The UOC-MP is still subordinate to Kirill

Experts explained that the UOC-MP at the council granted the status of “independent and independent in its management”, but completely “independent only an autocephalous church is in control.

If a church grants autocephaly, it receives a corresponding document – a tomos. However, the UOC-MP did not provide such a document. Without it, the churchis a “structural subdivision of its mother churchwith varying degrees of independence in their activities.”

The adoption of a new version of the charter on the management of the UOC (May 27, 2022) and the resolution of the UOC council did not lead to a break in the church canonical links between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, the conclusion says.

That is, the status of the UOC as a structural subdivision of the ROC remains unchanged. Although the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate enjoys certain rights of independence, it does not form an autocephalous church.

The expert opinion states that:

• The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in relation to the Russian Orthodox Church, has church-canonical connection of the part with the whole;
• the relations of the UOC with the ROC are not the relations of one independent (autocephalous) church with another independent autocephalous church.
• UOC also does not have the status of an autonomous church, which would be recognized by other churches.

That is why the experts concluded that, from the point of view of ecclesiology and canon law, the UOC-MP is a structural subdivision of the ROC, which has separate rights of independent formation. However, there is no own canonical subjectivity.

Moreover, according to experts, the activity or inaction of the administration of the UOC-MP testifies to the subordination of the ROC.

It does not act as an independent (autocephalous) church and does not proclaim its own independence (autocephaly), the experts said.

They also added that they did not find any documents or actions that could indicate the transformation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church into a religious organization independent of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Searchs and banning of the UOC-MP

• In November 2022, the society was outraged by a video in which a song was sung in Russian at a service in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra with the words: “The ringing floats, floats over Russia, Mother Russia is awakening.”
• After that, in the Lavra and many other churches of the Moscow Patriarchate on the territory of Ukraine, the SBU conducted searches. In the Lavra, citizens were found who provided passports and military cards of the USSR, pro-Russian literature, cash for a total amount of more than 2 million hryvnias, more than 100 thousand dollars and several thousand rubles.
• Subsequently, similar finds were in all the churches of the UOC-MP on the territory of Ukraine. Propaganda materials, anti-Ukrainian propaganda literature, Kremlin methods and Nazi symbols were also found there
• On December 2, 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky enforced the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to ban the activities of religious organizations affiliated with Russia in Ukraine.

< li> Also, by the decision of the National Security and Defense Council, personal sanctions were imposed against the governor of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Pavel (Lebed), known as Pasha Mercedes, ex-people's deputy Vadim Novinsky and other persons. Subsequently, 4 more metropolitans of the UOC-MP, 2 rectors of churches and 1 archbishop were added to them.

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