The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC; (UAPTs)) was one of the three major Eastern Orthodox churches in Ukraine in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, together with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP). It began in 1921 during the dissolution of the Russian Empire as part of the Ukrainian independence movement and in order to restore the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that existed in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1620–1685 and was annexed by the Moscow Patriarchate without approval of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The UAOC came to an end in December 2018 as it united with the UOC-KP into the newly formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).
The UAOC, in its contemporary form, has its origins in the synod of 1921 in Kyiv, shortly after Ukraine's newly found independence. It was re-established for the third time on 22 October 1989, right before the fall of the Soviet Union. Unlike the UOC-KP, the UAOC enjoyed no recognition by the rest of the Orthodox Christian community until 11 October 2018, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople lifted the excommunication which had afflicted both the UAOC and the UOC-KP. It was clarified on 2 November 2018, however, that the Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized neither the UAOC nor the UOC-KP as legitimate and that their respective leaders were not recognized as primates of their churches. On 15 December 2018, at the unification council of the Eastern Orthodox churches of Ukraine, the UAOC and the UOC-KP, along with metropolitans from the UOC-MP, unified into the OCU.
History
Background The Kyivan Metropolis was the fruit of the baptism of the Kyivan Rus in the time of Grand Prince Vladimir the Great (988 AD). Missionaries were sent from Constantinople to instruct the people in the Byzantine-Orthodox faith. Monastic life flourished, including in the famous Kyiv Monastery of the Caves, through the efforts of St. Anthony of Kiev, known as the father of Russian monasticism.
The sacking of Kyiv itself in December 1240 during the Mongol invasion led to the ultimate collapse of the Rus' state. For many of its residents, the brutality of Mongol attacks sealed the fate of many choosing to find safe haven in the North East. In 1299, the Kyivan metropolitan chair was moved to Vladimir by Metropolitan Maximus, keeping the title of Kyiv. As Vladimir-Suzdal, and later the Grand Duchy of Moscow continued to grow unhindered, the Orthodox religious link between them and Kyiv remained strong. The fall of Constantinople in 1453, allowed the once daughter church of North East, to become autocephalous, with Kyiv remaining part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. From that moment on, the churches of Ukraine and Russia went their own separate ways.
The latter became central in the growing Russian Tsardom, attaining patriarchate in 1589, whilst the former became subject to repression and Polonization efforts, particularly after the Union of Brest in 1596. Eventually the persecution of Orthodox Ukrainians led to a massive rebellion under Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and united the Ukrainian Hetmanate with the Russian Tsardom. In 1686, the Kyivan Metropolia came under the Moscow Patriarchate. Ukrainian clergy, due to their Greek training, held key roles in the Russian Orthodox Church until the end of the 18th century.
First establishment In the wake of the breakup of the Russian Empire some national groups sought autonomy or autocephaly from Moscow. Proclamation of the Ukrainian National Republic in 1917 was followed by the creation of the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council, which represented clergy and laity from around Ukraine. This event signified the beginning of Ukrainization in church life and contributed to the establishment of the organizational structure of the Ukrainian church. A decree on autocephaly was adopted by the government of the Ukrainian Republic, but it was never implemented due to the events of Ukrainian-Soviet War.
In May 1920 the Ukrainian church was finally proclaimed autocephalous at a sobor in Kyiv. Its first bishops were initially ordained by non-episcopal clergy and professors, similar to the early Alexandrian Church. During the 1920s, under the leadership of metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky and his deputy Nestor Sharaievsky, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church experienced a period of rapid growth and spread its influence on Ukrainian communities abroad. Among main tenets of the church during that time were dedication to the separation of church and state, as well as conciliarism, which included democratization and decentralization of church life. The church was also known for allowing vernacular Ukrainian to be used in religious service instead of Church Slavonic.
The canonical reforms introduced by the UAOC created difficulties in relations with other Orthodox churches. The Russian Orthodox Church declared it noncanonical and its leaders self-consecrated. The Patriarchate of Moscow was especially concerned with the transfer of Kyiv's Saint Sophia Cathedral to the Ukrainian church. Soviet authorities, in their turn, also worked to weaken UAOC's influence by supporting splinter groups and favouring competing churches, most prominently the Living Church. In 1926 a major crackdown by the GPU led to the arrest and imprisonment of metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky, which led to his replacement by Mykola Boretsky. In 1929 UAOC's leadership was accused of supporting the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine, and many of its leaders, such as Volodymyr Chekhivskyi, were arrested. In January 1930 an exraordinary synod proclaimed the formal abolition of the church, however it was soon reconstituted by around 300 parishes headed by Ivan Pavlovsky. This remaining Ukrainian Orthodox Church was destroyed in 1936, and by the end of the decade the entire hierarchy of UAOC, as well as many of its priests and faithful, were physically liquidated.
