone who knows nothing of the situation. May Jesus Christ bless my words to be His, in grace and love. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Beginning

We should start from the beginning, the first acronym to know is UOC. This stands for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, this is the canonical church which dates back over a thousand years. It began in 988, with the Metropolis of Kiev and All Rus’. Due to the Mongol invasion two centuries later, it was moved to Moscow where it was under the MP until self-rule was established in 1990. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is led by Metropolitan Onuphrey.

The beginning of the OCU, Orthodox Church of Ukraine, begins in 2018. It is 5 years old compared to the 1,000+ year old UOC. The name is very similar which can be confusing to those who don’t have any more than surface level knowledge of the issue. Simply, the UOC is the canonical Church. The OCU is not canonical, and I’ll argue; is being used as a political weapon for control.

2018 was the year the Ecumenical Patriarch violated the canons of the Church and granted autocephaly (to various groups who joined together), in another jurisdiction that was not his own. This is the cause for the arguments between Moscow-Constantinople you may have heard about lasting currently to today. Patriarch Bartholomew joined the KP-UOC (Kyiv Patriarchate) and the UAOC (Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church), schismatic groups from the canonical UOC.

To quote from Metropolitan Nikoforos, “If we are to be honest, then it is impossible to understand in what manner Patriarch Bartholomew now unilaterally, without the preliminary consent and affirmation of the other Orthodox autocephalous Churches (including the Mother Church of Russia, from which the Ukrainian Church was supposed to have broken away) can grant autocephaly; and even then not to the Ukrainian Church with metropolitan Onuphrius as her head, but to two schismatic groupings, that is, the defrocked Philaret and the never ordained Macarius who does not have apostolic continuity.” (Metropolitan Nikoforos, Unilateral Decision by Patriarch Bartholomew, 2021, OrthoChristian).

As Metropolitan Nikoforos points out, there are three major problems with the OCU. 1) it was granted autocephaly in violation of the canons 2) it is a combination of schismatic heads described as the “Church” 3) there is no actual apostolic succession in the OCU.

Epiphanius Dumenko (head of the OCU) was “ordained” by Philaret Denisenko who was defrocked by the MP. He and his followers were anathematized in 1997, meaning they don’t have any actual apostolic succession. The Ecumenical Patriarch decided to “lift the anathemas” despite him having no jurisdictional authority to do so. The OCU still has non-recognition by the majority of the Orthodox world, which also poses a sizable problem for it. To read all of this for yourself regarding the anathemas of the schismatic heads, I’ll link it here https://orthochristian.com/116586.html

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, made a surprise trip to Ukraine to meet with Zelensky in February 2023. Many photos were taken in an OCU Church speaking with this same defrocked head I mentioned, Epiphanius Dumenko. It’s clear part of the goal was making it appear as if the OCU was the church of Ukraine. Which takes us to the modern day attempt of replacing the UOC with the state-controlled, schismatic OCU.

Current Day

In 2022 alone; 253 canonical UOC churches were overtaken by authorities and radical supporters of the OCU. 50 of them were converted to the non-canonical OCU. I don’t know what these numbers are at now throughout 2023 but I’m sure it’s even higher. The striking statistic however, is that the majority of these people are not willing to convert to the OCU. They would rather be persecuted for Christ’s sake than submit to a fake Christ and a fake Church.

More and more churches are being reported weekly now either being attacked or seized. Union of Orthodox Journalists are the main ones documenting this, and also a couple Telegram channels. Here are some numbers from 2019, before the war even began, 85 churches seized and 222 illegally transferred. https://orthochristian.com/121965.html.

Persecution has ramped up since the war began, with all UOC churches being referred to as Moscow churches or Russian controlled churches in classic divine and conquer strategy. Despite, the UOC claiming its independence from the MP, while not a break in communion. This narrative is convenient to excuse the despicable behavior of disrupting Divine Liturgy, throwing people out of their churches, arresting priests and bishops, etc. This is straight out of a communist playbook.

Just 100 years ago, Patriarch Meletios IV Metaxakis, recognized the pro-Bolshevik renovationist puppet church while the real church suffered horrible persecution in Russia. As the Bible says in Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun.” The same exact scenario is unfolding today; the EP recognizes a schismatic church while the real church suffers. If you’d like to read about this more in detail, here’s another link: https://orthochristian.com/149364.html.

