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 Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, under the leadership of Metropolitan Filaret, as the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The UOC-MP is one of the two major Eastern Orthodox ecclesiastical bodies in modern Ukraine, alongside the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). 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.
On 27 May 2022, following an official church council held at the Feofaniia convent in Kyiv, it was announced that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church had declared its full independence and autonomy from the Moscow Patriarchate. The Russian Orthodox Church does not currently recognize a change in their relationship to the UOC. However, 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 occupied areas of Ukraine.
By late April 2023 the local/regional councils of (the city of) Lviv, Rivne Oblast, Volyn Oblast and Zhytomyr Oblast had voted to ban the activities of the UOC-MP.
Name
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) insists on its name being just the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, stating that it is the sole canonical body of Orthodox Christians in the country, a Ukrainian "local church" (). The church rejects being labeled "Russian" or "Moscow."
It is also the name that it is registered under in the State Committee of Ukraine in Religious Affairs.
It is often referred to as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) or UOC (MP) in order to distinguish between the two rival churches contesting the name of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Following the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, on December 20, 2018, the Ukrainian parliament voted to force the UOC-MP to rename itself in its mandatory state registration, its new name must have "the full name of the church to which it is subordinated". This was protested by UOC-MP adherents. On 11 December 2019 the Supreme Court of Ukraine allowed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to retain its name. The UOC had argued that their governing center is in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, not in Russia's capital, Moscow, and therefore it should not be renamed.
Relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church
Prior to the February 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine the church stated that it was one of the "self-governing" churches under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, i.e. the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) (In the terminology of the current Statute of the ROC, a "self-governing Church" is distinguished from an "autonomous Church"). The UOC-MP claims since May 2022 (the church did not publish its new constitution) that 'any provisions that at least somehow hinted at or indicated the connection with Moscow were excluded'; since then it is a matter of dispute as to whether the Church is under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. The ROC defines the UOC-MP as a "self-governing church with rights of wide autonomy". It has also ignored all UOC-MP's declarations of it not being connected with it anymore and continues to include UOC-MP clerics in various commissions or working groups.
According to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Primate of the UOC-MP is the most senior permanent member of the ROC's Holy Synod and thus has a say in its decision-making in respect of the rest of the ROC throughout the world.
Despite the de facto annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, the eparchies of the UOC in Crimea continued to be administered by the UOC, until in June 2022 the Moscow Patriarchate decided to re-transfer Crimea from the Ukrainian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. The UOC continues to list the Crimean eparchies and has not recognized any change to its territorial boundaries based on decisions taken by the ROC. On 27 March 2023, Archbishop Viktor (Kotsaba) said that the territories of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church include the Crimea and Donbas areas of Ukraine.