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Autonomy Lost and Regained: The Ukrainian Orthodox Metropolia of Kyiv, 1633-2019 This exhibition was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

© 2021 by the Ukrainian History and Education Center, all rights reserved.

Autocephaly and Orthodox Ecclesiastical Structure

Unlike in the Catholic Church, the tradition in the Orthodox world has been one of administrative decentralization. Thus, while there is only one indivisible Orthodox Church, there are many jurisdictions that recognize each other as "canonical" but exercise administrative independence within their respective territories. Many Orthodox jurisdictions are "autocephalous" (pronounced "auto-SEF-a-lus"; from Greek, meaning "self-headed"), which means that their prime hierarch does not report to any other higher-ranking bishop. In some respects, this is similar to the role of "provinces" within the Anglican Communion (e.g. the Episcopal Church in the United States could be thought of as being vaguely "autocephalous").

In the early centuries of Christianity, church affairs were governed by the five major episcopal sees (or Patriarchates) of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Since then, numerous additional jurisdictions have been been recognized as having the status of autocephaly (or the somewhat related but more restricted status of "autonomy").

These jurisdictions usually correspond to political boundaries, and autocephaly has been closely linked to national self-determination and political independence. This can cause complications if political boundaries are re-drawn, one political entity is absorbed by another, an empire fragments, or if there is mass migration of Orthodox populations to a country that does not already have a strong Orthodox jurisdiction (as was the case in the United States and Canada). This sometimes uncomfortable interplay between Church and State can manifest itself as the intrusion of geopolitics into the sphere of religion, as can be seen repeatedly in this exhibition.

Even worse, there is no well-defined, systematic procedure by which autocephalous jurisdictions become recognized. There have been many cases of jurisdictions unilaterally claiming autocephaly, but where that self-proclamation was not accepted and the jurisdiction found itself in a state of "schism" with respect to its parent Church. Similarly, a jurisdiction might initially be recognized by only one or a very small number of Patriarchs. This process of recognition can play out over many years or even decades before a consensus is finally reached.

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The 1921 Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church The Ukrainian Orthodox Church that was formed in 1921 could be seen as a grass-roots continuation of the push towards Ukrainianization and autonomy that began with the work of Lotots'kyi and others at the very end of the Ukrainian People's Republic.

No longer willing to wait for church leadership to deliver, rank-and-file clergy and laity from cities and villages throughout the country met for a Church Council in Kyiv in October 1921, even though there were no bishops present: all of the hierarchs in Ukraine were either opposed to the goals of the Council, or were afraid of repercussions from their still overwhelmingly Russian-dominated superiors.

The Council affirmed the three fundamental principles that would guide their movement: autocephaly (the administrative independence from any non-Ukrainian Church jurisdiction), conciliar administration (the administration of the Church through councils of laity, clergy, and bishops at the parish, eparchial, and national level), and Ukrainian identity (the use of Ukrainian language, song, customs, and rituals in Church life). The supreme authority in the Church was not the Metropolitan alone or a Council of Bishops, but the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council ("Sobor"), which included rank-and-file clergy as well as laity.

The fact that there were no bishops posed a major problem for the Council. In Orthodox canon law, a bishop can only be ordained by two other bishops. If the Ukrainian Church was to have bishops, it would need to find some way around this. In the end, they performed an ordination ritual of "laying on of hands" by all of the present clergy and laity to ordain Vasyl' Lypkivs'kyi and Nestor Sharaivs'kyi, who then ordained more bishops in the standard way.

As detailed by the UAOC's Bishop of Vinnytsia Ioan Teodorovych in his 1922 book "Blahodatnist' ierarchii UAPTs" ("The Grace of the UAOC Hierarchy"), the justification for this choice was that it was a practice in the early history of the Church of Alexandria. Nonetheless, the legitimacy of the bishops of the 1921 UAOC was rejected by all canonical Orthodox Churches.

The Bolsheviks at first grudgingly tolerated the UAOC. This was in part because it was consistent with the official Ukrainianization policies under Lenin, but also perhaps because they hoped that it would be a destabilizing force that might undermine organized religious activity. Any such hopes were soon dashed: the UAOC quickly became a major force in Ukrainian religious life, with over 30 bishops shepherding more than one thousand parishes.

