Although the UOC bishops are technically still subject to the Moscow Patriarchate, they voiced strong opposition to the decision by the Russian Holy Synod to retire Metropolitan Hilarion of Donetsk and Mariupol at the end of October.
They said it was “anti-canonical” and a clear sign that Moscow wanted to “annex” and “threaten [the] autonomy and independence” of their Church.
“This decision undermines Ukraine’s independence and the very existence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church amidst the difficult conditions of ongoing military conflict on Ukrainian territory,” said a letter signed by 31 bishops.
They urged the patriarchate to retract its decision, emphasising that this is not the first occasion that the Russian Orthodox Church had displaced Ukrainian bishops from occupied regions without the consent of the UOC.
Metropolitan Onufry, the primate of the UOC, was not among the signatories, nor did the letter come from any official UOC body such as its Holy Synod, but was an ad-hoc reaction led by Metropolitan Agafangel of Odesa.
The Russian Orthodox Church originally cited Metropolitan Hilarion’s health as one of the reasons for retiring him. Its spokesman Vladimir Legoyda later said that the political and military context in the region required his replacement.
“I would like to clarify that decisions on the procedure for governing dioceses in the territories of Donbass and Novorossiya are made by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in the special conditions of military action, when the course of church life urgently requires such decisions,” he said.
The UOC bishops said Moscow’s decision clearly violated the tomos, a recognition of self-governing status within an Orthodox Church, issued to the UOC in 1990 by the previous Patriarch of Moscow Alexy II.
Other Churches in Ukraine’s occupied territories have faced further repression. Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, last week told La Croix that his Church was “entirely banned and in the process of destruction” in the region.
More than half of its parishes there have been suppressed, according to reports.