The Unification council of the Eastern Orthodox churches of Ukraine () is a council which was held on 15 December 2018 in the St Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv. The council voted to unite the existing Ukrainian Eastern Orthodox churches (the UOC-KP, the UAOC and parts of the UOC-MP) through their representatives, on the basis of complete canonical independence. All the members of the UOC-KP and the UAOC, and two members of the UOC-MP, merged into the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the unification council elected Epiphanius I as its first primate.
History
Three Eastern Orthodox churches in Ukraine
Since the end of the 20th century, three Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions have existed in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) (UOC-MP) which is part of the Russian Orthodox Church and thus under the Moscow Patriarchate. This church was, until 11 October 2018, the only Orthodox church in Ukraine recognized by other Orthodox churches. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), led by Metropolitan Makariy, which was independent, having been founded in 1921 following the establishment of the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic and having survived the Soviet Union both outside and inside the country. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), led by Patriarch Filaret of Kyiv, an independent church which was founded in July 1992. In January 1992, after Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union following its dissolution, Metropolitan of Kyiv Filaret of the UOC-MP convened an assembly at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra that adopted a request for autocephaly to the Moscow Patriarch. The Patriarchate of Moscow did not comply and asked Filaret to resign. Filaret did not resign and was suspended on 27 May 1992 by the UOC-MP. The bishops loyal to Metropolitan Filaret and a similar group from the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church organized a unifying synod which was held on 25–26 June 1992. The delegates agreed to form a combined church named the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate under a patriarch they elected, Mstyslav of the UAOC. Mstyslav never approved the union between the UAOC and the UOC-KP. Filaret was defrocked on 11 July 1992 by the Russian Orthodox Church. After the death of Patriarch Mstyslav in 1993, the UOC-KP was headed by Patriarch Volodymyr. In July 1995, upon the death of Volodymyr, Filaret was elected head of the UOC-KP by a vote of 160-5. Filaret was anathematized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1997.
The UAOC and the UOC-KP were not recognized by other Orthodox churches and were considered schismatic. ROC officials stated that the anathematization of Filaret was "recognized by all the Local Orthodox Churches including the Church of Constantinople". The synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate did indeed recognize, in a July 1992 letter to Patriarch Alexy II, the defrocking of Filaret by the ROC, and the Ecumenical Patriarch recognized the anathematization of Filaret in a letter of April 1997 to Patriarch Alexy II.
Previous attempts at unification
In 2002, Filaret Denisenko said: "The Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate [UOC-KP] and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church [UAOC], are not separated in faith, by position as to church canons, by their views on building up the Ukrainian state. Therefore, as we have no disagreements between us".
In October 2009 Bishop Makariy (Maletych) formulated the idea of a single local Ukrainian church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate's jurisdiction, which would be the result of the union between the UAOC and the UOC-KP. At that time Makariy had not yet become the head of the UAOC. Patriarch Filaret, the head of the UOC-KP, expressed support for the idea of a united autocephalous Ukrainian church in October 2011.
Preparations for unification of the UAOC and the UOC-KP took place in 2011 between the episcopates of both churches. In the end, the unification council between the two churches, which was scheduled to take place on 14 September 2015 between the UAOC and the UOC-KP, never took place as both churches could not agree on the future statutes of a united Ukrainian church. This unification attempt therefore failed, Makariy blamed this failure on Philaret's inability to negotiate. Before this, according to Filaret in 2015, the UAOC and the UOC-KP already had had four attempts at negotiations in the previous 20 years, the 2015 negotiation being the fifth. On 14 December 2018, Makariy declared in an interview to the channel NEWSONE that the UOC-KP and the UAOC could have been united "years ago" and blamed the UOC-KP for the fact that this union never happened.