Ukraine creates church independent from Russia
KIEV: A historic council of Orthodox bishops here has created a new church, President Petro Poroshenko announced on Saturday. The announcement came after Ukrainian priests held a historic synod in the 11th-century Saint Sophia Cathedral here to work towards establishing a church that was independent from Moscow.
“It happened,” Poroshenko told a crowd awaiting the council’s decision in the city centre.
He also announced the council had chosen the head of the new church — Metropolitan Yepifaniy, 39, whose secular name is Sergiy Dumenko.
“I would like to call on all our brothers, bishops and all believers to the newly created united Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” Yepifaniy said outside the cathedral.
“The doors of our church are open to all.”
Earlier, Poroshenko addressed the synod of bishops, saying Kiev’s security depends on “spiritual independence” from Moscow.
He has made an independent church a campaign pledge ahead of an election next year, and told the bishops that the state “did everything it could” towards the creation of the church.
But he also said those wishing to remain loyal to the Russian Orthodox church could do so.
“I guarantee that the government will respect the choice of those” remaining faithful to the Moscow patriarchate, and “protect” those preferring to break away, Poroshenko said.
Thousands of Ukrainians had rallied outside the cathedral, awaiting the synod’s decision.
“The people have been waiting for this. Our Ukrainian church should finally be independent from Moscow,” said Mykhaylo Khalepyk, 65.
Vitaliya Popovych, also at the rally, said she hoped her country would have a new church “that will have a pro-state position”.
The synod sought to realise a landmark decision by Istanbulbased Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to recognise Ukraine's independence from the Russian Orthodox Church.
The ruling in October sparked fury in Moscow, which has overseen the Ukrainian branch of Orthodoxy for the last 332 years.
But Ukraine’s Moscow-loyal church said it would snub the event and banned its priests from going to the synod.
The meeting was dominated by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate. Its leader, Patriarch Filaret, founded the church after the fall of the Soviet Union, but it remained unrecognised by other Orthodox churches until recently.