Why the DESS requirements for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are unfeasible

The recent expert assessment and, as a result, the order of the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience demanding that the signs of affiliation of the UOC with the ROC be removed are impossible to implement for a number of objective reasons. Since all these “signs” are based on the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church on the UOC, they can be reduced to a single denominator: the UOC is required to amend the statute of the ROC. However, this must be done in such a way that, God forbid, it does not “taint” itself with ties to the ROC.

In turn, amendments to the Statute of the ROC are possible only after a council of bishops has been held, in which, according to the idea, the bishops of the UOC should participate, which again will indicate the affiliation of the UOC with the Moscow Patriarchate. Otherwise, without the participation of the bishops of the UOC in the council of the Russian Orthodox Church, no one in the Russian Church will want to remove the provisions concerning the UOC from the Statute.

Thus, the DESS’s demands on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are a stalemate situation in which the UOC has no choice but to stand its ground and drag out this “chess game” with the state as long as possible. Until when? Judging by all appearances, until some unforeseen circumstances knock the chessboard out from under this “game.”