Religious scholar Smirnov: The status of the UOC remains uncertain and requires a cathedral decision

Andriy Smirnov, a lobbyist for the OCU and a freelance expert of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS), has said that the status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church after the Theophany council remains uncertain. In his opinion, despite the statements about distancing itself from the Moscow Patriarchate, these changes are not enshrined by a cathedral decision and can be canceled after the end of the war. The expert emphasizes the need to formalize the new status to determine the future of the church.

In his commentary aired on the YouTube channel «Viche», Andrei Smirnov noted that with the current uncertain status of the UOC «everyone will agree». He recalled that the UOC was never an autonomous church during Ukraine’s years of independence, but had only «rights of broad autonomy,» remaining, from the perspective of the ROC and other local churches, «an independent and autonomous church of the Moscow Patriarchate.»

Smirnov positively assessed Metropolitan Onufry’s recent address on the occasion of the third anniversary of the Theophany council, which shifts accents and declares that the UOC is not part of the Moscow Patriarchate. «I can only welcome such statements, » he said. However, the religious scholar insists that such declarations should be formalized in the form of specific decisions of the Council of Bishops or the UOC Council in order to follow the principle of sobornost, and not be based on personal statements of individual hierarchs.

According to the historian, the current situation may be a temporary measure for the transition period due to the war. Nevertheless, he believes that in the next 3-4 years the Church should make a clear decision about its future. Andrei Smirnov expressed concern that the changes in the charter adopted at the Theophany Council could easily be canceled. «The war will end — and they will say that this new charter is invalid, that we are returning to the old version of the charter. What’s in the way? Nothing prevents,» he concluded.

We will remind, earlier the head of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Metropolitan Kliment (Vecherya) said that the State Service of Ukraine on Ethno-politics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) refused to register the new Statute on the governance of the UOC, adopted at the Council in Theophany in 2022. The hierarch noted that this way the State Service artificially created an obstacle, complicating state-church relations.