Ukraine and the Russian Church

The war in Ukraine has been the gravest crisis for Russian Orthodoxy since the Soviet era, fracturing the largest single church body in Ukraine — the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) — and isolating Patriarch Kirill internationally for his support of the invasion. This file treats the subject from the perspective of the Russian Church and its critics alike: the UOC’s situation, the 2018–19 autocephaly crisis in brief, the February 2022 invasion and its ecclesial fallout, the UOC’s disputed May 2022 declaration of independence, Ukrainian state measures culminating in the 2024 law, and ROCOR’s position. Because nearly every claim here is contested between jurisdictions, each is given with sourcing from more than one side and dated; the account is current as of mid-2026.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox

A Note on Sources and Method

This is a live conflict in which most sources are partisan. Pro-Moscow and pro-UOC reporting (the “Union of Orthodox Journalists” / spzh; OrthoChristian) and Ukrainian state-aligned reporting (RISU, the Kyiv Independent, Euromaidan Press) are cited deliberately alongside one another, with neutral or scholarly sources (Carnegie, Public Orthodoxy, ZOIS, Human Rights Watch, the UN OHCHR) where available, so each position is sourced to a partisan of it. Per the methodology §4, contested claims carry both-jurisdiction sourcing and an “as of” date.

The Two Churches in Ukraine

Two large Orthodox bodies must be distinguished:

  • The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), led by Metropolitan Onufriy (Onuphry) of Kyiv and All Ukraine, was historically the self-governing Ukrainian body within the Moscow Patriarchate, granted broad autonomy by Patriarch Alexei II’s Tomos of 1990. Before 2022 it was the largest single religious body in Ukraine, with roughly twelve thousand registered communities (figures vary by whether one counts registered communities or active parishes; Carnegie Endowment, March 2025; ZOIS Berlin).
  • The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), led by Metropolitan Epiphanius (Epifaniy) of Kyiv, is the autocephalous body recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2019, formed from previously non-canonical Ukrainian Orthodox groups.

The UOC and the OCU are separate churches, not in communion with each other, and the relationship between them is itself one of the contested questions of the war.

The 2018–2019 Autocephaly Crisis (In Brief)

The granting of autocephaly to the OCU precipitated the most serious schism in modern Orthodoxy. In brief:

  • October 11, 2018: the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate announced it would proceed to grant autocephaly to the Church in Ukraine and lifted the anathemas on the Ukrainian schismatic leaders.
  • October 15, 2018: the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church broke Eucharistic communion with Constantinople.
  • December 15, 2018: a Unification Council in Kyiv founded the OCU and elected Epiphanius.
  • January 5–6, 2019: Patriarch Bartholomew signed the Tomos of autocephaly (January 5) and formally presented it (January 6).

The full treatment of this rupture is given in the world-Orthodoxy collection: see The Ukraine Autocephaly Crisis and the 2018 Schism. This file treats only what bears directly on the Russian Church and the Moscow-linked UOC.

The February 2022 Invasion and Patriarch Kirill

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Patriarch Kirill did not condemn it; his public statements framed the conflict in spiritual and civilizational terms, drawing on the “Russian world” idea (see The Church under Patriarch Kirill).

The most discussed was his “Forgiveness Sunday” sermon of March 6, 2022 at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, in which he described the war as a struggle of “not physical but metaphysical significance” and cast the Donbas conflict as a defense against the imposition of Western values, invoking the “Gay Pride parade” as the emblem of a hostile world order (sermon at patriarchia.ru; translations and analysis in Bitter Winter and Religion Dispatches, March 2022).

The reception was sharply divided:

  • Critics’ reading: Orthodox and ecumenical leaders condemned Kirill’s stance as a theological justification of aggression; hundreds of Russian-tradition clergy signed protest letters, and the World Council of Churches appealed to him directly (National Catholic Reporter, 2022).
  • The ROC’s reading: Moscow framed the war as the defense of “Holy Rus’” — historic canonical Russian territory and a single spiritual people — against a decadent West, presenting Kirill’s statements as pastoral rather than political (mospat.ru statements).

The European Union sought to sanction Kirill in its sixth sanctions package (May–June 2022), placing him on the proposed blacklist; Hungary objected on religious-freedom grounds and held up the package until his name was removed, so the final package excluded him (Euronews, June 2, 2022; Al Jazeera, June 1, 2022).

The UOC’s Council at Feofaniya, May 27, 2022

The most consequential ecclesial event within Ukraine was the UOC’s Council at the Feofaniya monastery in Kyiv on May 27, 2022. Undisputed facts: the Council condemned the war (“The Council condemns war as a violation of God’s commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill!’”) and disagreed “with the position of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill… on the war in Ukraine”; it adopted statute amendments “testifying to the full independence and autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” removing references to subordination to Moscow and abolishing the requirement of a blessing from the Moscow Patriarch; and shortly afterward Kirill’s commemoration ceased in UOC liturgies. The UOC consecrated its own chrism on April 13, 2023 — traditionally a marker of self-governance approaching autocephaly (Primary text: news.church.ua; Orthodox Times, 2022).

