The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), commonly referred to by the exonym Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), is an Eastern Orthodox church in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church was officially formed in 1990 as the successor to the Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) as the Ukrainian branch of the ROC.
On 27 May 2022, following a church-wide council in Kyiv, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church announced its full independence and autonomy from the Moscow Patriarchate. The council made this decision in protest of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and particularly in response to Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill's support for the invasion. Still, the UOC did not declare full autocephaly from the Russian Orthodox Church. As of 2025, its leadership is also still published in the ROC's calendar.
Since the Unification Council on 15 December 2018 which formed the separate Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople has disputed the claims by the Moscow Patriarchate of its ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the territory of Ukraine.Synaxis of Hierarchs of The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USAECUMENICAL PATRIARCH TAKES MOSCOW DOWN A PEG OVER CHURCH RELATIONS WITH UKRAINE orthodoxyindialogue.com, 2 July 2018.Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew: “As the Mother Church, it is reasonable to desire the restoration of unity for the divided ecclesiastical body in Ukraine” (The Homily by Patriarch Bartholomew after the memorial service for the late Metropolitan of Perge, Evangelos) The official website of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, 2 July 2018.
The Russian Orthodox Church does not currently recognize a change in their relationship to the UOC. However, in June 2023 ROC hierarch Metropolitan Leonid (Gorbachev) of Klin, scorned the UOC's decision to separate from the Moscow Patriarchate, saying, "When the opportunity presented itself to get out from under the wing of Moscow, they did it," and declared that the ROC would absorb the UOC's dioceses in Russian occupied areas of Ukraine.
On 20 August 2024, the Ukrainian parliament banned the Russian Orthodox Church by adopting the Law of Ukraine "On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Field of Activities of Religious Organizations". The law gave Ukrainian religious organizations affiliated with the ROC nine months to break off its relations with the Patriarchate of Moscow in accordance with the Canon law of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Name The Ukrainian Orthodox Church insists on its name being just the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, stating that it is the sole canonical body of Orthodox Christians in the country, a Ukrainian "local church" (). The church rejects being labeled "Russian" or "Moscow."
It is also the name that it is registered with the State Committee of Religious Affairs in Ukraine.
It is often referred to as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) or UOC (MP) in order to distinguish between the two rival churches contesting the name of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Following the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, on 20 December 2018, the Ukrainian parliament voted to force the UOC-MP to rename itself in its mandatory state registration, its new name must have "the full name of the church to which it is subordinated".Ukraine's parliament passes bill on renaming UOC-MP, UNIAN (20 December 2018) This was protested by UOC-MP adherents. On 11 December 2019 the Supreme Court of Ukraine allowed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to retain its name. The UOC had argued that their governing center is in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, not in Russia's capital, Moscow, and therefore it should not be renamed.
On 27 December 2022 the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ordered the UOC to change its name and indicate its affiliation with Russia. It took into account the verdict of the European Court of Human Rights in the case "Ilin and others against Ukraine" that stated Ukrainian law could force "religious organization, wishing to be registered, to take a name which makes it impossible to mislead the faithful and society as a whole and which makes it possible to distinguish it from existing organizations."
In May 2024 of the 8,097 UOC parishes 22 of them directly indicated their affiliation in their name.
Relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church
Prior to the February 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine the church stated that it was one of the "self-governing" churches under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, i.e. the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). (In the terminology of the current Statute of the ROC, a "self-governing Church" is distinguished from an "autonomous Church").
The UOC claims since May 2022 that 'any provisions that at least somehow hinted at or indicated the connection with Moscow were excluded'; since then it is a matter of dispute as to whether the Church is under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. Despite claims that the church did not publish its new statute, the new statute is publicly available on government, news, and official church websites.
The ROC defines the UOC-MP as a "self-governing church with rights of wide autonomy". It has also ignored all UOC-MP's declarations of it not being connected with it anymore and continues to include UOC-MP clerics in various commissions or working groups.
According to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Primate of the UOC-MP is the most seniorЖУРНАЛЫ заседания Священного Синода от 19 марта 2014 года // ЖУРНАЛ № 1: «2. Включить в состав Священного Синода на правах постоянного члена митрополита Черновицкого и Буковинского Онуфрия, <…> с определением по протокольному старшинству места, занимаемого Блаженнейшим митрополитом Киевским и всея Украины — первым среди архиереев Русской Православной Церкви.» permanent member of the ROC's Holy Synod and thus has a say in its decision-making in respect of the rest of the ROC throughout the world.