There is video of the Kiev Caves Lavra where authorities closed the entrance to the public, and people were receiving communion through the shut gates. Zelensky and Ukrainian authorities fully plan to take over the historical Kiev Lavra, the oldest and biggest monastery in Ukraine. The United Nations stepped in to prevent this from happening at least for the time being until a couple days ago, it was completely seized. https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2023-06/HRMMU%20Three-month%20update%20-%20June%202023%20RUS_0.pdf Why did the Ukrainian government ignore the United Nations?

President Zelensky also recently met with Patriarch Bartholomew, many suspect he will try to transfer the historic Lavra under control of the OCU. It is believed the monks will outright refuse either way. For now we wait, pray, and ask for God’s mercy in this.

President Zelensky met with Pope Francis, to where he gifted the Pope an icon of the Mother of God holding Christ. Except Christ was blacked out. The narrative was that this represented the children’s lives lost during the war, however defacing an icon for any reason is completely not Orthodox. More intriguingly, the same artist’s work that Zelensky commissioned for this “icon” has been found on many of the vandalized churches throughout Ukraine.

The CIA director, William Burns has made routine trips to Zelensky, and was recently in Athens, Greece last month. https://greekcitytimes.com/2023/06/01/cia-director-william-burns-athens/?amp. While it seems he was meeting with the Greek Prime Minister, the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch has had a history of ties to the CIA since the 1950’s. However, I don’t want to go into geopolitical conspiracies, just something to briefly note.

The Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine (August 2022 - January 2023) states that there is a draft law to ban the term “Orthodox” for any religious organizations that are not the OCU. Here is the link to that report: https://reliefweb.int/attachments/9a86411d-9731-4e53-99bb-4d3759e5cb66/23-03-24-Ukraine-35th-periodic-report-ENG.pdf.

Zelensky recently announced he is proposing a bill (9431) to abolish the celebration of Christmas on January 7th. This date is the traditional old calendar date of Christmas used by Ukrainians. He will propose to move the new date to December 25th to coincide with the new calendar. Even some Orthodox for this will say, “so what? What’s the big deal? We have churches on the new calendar.”

The calendar itself is not as much the issue as the fact that the OCU sanctioned this with Zelensky, NOT the canonical church. There is no way to justify and support an entity outside the Church over the Church. That’s quite literally, madness.

Zelensky has also vowed to destroy all spiritual ties with Russia (reported by the Union of Orthodox Journalists). What implications does this further have for the Orthodox Church? How much further will this go? We must pray!

The Future Outlook

This last statement I’m about to make is more speculative, but it is from word of mouth of a viable source. Patriarch Bartholomew has communicated with Metropolitan Onuphrey, and essentially told him to submit everything to the OCU and recognize him, then everything would be fine. It’s clear that Patriarch Bartholomew is on some kind of power trip, trying to divide the Orthodox world. Patriarch Ilia is one of the only hierarchs outside of Patriarch Kirill ((Russia)) and Patriarch Porfirije ((Serbia)) to make a statement to Patriarch Bartholomew to stop creating tension. Let us pray for Patriarch Bartholomew’s heart to be softened, and for the Lord to have mercy on us all.

As Metropolitan Onuphrey has said, the Church bears persecution with rejoicing. There is an exam of love taking place to love our enemies, and those who hate us, to showcase the love of God even more right now. The Church flowers more in persecution. Metropolitan Onuphrey and the faithful of the UOC are on Golgotha.

Zelensky and the Ukraine government appear adamant on replacing the UOC with the OCU. This cannot stand. This is a repeat of history during the Soviet era communism. The only way I could personally see union happening; and I am open to correction; is if the UOC and the OCU solve the issues themselves with no government interference. This would bring the OCU into true canonical standing, which it does not have at the time of writing this. And the evidence of its problems as being more of a political tool for corruption in Ukraine poses a challenge as well. Ultimately, may God’s will be done, may we all have the eyes to see it, and the courage to follow it.

I would also like to point out that almost every patriarch and jurisdiction, with multiple bishops have come out in support of the UOC in these trying times. The consensus of the Orthodox World supports the UOC. Lord Jesus Christ be with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Onuphrey, and may peace reign in the hearts of everyone involved.

As I’m sure many will still try to play the Russian influence narrative, or try to create a dialectic between Putin/Russia and Zelensky/Ukraine. I reject that dialectic and I proclaim my care for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Onuphrey, and all those suffering in Ukraine. That is my entire point in writing this, for Orthodoxy.