The UOC is still legally controlled by Moscow, - political scientist Garan

Political scientist and research director of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation Oleksiy Haran argues that despite attempts to prove otherwise, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is still legally linked to the Moscow Patriarchate. The political scientist believes that the legal connection between the UOC and the ROC is preserved thanks to references in the new Church Statute, “Letter on Independence and Autonomy,” issued to the Ukrainian Church by Patriarch Alexy II in 1990. He wrote about this in his column on the NV website.

“This letter refers to the UOC as ‘united through our Russian Orthodox Church with the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’; The UOC “will be governed in accordance with the divine and sacred canons and customs of the Catholic Orthodox Church inherited from the holy fathers and the decisions of this Council of Bishops.” Now we have to look at these “decisions.” And finally, in this third (!) document, we find paragraph 3 stating that the Primate of the UOC “is elected by the Ukrainian episcopate and blessed by the Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.” He is also, according to paragraph 8, a “permanent member of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church,” – Garan noted.

The political scientist added that if the UOC wants to prove its non-affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church, it must at least remove the reference to Patriarch Alexy’s letter from its Statute.

“Therefore, when the UOC (MP) says that subordination to Moscow is not specified in the statute, this is not true. The statute refers to the letter of the Moscow Patriarch, and it refers to the ”decision of this Bishops’ Council [of the Russian Orthodox Church],” where this subordination is specified. If you want to show your independence from the ROC, gentlemen, remove at least the reference to the letter from the Moscow Patriarch, according to which your church is still part of the ROC!”, – he concluded.