The Orthodox Church of Ukraine gained independence

At St. George's Cathedral in Istanbul, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew presented the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), Metropolitan Epiphanius, with a tomos of autocephaly (letter of independence), thereby formally completing the process of creating a new church - the fifteenth in the family of recognized local Orthodox churches in the world.

Photo: Facebook / Oleksandr Drabinko

Already on January 7, Metropolitan Epifaniy will serve the Christmas liturgy in the Kiev Cathedral of Hagia Sophia - the first as the full head of the local church recognized by the Ecumenical Throne.

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PCU) was established at the Unification Cathedral of December 15 of 2018. All the hierarchs of the unrecognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, as well as two bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate participated in the cathedral.

At the same time, Metropolitan Epiphanius, who was the bishop of the UOC-KP and was elected vicar of Patriarch Philaret, was elected its head.

The decision of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to bestow independence on Ukrainian Orthodoxy and its implementation was accompanied by sharp criticism from the Russian Orthodox Church and led to the break in relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

In Moscow, the Unification Council, which gave birth to a new church, was called an arbitrary gathering without canonical force, insisting that the Ukrainian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate remains the only recognized church structure. The Ecumenical Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church accused of abuse of power.

How was the tomos awarded

For the uninitiated, what was happening on Sunday in the Cathedral of St. George, the residence of the Ecumenical Patriarch, must have seemed a somewhat monotonous act.

The meditative kathismas of the Greek singers, which lasted a couple of hours, gave way to the sublime chants of the festive Divine Liturgy, which was served jointly by Patriarch Bartholomew and the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epiphanius. At some point, Patriarch Bartholomew made a rather lengthy speech in Greek, at the end of which a golden tube appeared in his hands - it was in this form that the tomos on the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church fell into the hands of Metropolitan Epiphany.

Photo: Facebook / Oleksandr Drabinko

Hundreds of people have become direct witnesses of the historical event for the Ukrainian church. First, a large Kiev delegation: on Sunday, the first lady of Ukraine, Marina Poroshenko, and the children of the presidential couple joined the hierarchs and ministers.

Secondly, ordinary parishioners who came to the festive service - according to the New Julian calendar, adopted in churches of the Greek tradition, Epiphany, or Epiphany, is celebrated on this day - a resounding coincidence for the 39-year-old head of the new Ukrainian church - and after the liturgy, a procession from The temple moved to the Golden Horn Bay: they did not dive into the ice hole due to the lack of ice, but those who wanted to swam in the cool salty water.

Thirdly, there were quite a lot of Ukrainians in the temple - both tourists who happened to be in Istanbul and the local Ukrainian diaspora.

After the presentation of the tomos, Petro Poroshenko left the temple for a few minutes. At the exit, he was guarded by correspondents from the Russian Channel One.

“Peter Alekseevich, who will lead the Ukrainian church?” they asked the Ukrainian president, who is often accused by Russian media of interfering in religious affairs in his country.

At first he ignored them, but as he was leaving the church, he looked back and said: “Until you condemn the aggression of your army, which is killing Ukrainians, you have no reason to go to church.”

On the upper tier of the temple next to me, two Ukrainian women, apparently who had been living in Istanbul for a long time, were watching the ceremony not too closely. They continually exchanged news from the lives of their children and mutual friends. But when Metropolitan Epifaniy, who had already received the tomos, finished his speech, they shouted in unison “Glory to the Heroes!” in response to someone’s “Glory to Ukraine!”

And one of them exclaimed with the same enthusiasm: “Our Tomos!” And she said a little more quietly: “Just a little more and Crimea will be ours.”

“It’s like a baby was born”

“The autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has been proclaimed. Tomos - handed over! — Metropolitan Alexander Drabinko, who transferred from the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, wrote on Facebook on Facebook.

Photo: Facebook / Oleksandr Drabinko

A rather large delegation from Kiev arrived at the final act in the process of granting the Ukrainian church independence.

It included the clergy of the newly established church, members of the cabinet of ministers, the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, as well as the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.

In his address after the ceremony of presenting the tomos of autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Istanbul, Petro Poroshenko said that this is actually another act of declaring the country’s independence.

“He will complete the establishment of the independence of the Ukrainian state, strengthen religious freedom and interfaith peace. “He will strengthen the rights and freedoms of citizens, especially those who were outside communion with Ecumenical Orthodoxy, who were unfairly branded as uncanonical,” said the Ukrainian president.

He also assured that the Ukrainian state will respect everyone’s religious choice and religion.

“As president, I guarantee on behalf of the state that Ukraine will respect the religious choice and freedom of religion of every citizen,” Poroshenko said.

On the eve of the delegation of the Ukrainian government attended the solemn ceremony of the signing of the Tomos Patriarch Bartholomew in the Cathedral of St. George in the territory of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

“The devout Ukrainian people have been waiting for this blessed day for seven whole centuries... [Today] Prince Vladimir and Saint Olga celebrate with us, together with all the holy descendants of the illustrious Ukrainian land,” Patriarch Bartholomew said after signing the document on autocephaly.

Photo: Facebook / Oleksandr Drabinko

After the end of the tomos signing ceremony, members of the Ukrainian delegation sang the traditional Christmas carol “A New Joy Has Become” right in the church. The President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, who was also present, sang along with the jubilant hierarchs of the newly created church.

It was thanks to his many hours of negotiations with Patriarch Bartholomew in April last year that the process of acquiring autocephaly by Ukrainian Orthodoxy accelerated rapidly.

Leaving the church of St. George, many bishops could not hide the excitement.

Most of them arrived in the Ecumenical Patriarchate for the first time: before the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the hierarchs of the unrecognized Ukrainian churches were isolated from world Orthodoxy.

“It’s as if a child was born, and you still don’t know what to do with him,” Metropolitan Mikhail of Volyn, who previously belonged to the unrecognized church of the Kiev Patriarchate, said in a conversation with a BBC correspondent.

What will happen to tomos?

The presentation of the autocephaly tomos to Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kiev was the final stage in recognizing the independence of the Ukrainian church: from that moment the Orthodox Church of Ukraine became one of the fifteen local Orthodox churches of the world, and Tomos acts as a kind of constitution for it.

“Our Holy Great Church of Christ blesses and proclaims the Orthodox Church of Ukraine autocephalous,” reads the text of the tomos.

This document describes the key parameters of the existence of the church: in particular, the model of its management, the relationship with the mother church in Constantinople and other local churches.

Until now, 14 generally accepted autocephalous Orthodox churches existed in the world, that is, administratively (canonically) completely independent from each other, but united in dogma, sacraments and liturgical communion: Constantinople (Ecumenical), Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Russian, Georgian, Serbian , Romanian, Bulgarian, Cyprus, Hellas (Greek), Albanian, Polish, Czech lands and Slovakia.

From the moment of receiving the tomos, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is included in this list.

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