Combining, as it did, both religion and a non-Russian national identity, the UAOC came under immediate attack from the Stalin regime. Repressions began in the mid-1920s, and attacks would become more and more brutal during the coming decade, resulting in the arrest, exile, and/or killing of nearly all of its bishops and many clergy by 1930, and culminating in the "disappearance" of Metropolitan Vasyl' himself in 1937.

One UAOC bishop, however, did survive, but only because he was no longer in the Soviet Union.

In 1924, the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council had sent Archbishop Ioan (Teodorovych) to serve as the spiritual leader of the nascent Ukrainian Orthodox Churches in North America. His presence would have an immeasurable impact on the development of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in both the United States and Canada. Although Ukrainians had already begun organizing Orthodox parishes in the late 1910s under non-Ukrainian bishops, having a leader who spoke their language and knew their culture provided a major boost to their efforts.
Overview
For people following the news from Ukraine in 2019, the recognition of the autocephaly of the newly reorganized Orthodox Church of Ukraine by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople may have seemed like a radical innovation or a historical rupture. Or they may have simply been baffled by all of the fuss.

In fact, the events of 2019 were not so much a rupture as a historical re-connection. Rather than a radical innovation, it was the culmination of over a century of determined effort.

This exhibition tells the story of the long path from the extraordinary flowering of the Kyivan Church under Petro Mohyla, who became Metropolitan of Kyiv in 1633, through the de facto incorporation of the Kyiv Metropolia into the Moscow Patriarchate, and finally to the struggles for the renewal of local control during the 20th and 21st centuries.
Autocephaly Recognized The immediate post-Soviet period involved turmoil in almost all areas of public life. Many familiar societal structures that had been in place for many decades and which multiple generations had grown up with had suddenly vanished or were irrevocably changed, and the path forward was far from clear. The realm of religion was certainly not immune from its impact.

After the death of Patriarch Mstyslav in 1993, Orthodoxy in Ukraine entered a very difficult time. In addition to the continuing powerful influence of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was now joined by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church–Kyivan Patriarchate, neither of which were recognized as canonical by other Orthodox Churches. The resulting three-way division resulted in considerable friction in the religious life of post-independence Ukraine. Many efforts by Ukrainian Orthodox Hierarchs from the USA and Canadian Ukrainian Orthodox Churches (representing the Ecumenical Patriarchate) were made in the 2000s and early 2010s to bridge the divide between the UAOC and the UOC–KP, but with little success.

Finally in October 2018, the council of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople announced that at the profound and persistent request of the faithful of Ukraine — the spiritual children of the Patriarchate for over a millennium, it would "proceed to the granting of autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine", beginning an extraordinarily complex period of negotiations needed to achieve the unification of the UAOC and the UOC–KP that was a precondition for the granting of autocephaly.

In yet another example of the connections between the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches of Ukraine and North America, Archbishop Daniel (Zelinsky) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA and Bishop Ilarion (Rudnyk) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada were appointed as excarchs of the Patriarch of Constantinople to Ukraine to assist in those negotiations. This led to a formal Council of Unification in St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv on December 15, 2018 that created the Orthodox Church of Ukraine under the leadership of Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Epiphaniy (Dumenko).

The signing of the Tomos (or formal decree) of Autocephaly by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and all Hierarchs of the Holy Synod of Constantinople on January 5, 2019. The official presentation of the Tomos to Metropolitan Epiphaniy took place during Divine Liturgy on January 6, 2019 — the eve of the Nativity of Christ (Julian Calendar) in the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George, Constantinople (Istanbul). The process of formal recognition by the 14 Autocephalous Churches is in motion and is one that traditionally has taken many years, if not decades. Four of the Churches have recognized the OCU thus far: the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Alexandria and the Autocephalous Churches of Greece and Cyprus.