Despite the de facto annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, the eparchies of the UOC in Crimea initially continued to be administered by the UOC. Статус епархий в Крыму остался неизменным, заявили в УПЦ Московского патриархата NEWSru, 10 March 2015. The Ukrainian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate demanded the return of the Crimea RBK Group (18 August 2014) In June 2022 the Moscow Patriarchate claimed to transfer Crimea from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the Moscow Patriarchate. The UOC continues to list the Crimean eparchies as its own, and has not recognized any change to its territorial boundaries based on decisions taken by the ROC. Єпархії Українська Православна Церква (10 November 2022) On 27 March 2023, Archbishop Viktor (Kotsaba) said that the territories of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church include the Crimea and Donbas areas of Ukraine.
On 21 June 2023, Metropolitan Leonid (Gorbachev) of Klin, a hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, decried the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's decision to separate from the Moscow Patriarchate and declared that the Russian Orthodox Church would absorb UOC dioceses in areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
In a Patriarchal calendar for 2024 released by the Russian Orthodox Church in December 2023 all the then bishops of the (designated itself as not connected to Russia) UOC were listed as bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church.Russian Orthodox Church released "Patriarchal Calendar" with UOC-MP bishops. PHOTO, (15 December 2023) In response, Archbishop Jonah (Cherepanov) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church said that the UOC does not recognize any of the ROC's attempts to make decisions affecting Ukrainian dioceses. Later, the UOC's official website stated the following: "In order not to become an object of manipulation, everybody wishing to obtain official information about the UOC and its episcopate should refer solely to official sources of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This pertains also to information included in church calendars."
The UOC publicly distended itself from the World Russian People's Council headed and led by ROC head Patriarch Kirill of Moscow of late March 2024. During this Congress a document was approved that stated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a "Holy War." The document also stated that following the war "the entire territory of modern Ukraine should enter the zone of Russia's exclusive influence". This was to be done so "The possibility of the existence of a Russophobic political regime hostile to Russia and its people on this territory, as well as a political regime controlled from an external center hostile to Russia, should be completely excluded." The document also made reference to the "triunity of the Russian people" and it claimed that Belarusians and Ukrainians "should be recognised only as sub-ethnic groups of the Russians". The UOC stated on 28 March 2024 that they "dissociates itself from the ideology of the Russian world."
History
Under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople Metropolises in Moscow, Lithuania and Galicia The Ukrainian Orthodox Church considers itself the sole descendant in modern Ukraine of the Metropolis of Kiev and all Rus' that was established in the 10th century following the baptism of Kievan Rus'. Due to the Mongol invasion of Rus' in the 13th century, the metropolitan seat was moved to Vladimir and later to Moscow. In the Kingdom of Galicia and Volhynia to the south-west, a separate metropolis was erected - the Metropolis of Halych. Similarly, in the north-west, another metropolis was erected at the behest of Algirdas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania - the Metropolis of Lithuania.
Revival In 1596, the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Galich and all Rus' Michael Rohoza accepted the Union of Brest transforming dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople into the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church under the Holy See's jurisdiction. In 1620, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople Cyril Lucaris reestablished Orthodox dioceses for the Orthodox population of what was then the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth — under the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Galicia, and all Russia Job Boretsky as the Patriarchal Exarch.
Merger into the Moscow Patriarchate
Following the transfer of the Cossack Hetmanate under the sovereignty of the Tsardom of Russia in 1654, the Kyivan metropolis in 1686Переход Киевской митрополии к РПЦ в XVII веке был абсолютно законным, попытки оспорить это нельзя воспринимать всерьез - богослов Interfax, 5 July 2018.Khomenko, S., Denysov, M. Constantinople: Moscow Patriarchate does not exist in Ukraine any longer (Константинополь: Московського патріархату в Україні більше немає). BBC Ukraine. 2 November 2018 was transferred by the Patriarch Dionysius IV under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, following the election of Gedeon Svyatopolk-Chetvertynsky as the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Galicia, and all Russia with the help of the Hetman of Zaporizhian Host Ivan Samoylovych. In late 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople indicated that information about that it transferred jurisdiction over Ukraine to the Moscow Patriarchate was inaccurate as Constantinople temporarily provided Moscow with stewardship over the Ukrainian church.Constantinople Constantinople justified its decision to provide Ukraine with autocephaly. Ekho Moskvy. 28 September 2018 The Russian Orthodox Church immediately rejected that statement and called for further discussion and revision of historical archives.In ROC commented report of Constantinople on history of church in Ukraine (В РПЦ прокомментировали отчет Константинополя по истории церкви на Украине). RIA Novosti. 27 September 2018