Fr. Serhii Barshai, Sophia Brotherhood
If there’s one thing the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) can’t be denied, it’s their ability to treat almost any event — even one hardly deserving it — as a celebration. On Tuesday, May 27, a solemn service was held at the St. Panteleimon Monastery in Feofania, Kyiv, to commemorate the third anniversary of the UOC Council held at that same monastery.
This date could have easily become etched in golden letters in the history of all Ukrainian Orthodoxy. On that day in 2022, the largest religious organization in Ukraine — one of the largest Orthodox Churches in the world — had the opportunity to decisively cast off the centuries-old Muscovite yoke and set new priorities for its internal policies. For many who, until February of that year, truly viewed the northern neighbor as a “brotherly nation,” its religious leader as “our great lord and father,” and the Russia-Ukraine war as a civil conflict or a local skirmish not worthy of disrupting inter-church relations — it was a painful awakening. But with the onset of full-scale war, only a deluded mind could continue thinking that way, or imagine that the Ukrainian Church should remain united with the Russian one.
To be fair, the Council in late May was already somewhat overdue — by then, the war had been raging for three months, events were moving rapidly, and the UOC’s status quo no longer matched the moral or spiritual expectations of either its faithful or Ukrainian society at large. Still, May was not yet too late. The Council was held, and it declared “the full independence and autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church” — or, to be more precise, “The Council adopted amendments to the Statute on the Governance of the UOC, which testify to the full autonomy and independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
Yes, the decisions were half-measures — imperfect and at times simply absurd. Take, for example: “We express our disagreement with the position of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia regarding the war in Ukraine.” Nonetheless, the Council could have served as a serious foundation for building a truly independent, de facto autocephalous and non-Moscow Church.
But things did not unfold according to the best-case scenario. Following that Council, the UOC quickly turned into something of a scapegoat — with far more enemies than friends surrounding it.
So, what exactly happened in the life of the UOC after the May 2022 Council that was so significant as to warrant a celebratory anniversary — right in the middle of war and in an extremely difficult period for the Church itself?
There were no clear or logical steps taken to canonically refine its status — at least at the level of official documentation. Public and state trust in the UOC plummeted that same year. Then came: collaborator clergy, church bells ringing “over Russia,” searches of parishes and monasteries, evictions from the Lavra, broken agreements with communities over church buildings, a wave of church seizures, criminal cases against clergy (sometimes ending in deportation), hundreds of UOC churches destroyed by Russian forces, and outright annexation of Ukrainian dioceses by the Moscow Patriarchate.
And over all this — deafening silence from the Kyiv Metropolia. No protests, no statements, no commentaries. The Holy Synod meets occasionally, but its decisions remain secret.
In May of this year, a law came into force that could not only complicate the UOC’s existence — but make it unbearable. Yet nearly a year after its adoption, the Church leadership has done nothing to ensure that this law doesn’t affect the UOC.
So what exactly was the cause for celebration? Was it simply that the 2022 Council represented one of the few timid manifestations of general ecclesial consciousness and an attempt to at least respond somehow to the harsh reality that struck both the country and the Church?
But what is there to celebrate if the attempt to shake off Moscow’s yoke clearly failed? To this day, not only grassroots clergy but also bishops (including some who attended the recent celebration in Feofania) openly ignore the Council’s decisions. Bishops, without fear, preach from their pulpits about preserving ties with the “mother Church” — despite the Council’s statement about “full independence and autonomy of the UOC.” So what exactly is there to celebrate, if it’s evident to all that after May 2022, stagnation and degradation replaced progress and development within the UOC?
After that Council, the UOC was driven into an even deeper crisis. It hardly engages in dialogue with society (increasingly alienating it), does nothing to shed its now-toxic “Moscow” image, fails to respond to pressing challenges — internal or external — and, most importantly, has done nothing to define its place within the family of Local Orthodox Churches.
So was there truly something to celebrate on May 27? Was that day really an occasion for cheerful summaries and mutual praise? Or would it have been better used to critically reassess the Church’s path — both before and especially after 2022 — and to do everything possible to recognize and correct the grave mistakes made so far, in order to stop its rapid disintegration?
