Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)
| Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (disputed) | |
|---|---|
Emblem | |
| Type | Eastern Orthodox |
| Orientation | Slavic Orthodox |
| Primate | Metropolitan Onufriy |
| Bishops | 114 (53 governing) |
| Clerics | 12,551 (2022) |
| Nuns | 2,727 |
| Parishes | 8,097 (May 2024) |
| Monastics | 4,620 (2022) |
| Monasteries | 161 (2022) |
| Language | Church Slavonic, Ukrainian, Romanian |
| Liturgy | Byzantine Rite |
| Territory | Ukraine |
| Origin | 988 establishment of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv 1990 (self-rule within the Moscow Patriarchate) |
| Recognition | 27 May 2022 24 March 2023 |
| Members | 6% of the Ukrainian Orthodox population |
| Official website | church uoc-news |
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| Overview |
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), commonly referred to by the exonym Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), is an Eastern Orthodox church in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church was officially formed in 1990 in place of the Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), under the leadership of Metropolitan Filaret, as the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
On 27 May 2022, following a church-wide council in Kyiv, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church announced its full independence and autonomy from the Moscow Patriarchate. The council made this decision in protest of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and particularly in response to Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill's support for the invasion. The UOC (did not and) has never declared full autocephaly from the Russian Orthodox Church. As of 2025, its leadership is also still published in the ROC's calendar.
Since the Unification Council on 15 December 2018 which formed the OCU, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople has disputed the claims by the Moscow Patriarchate of its ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the territory of Ukraine.
The Russian Orthodox Church does not currently recognize a change in their relationship to the UOC. However, in June 2023 ROC hierarch Metropolitan Leonid (Gorbachev) of Klin, scorned the UOC's decision to separate from the Moscow Patriarchate, saying, "When the opportunity presented itself to get out from under the wing of Moscow, they did it," and declared that the ROC would absorb the UOC's dioceses in Russian occupied areas of Ukraine.
On 20 August 2024, the Verkhovna Rada banned the Russian Orthodox Church by adopting the Law of Ukraine "On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Field of Activities of Religious Organizations". Ukrainian religious organizations affiliated with the ROC will have nine months to break off its relations with the Patriarchate of Moscow in accordance with the Canon law of the Eastern Orthodox Church.