The historical connection between Ukraine and Constantinople that began in the 10th century was interrupted from 1685 to 2019. This may seem like an impossibly long time for Americans. But for a nation that can trace its written history for over a millennium, that has not been an insurmountable obstacle.
The 1942 Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church After the frenzy of border redrawing that followed World War I, many Orthodox Ukrainians and Belarusians suddenly found themselves living in the Second Polish Republic. Since they were no longer in the same state as Moscow, a number of Orthodox bishops in Poland petitioned the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople for autocephaly. Despite the strenuous objections of the Russian Orthodox Church, this was granted in 1924, on the basis that it was the continuation of the Kyiv Metropolia.

No longer tied to the Moscow Patriarchate, Orthodox church leaders of what is today northwestern Ukraine and western Belarus could now exercise local jurisdictional control. The Volyn' and Polissia regions soon became a hotbed of Ukrainianization, including the use of vernacular Ukrainian as a liturgical language.

With the outbreak of yet another war, the hierarchs took advantage of the grudging toleration of the occupying Nazi forces to make a second attempt at Ukrainian autocephaly. Two new Ukrainian bishops — Nikanor (Abramovych) and Ihor (Huba) — were ordained in Pinsk in February 1942, and this time there was absolutely no question about the validity of their ordinations. The subsequent Council of Bishops then decided to send Archbishop Polikarp (Sikorsky) to be the autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv and to assign the other bishops to Ukrainian eparchies.

Once in Ukraine, the new hierarchs wasted no time in ordaining additional bishops, including Mstyslav (Skrypnyk), and additional priests to assign to parishes.

Knowing that their lives would be in peril if they fell into Soviet hands, nearly the entire church hierarchy along with many priests fled west ahead of the advancing Red Army. Amazingly, they were able to bring with them all of the necessary vestments, vessels, and other ritual objects, including antimensia, needed to minister to the thousands of Ukrainians also fleeing the atrocities of the Stalin regime.

Many of the priests and bishops would end up in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and as far away as Australia. They would maintain the dream of an independent Orthodox jurisdiction in Ukraine, and Metropolitan Mstyslav of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA would go on to have a major role in the rebirth that would come decades later.
Patriarch of Kyiv and All Ukraine In 1990, Metropolitan Mstyslav of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA had already had a remarkable journey. His beginnings were in the military of the Ukrainian People's Republic, then as a bishop of the 1942 Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine and after the departure of the Autocephalous Hierarchs to the West, ministering to Ukrainian displaced persons in Germany. He became the Ruling Hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox church in Canada for two years and then settled in the United States joining Bishop Bohdan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in America (Ecumenical Patriarchate). At a unification Council (Sobor) of this jurisdiction with the American Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the US, headed by Archbishop Ioan (Teodorovych), which resulted in the establishment of the UOC of USA in its present form, he was elected at Archbishop and John as Metropolitan. He succeed Metropolitan Ioan as the prime hierarch of the UOC of USA and South America in 1972 and had also succeeded Metropolitan Nikanor the UAOC in the Diaspora, leading the Ukrainian Orthodox faithful in Europe and Australia/New Zealand.

Now 92 years old, he had one more adventure ahead of him.

By 1990, Gorbachev's "glasnost'" and "perestroika" had already resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Warsaw Pact had begun to fray. Now, rumblings of freedom were beginning to be felt in what was still the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The "People's Movement of Ukraine for Perestroika", more commonly known by its Ukrainian name "Rukh", had been founded in 1989. In January 1990, they organized a human chain from L'viv to Kyiv celebrating the Unification Act of 1919 that joined the Ukrainian People's Republic and the West Ukrainian People's Republic, something that would have likely resulted in mass arrests only a few years before.

Then, on June 5, 1990, at the First Council of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Kyiv, Metropolitan Mstyslav was elected in absentia as the Patriarch of Kyiv and All Ukraine. He was formally enthroned as Patriarch in Kyiv's St. Sophia Cathedral in November 1990. Despite the expectations of many of those who elected him that he would merely be a figurehead, Patriarch Mstyslav traveled to Ukraine numerous times in the last years of life and took an active role in both the religious and political life of his native country.

Patriarch Mstyslav provided a tangible connection between pre-Soviet and post-Soviet Ukrainian history and independence and would provide continued inspiration for further efforts toward the rebirth of the UAOC, its jurisdictional autonomy and ultimately — autocephaly.

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The structure of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches (as of 2020)