Festivities in Feofania: One Step Forward, Three Steps Back
Fr. Serhii Barshai, Sophia Brotherhood
If there’s one thing the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) can’t be denied, it’s their ability to treat almost any event — even one hardly deserving it — as a celebration. On Tuesday, May 27, a solemn service was held at the St. Panteleimon Monastery in Feofania, Kyiv, to commemorate the third anniversary of the UOC Council held at that same monastery.
This date could have easily become etched in golden letters in the history of all Ukrainian Orthodoxy. On that day in 2022, the largest religious organization in Ukraine — one of the largest Orthodox Churches in the world — had the opportunity to decisively cast off the centuries-old Muscovite yoke and set new priorities for its internal policies. For many who, until February of that year, truly viewed the northern neighbor as a “brotherly nation,” its religious leader as “our great lord and father,” and the Russia-Ukraine war as a civil conflict or a local skirmish not worthy of disrupting inter-church relations — it was a painful awakening. But with the onset of full-scale war, only a deluded mind could continue thinking that way, or imagine that the Ukrainian Church should remain united with the Russian one.
To be fair, the Council in late May was already somewhat overdue — by then, the war had been raging for three months, events were moving rapidly, and the UOC’s status quo no longer matched the moral or spiritual expectations of either its faithful or Ukrainian society at large. Still, May was not yet too late. The Council was held, and it declared “the full independence and autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church” — or, to be more precise, “The Council adopted amendments to the Statute on the Governance of the UOC, which testify to the full autonomy and independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
Yes, the decisions were half-measures — imperfect and at times simply absurd. Take, for example: “We express our disagreement with the position of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia regarding the war in Ukraine.” Nonetheless, the Council could have served as a serious foundation for building a truly independent, de facto autocephalous and non-Moscow Church.
But things did not unfold according to the best-case scenario. Following that Council, the UOC quickly turned into something of a scapegoat — with far more enemies than friends surrounding it.
So, what exactly happened in the life of the UOC after the May 2022 Council that was so significant as to warrant a celebratory anniversary — right in the middle of war and in an extremely difficult period for the Church itself?
There were no clear or logical steps taken to canonically refine its status — at least at the level of official documentation. Public and state trust in the UOC plummeted that same year. Then came: collaborator clergy, church bells ringing “over Russia,” searches of parishes and monasteries, evictions from the Lavra, broken agreements with communities over church buildings, a wave of church seizures, criminal cases against clergy (sometimes ending in deportation), hundreds of UOC churches destroyed by Russian forces, and outright annexation of Ukrainian dioceses by the Moscow Patriarchate.
And over all this — deafening silence from the Kyiv Metropolia. No protests, no statements, no commentaries. The Holy Synod meets occasionally, but its decisions remain secret.
In May of this year, a law came into force that could not only complicate the UOC’s existence — but make it unbearable. Yet nearly a year after its adoption, the Church leadership has done nothing to ensure that this law doesn’t affect the UOC.
So what exactly was the cause for celebration? Was it simply that the 2022 Council represented one of the few timid manifestations of general ecclesial consciousness and an attempt to at least respond somehow to the harsh reality that struck both the country and the Church?
But what is there to celebrate if the attempt to shake off Moscow’s yoke clearly failed? To this day, not only grassroots clergy but also bishops (including some who attended the recent celebration in Feofania) openly ignore the Council’s decisions. Bishops, without fear, preach from their pulpits about preserving ties with the “mother Church” — despite the Council’s statement about “full independence and autonomy of the UOC.” So what exactly is there to celebrate, if it’s evident to all that after May 2022, stagnation and degradation replaced progress and development within the UOC?
After that Council, the UOC was driven into an even deeper crisis. It hardly engages in dialogue with society (increasingly alienating it), does nothing to shed its now-toxic “Moscow” image, fails to respond to pressing challenges — internal or external — and, most importantly, has done nothing to define its place within the family of Local Orthodox Churches.
So was there truly something to celebrate on May 27? Was that day really an occasion for cheerful summaries and mutual praise? Or would it have been better used to critically reassess the Church’s path — both before and especially after 2022 — and to do everything possible to recognize and correct the grave mistakes made so far, in order to stop its rapid disintegration?