The UOC has done nothing to canonically confirm the absence of ties with the ROC, - Govorun

Kirill Govorun, a former cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church who has been defrocked, has also joined the search for “facts” of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s affiliation with the Moscow Patriarchate. Govorun believes that the UOC’s connection with Russia is indicated by Patriarch Alexy II’s Tomos and the absence of autocephalous status. He stated this on Radio NV.

«The documents of the UOC themselves and these changes to the Statute, which were adopted in May 2022 at the so-called Council in Feofaniya, contain references to the UOC’s ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. This is the first point of the Statute, which refers to the 1990 Patriarchal Tomos, which Patriarch Alexy then sent to Metropolitan Filaret (Denisenko) of Kiev, stating that the UOC has the rights of extended autonomy, but it maintains ties with global Orthodoxy through the ROC. So, this point remains in the Statute of the UOC to this day, and this is simply obvious evidence of the UOC’s affiliation with the ROC,» — Govorun noted.

In addition, according to Govorun, the UOC is dependent on the ROC also because the Church’s contacts with global Orthodoxy are carried out through the Moscow Patriarchate.

«The problem is much broader, because this is how the UOC is viewed in global Orthodoxy. From the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the most recent Local Orthodox Church in the world, canonical communication with the UOC occurs solely because it is part of the ROC. That is, in the mind of global Orthodoxy, the UOC is part of the ROC. And the UOC has done nothing to canonically confirm that this is not the case,» — he added.

Earlier, political scientist and research director of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation Oleksiy Haran also stated that despite attempts to prove the opposite, 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 through references in the new Statute of the Church, “Tomos on Independence and Autonomy,” issued to the Ukrainian Church by Patriarch Alexy II in 1990.