The canonical meaning of the declaration is genuinely disputed, with at least four readings:

  1. The UOC’s reading — a real severance of administrative and canonical ties with Moscow producing de facto self-governance, but deliberately not a formal declaration of autocephaly. UOC spokesman Metropolitan Kliment (Vecherya): “Autocephaly is not proclaimed, autocephaly is obtained. If we had declared autocephaly yesterday, it would have ended in a split” (spzh; df.news, May 31, 2022).
  2. Moscow’s reading — no break at all, merely a reaffirmation of the self-governing status granted in 1990; canonical unity with the ROC preserved. Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev): “No statement on separation from the Russian Orthodox Church was made… she has reaffirmed again that she has the status of independence and self-governance that was granted to her as far back as 1990” (Pravmir, 2022).
  3. The Constantinople/OCU-aligned skeptical reading — the distancing was cosmetic; the UOC obtained recognition of autocephaly from no canonical authority and remains effectively tied to and dependent on Moscow (Public Orthodoxy, “The Orthodox Church in Ukraine: War and ‘Another Autocephaly,’” May 31, 2022; OrthoChristian reporting OCU framing).
  4. The Ukrainian state’s reading — the break was incomplete or insincere, the UOC remaining a “structural subdivision” of the ROC. A state-commissioned religious-studies examination concluded that the May 27 statute changes “did not lead to the severance of the canonical ecclesiastical connection” (RISU; Human Rights Without Frontiers). The UOC rejected the panel as “unlawful and biased.”

The disagreement is not over what the Council did but over what it means — a question that no single jurisdiction can settle unilaterally, and which remains open as of 2026.

Ukrainian State Measures Against the UOC

From late 2022 the Ukrainian state moved against the UOC on national-security grounds:

  • SBU operations: from November 22, 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine conducted “counter-intelligence” searches at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and dozens of UOC monasteries and cathedrals, reporting pro-Russian materials; in March 2023 the UOC’s tenancy of the Lavra was terminated. Criminal cases were opened against UOC clergy, including Metropolitan Pavlo, for “inciting religious enmity” and “justifying Russian aggression” (RFE/RL; Euromaidan Press; Kyiv Independent, 2022–2023).
  • Citizenship measures: on July 2, 2025, President Zelensky signed a decree revoking the Ukrainian citizenship of Metropolitan Onufriy, the SBU alleging that he had voluntarily acquired Russian citizenship in 2002 and concealed it. [Disputed: the UOC, through Metropolitan Kliment, denies this, stating that Onufriy “has never applied to other states, including the Russian Federation, for another citizenship” (Euromaidan Press, July 2, 2025; spzh, 2025).]

The central legal instrument is Law No. 8371 (enacted as Law No. 3894-IX), On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activities of Religious Organizations:

  • It was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on August 20, 2024 (265 in favor), signed by President Zelensky on August 24, 2024 (Ukraine’s Independence Day), and entered into force about thirty days later (CNN, August 24, 2024; RFE/RL, 2024).
  • Its mechanism: the law does not ban the UOC by name. It bars religious organizations whose governing center is in the aggressor state; the state agency DESS examines a body’s “affiliation” with the ROC, issues an order to sever ties with a roughly nine-month compliance window, and, if the order is not met, seeks a court judgment terminating the organization’s activity.

The measure is itself contested:

  • Supporters’ rationale (national security): the law severs institutional links to a hostile state in wartime and targets a church the state regards as an instrument of Russian influence, not religious belief as such (Christianity Today, “Expert: Ukraine’s Ban… Is Compatible with Religious Freedom,” September 2024; Carnegie Endowment, August 2024).
  • Critics’ concerns (religious freedom): Human Rights Watch called the law “overly broad” and urged its suspension pending review by the Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR (HRW, October 30, 2024); the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom urged the same; and in October 2025 five UN special-procedures mandate-holders warned that the prosecutions “appear to amount to collective punishment” and urged Ukraine to review the law (OHCHR press release, October 2025).

As of mid-2026, implementation is proceeding through the courts. Under the law, DESS examined the UOC’s governing body (the Kyiv Metropolia) in 2025, found it affiliated with the ROC, and filed suit; hearings opened at the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal in Kyiv in October 2025, and on December 12, 2025, the court postponed the case indefinitely after the materials were transferred to the Cassation Court (Public Orthodoxy, July 2025; National Catholic Reporter, September 2025; OrthoChristian, 2025). No final ban of the UOC’s central body had taken legal effect as of this writing.

ROCOR’s Position

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, a self-governing part of the Russian Church under the 2007 Act of Canonical Communion, has trodden a careful line consistent with the notes in Post-Soviet Revival:

  • On February 24, 2022, Metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral), then First Hierarch, issued an archpastoral epistle calling the faithful to prayer for the suffering in Ukraine (orthodoxlife.org; synod.com).
  • On March 24, 2022, the ROCOR Synod chancery rebutted rumors that ROCOR had ceased commemorating Patriarch Kirill, stating that “the Synod of Bishops did not convene to discuss this matter and has made no such decision”; commemoration of Kirill continued under the 2007 Act, while ROCOR organized humanitarian aid for Ukrainian refugees (ROCOR Synod statement, March 24, 2022, synod.com).
  • Metropolitan Mark (Arndt) of Berlin and Germany went furthest publicly, calling the war “a crime” and a fratricide that “must stop immediately,” while his diocese organized major refugee relief (OrthoChristian, “Metropolitan Mark (ROCOR): War… must stop immediately”).

Metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral) died on May 16, 2022; after an interim under Metropolitan Mark, Bishop Nicholas (Olhovsky) of Manhattan was elected ROCOR’s seventh First Hierarch on September 13, 2022, confirmed by the ROC Holy Synod the next day. ROCOR has not broken with Moscow; its consistent stance from 2022 into 2026 has been to mourn the war, call for peace, support refugee relief, and maintain canonical communion with the Moscow Patriarchate (Orthodox Life; OrthoChristian, 2022).

See Also

References