While the war continues, the UOC will not be able to appeal to the ROC for autocephaly, - religious scholar

Ukrainian religious scholar and expert at the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) Andriy Smyrnov is convinced that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will not be able to appeal to the Moscow Patriarchate for autocephaly while the war continues. In addition, the religious scholar asserts that the leadership of the UOC will not go for self-proclamation of autocephalous status, while, in his opinion, the Russian Orthodox Church will oppose such an initiative. He spoke about this in an interview with the publication Glavred.

«Moscow Patriarch Kirill has repeatedly stated that the Russian Orthodox Church will never grant autocephalous status to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church because, for it, ‘Kyiv is the southern capital of Russian Orthodoxy.’ In the context of Russian armed aggression, the UOC cannot now turn to Moscow for autocephaly, because neither Ukrainian society, nor the state, nor its own believers would understand this. It will not dare to independently declare its withdrawal from the Russian Orthodox Church and complete independence, because this will be recognized as a schism. For autocephaly to be accepted, it is necessary to appeal to all local Orthodox churches and ask for help in recognizing the UOC as independent. Therefore, for Bishop Onufriy, this is a stalemate. That is why he has taken a wait-and-see position and will drag out the process, using many court proceedings for this purpose,» — Smirnov noted.

Earlier, Archbishop Silvestr (Stoychev), a hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and rector of the Kiev Theological Academy, spoke about the status of the UOC after the Council in Feofaniya. The bishop emphasized that the Church did not go down the path of proclaiming self-proclaimed autocephaly, since such a step would not solve the existing problems, but on the contrary, would create new ones.