1942 reestablishment On 8–10 February 1942, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was re-established by metropolitans Alexander (Inozemtsev) and Polycarp (Sikorsky), with the approval of the primate of the Polish Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Dionysius (Waledyński). Considered a diocese of Polish Orthodoxy, the 1942 UAOC's leadership considered themselves successors to the autocephalous Polish Orthodox Church, which was granted autocephaly by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
The re-established UAOC was opposed by another religious group, the Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church headed by metropolitan Alexy Hromadsky, which rejected the acceptance of clergy consecrated during the 1920s as uncanonical and took a position of loyalty to the Patriarch of Moscow, as long as he wouldn't stand under Soviet domination. With the recapture of Ukraine by Soviet troops in 1944, all the bishops of UAOC fled to the West, and its parishes were liquidated or forcibly reattached to the Russian Orthodox Church.
In the following decades UAOC was active in Ukrainian emigré circles in Europe. However, its positions in the diaspora gradually weakened with the emigration of many Ukrainians to North America, where they joined the already existing Canadian and American churches. A splinter group known as the UAOC (Conciliar) emerged in 1947, which rejected the decisions of the Synod of Bishops in favour of return to practices of sobor rule. At the same time, new parishes of UAOC were established in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and South America.
Reestablishment in late 1980s The revival of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine took place in late 1988. On 15 February 1989, the Initiative Committee for Revival of the UOAC was established in Kyiv on the basis of the Ukrainian Culturological Club. It consisted of priest Bohdan Mykhailechko (Yelgava), priest Myron Sas-Zhurakivskyi (Kolomyia), Larysa Lokhvytska, Antoliy Bytchenko, Mykola Budnyk, Serhii Naboka and Yevhen Sverstiuk. An appeal was approved, which called for the formation of regional committees for the revival of the UAOC and to begin commemorating the Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios I at divine services. The Initiative Committee headed by Bohdan Mykhailechko published an appeal to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (predecessor of Verkhovna Rada) and the international Christian community. Recalling the long-term captivity and lack of rights of the Ukrainian Church under the rule of Moscow, the five founders of the committee expressed and substantiated the demand for the restoration of full autocephaly.
On Easter 1989, the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Orthodox community held a festive service in a private home. This was the first Ukrainian-language worship service in the capital of Ukraine since 1943. But in early June, the Kyiv city authorities refused to register the UAOC parish of Saint Nicholas of the Embankment in Podil, saying "there has never been and is no such Church as the UAOC, and therefore a non-existent Church cannot be registered." This is a translation of the verbatim repetition of the thesis expressed by the Exarch of Ukraine, Metropolitan Philaret (Denysenko).
On February 27, 1989, a group of Lviv priests of the Russian Orthodox Church appealed to Metropolitan Philaret (Denysenko) with a statement about the need to obtain autocephaly for the Ukrainian Exarchate. Archpriest Volodymyr Yarema, parson of the Peter and Paul Parish in Lviv, signed the statement on behalf of like-minded people. No response was received. The reaction to the letter was the consideration of the case of Volodymyr Yarema in the diocesan administration. However, strict sanctions against the authors of the letter were not applied due to the difficult situation in the diocese, where it became obvious that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church would soon come out of the underground.
The Russian Orthodox Church Lviv Metropolitan Nicodemus (Rusnak) (1921-2011), previously expelled from Argentina for espionage for the Soviet Union, was ready to support efforts to obtain autocephaly on the condition that local Greek Catholics, who had begun to emerge from the underground, join the newly forming Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. He sent Archpriest Volodymyr Yarema and priest Ivan Pashula for negotiations with Volodymyr Sterniuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in catacombs. However, Bishop Sterniuk refused to join the Church (UAOC), which will not recognize the jurisdiction of the Roman bishop.
On 19 August 1989, at the Holy Liturgy in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Lviv, which was first held in Ukrainian, Archpriest Volodymyr Yarema read the appeal of the Initiative Committee for the revival of the UAOC, which proposed: To create regional committees for the revival of the UAOC for their subsequent merger into the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Council. In your parishes, gather parish meetings, by the decision of which declare your refusal to obey the Russian Orthodox Church. Inform the regional committees about your unshakable loyalty to your native UAPC. Commemorate His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios I at all divine services.