Back and up

The President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, who leaves his post, once comprehensively approached the solution of the problem of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church, that is, a canonical recognition of its complete independence from Moscow. In addition to the fully justified church law and historical precedents, an appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarch with a request to provide the Ukrainian Church of Tomos about autocephaly, the president also took a number of actions against the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC -MP) in Ukraine. And if the “positive” part of his “autocephaly plan” was crowned with success (January 6, the Patriarch of Constantinople granted Tomos to Ukraine ), then the “negative” part of the plan, initially rather risky, failed.

According to the presidential plan and his religious advisers, the renaming of the UOC in the "Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine" was supposed to cause an outflow from this religious organization of those believers who would like to remain Ukrainians in the church. At the end of December, the Verkhovna Rada adopted, and the president signed the law on the need to introduce religious organizations into the official name, the managing center of which is in the aggressor state (that is, in the Russian Federation), the full name of this managing center. It is not known whether it was deliberately done or not, but the law provided the UOC -MP with such a time for renaming, which was exactly enough to wait for the presidential election. According to the order of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, which was issued on the basis of the law, in charge of the registration of religious organizations, the term allotted for the voluntary renaming of the UOC MP expires on April 26.

For the months that have passed after the Tomos, the UOC MP not only did not lose its leading position on the confessional map of Ukraine, but also the legal revenge began. In the period between the first and second rounds of the presidential election, she achieved quite significant victories in court. On April 6, the District Administrative Court of Kyiv recognized the actions of the chairman and deputies of the Verkhovna Rada related to the adoption of the Law on the renaming of the UOC MP. On April 19, the Constitutional Court began proceeding in the lawsuit of a number of deputies from the opposition bloc on the constitutionality of the law. And, finally, on April 22, the same district court of Kiev suspended the order of the Ministry of Culture on the period of voluntary renaming. By the way, the Primate of the UOC MP Metropolitan Onufry was the first of the religious leaders to congratulate Zelensky on his election and blessed his presidency.

You can, of course, say that these victories are depreciated by the nasty reputation of the Ukrainian judicial system, bringing as an example a clearly corruption decision on the actual return of Igor Kolomoisky Privatbank, which is fraught with almost default of Ukraine. It is obvious that it was precisely the judicial branch of the Ukrainian authorities that began to “change my mind in the air” faster than the rest, as soon as the prospect of a radical change in the country's political course became obvious following the results of the first round of elections. Be that as it may, in this case, the courts are not an independent political player, but only demonstrate (albeit too straightforwardly) the dominant political trend. Now Ukraine will “live in a new way” (how long - the courts do not answer this questions), that is, the UOC -MP will again become a state denomination, and autocephaly will become the lot of selfless fighters for the Ukrainian idea. Almost as under Yanukovych. Truly, new in politics is a well -forgotten old one.

In my opinion, in the new political reality, very bright prospects are revealed for Ukrainian autocephaly. For this high idea, it was humiliating to remain in the status of the appendage of the PR campaign of one politician, albeit very respected. The enthusiasm of the supporters of church autocephaly did not intensify the fact that bureaucrats or political strategists, quite far from church discourse, began to manage their movement, suffered by the centuries of struggle. Only the "separation of autocephaly from politics" is able to breathe new life into the Ukrainian church revival. And the more successful, the more convincing this revival will proceed, the less chance the Moscow Patriarchate will have to “retain Ukraine”.