Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, commented on the decision taken on May 27, 2022 by the Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church:
Yesterday, there was a Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It confirmed the status that this Church has had since 1990, when it received a tomos of self-governance from His Holiness Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow and All Russia.
Today, many hostile forces are trying to destroy this Church. Schismatics are trying to seize its property, the Ukrainian authorities have organized the persecution of this Church, in a number of regions the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is banned, its churches are padlocked, and raider seizures are carried out against churches. They’re trying to deprive the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of its legal name, trying to rename it the “Russian Church in Ukraine.”
With yesterday’s decisions, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church testified once again that it is fully self-governing, that the center of its Church is not in Moscow, but in Kiev, and that it doesn’t depend on Moscow administratively, financially or otherwise.
The unity between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as other Local Orthodox Churches that have not taken the path of schism, is preserved and we will continue to strengthen this unity, we will continue to pray for our united holy Orthodox Church.
