History of Christianity in Ukraine

• that body of Orthodox Christians from Ukraine who are united under the "Ukrainian Orthodox Church", autonomous under the Patriarch of Moscow and currently headed by Volodymyr (Sabodan) a Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine. This church (UOC-MP) is in communion with the other Eastern Orthodox Churches through its mother church, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC);

• the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy (UOC-KP) created in 1991, currently with unrecognized canonical standing among other Eastern Orthodox churches. Since 1995 UOC-KP is headed by Patriarch Filaret (Mykhailo Denysenko) who until 1991 was a Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine under the ROC, which defrocked him in 1992 and excommunicated in 1994 "for schismatic activities".

• the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), which re-established itself in Ukraine after independence from the Soviet Union, having survived in the diaspora after Soviet government suppression following its birth during the brief period of Ukrainian independence in the aftermath of World War I.

• the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, re-established in independent Ukraine following the dissolution of the Soviet Union where its ban was actively supported by ROC.

• a Roman Catholic church and various protestant churches that currently hold an insignificant but growing membership in Ukraine.

History

St. Andrew is thought to have preached on the southern borders of Ukraine, along the Black Sea. The legend has is that he went up the Dnieper (Dnipro) river and reached the point of future location of Kiev where he put up the cross and prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city. A representative from southern Ukraine was present at the First Council of Nicaea (325). These churches, and the inland farther north, came under the control of the Goths, around this time, some of whom were Christians and seemed to have been Arians.

Some of the Slavic population of Kiev and Western Ukraine under the rule of Great Moravia were Christians in the 9th century. Christianity became dominant in the territory with the mass Baptism of
Kievans in the Dnieper river in 988 by St. Vladimir (Volodymyr). Early on, the metropolitans had their seat in Pereyaslav, then Kiev. The people of Rus'-Ukraine lost their Metropolitan to the predecessors of the first Russian state in 1299, but regained a Ukrainian Metropolitan in Halych in 1303. The area was also ruled in part by a Metropolitan in Navahradak, White Ruthenia (Belarus). In the 1400s, primacy over the Ukrainian church was restored to Kiev, under the title, "Metropolitan of Kiev and Halicia". In the Union of Brest of 1596 a part of the Ukrainian Church moved under the jurisdiction of the Roman Pope becoming a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), while the majority of Ukrainians remained within Eastern Orthodoxy. In 1686, the Orthodox Church of Kiev and all Rus' was transferred from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the recently established Patriarch of Moscow which signified the start of the long process of Russification.

Distinguishing between church bodies

The current divided and fluid situation traces its roots to the gradual suppression of the distinctive Ukrainian Orthodox Church by Tsarist Russia after the transfer of the Church of Rus' proper from the Patriarch of Constantinople to the Patriarch of Moscow in 1686. This transfer was resisted at first at Constantinople, since it was attempted via the ecclesiastic crime of bribery by the Russian Church, only recently elevated to patriarchal status, but then accepted under pressure from the Turkish Sultan. A policy of ecclesiastic forced Russification began for the Ukrainian Christianity. Ukrainian bishops were slated to serve only in the foreign land of Russia, and vice-versa. Ukrainian-Greek priestly vestments were replaced by Russian ones. By 1800, all bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church would henceforth be only Russians.

But the Ukrainian Church immediately moved to restore its integrity when the Russian occupation appeared to cease. In 1921 a Sobor announced a new Autocephaly and created the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) in Kiev with Metropolitan Wasyl Lupkivskyj ordained as a head of the UAOC. In wake of the break up of the Russian Empire some national groups also sought an autonomy from Moscow and a Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church was also founded around this time. The Soviet government persecuted these churches. The Russian Orthodox Church also prevented the UAOC from establishing their ecclesiastical order for some time. Between the world wars these national churches were tolerated to some extent by the ROC; as the UAOC had entered into communion with Constantinople, the Moscow Patriarchate was grudgingly obliged to acknowledge communion with the new Ukrainian autocephalic church.

On October 8, 1942 Archbishop Nikanor and Bishop Mstyslav (now Patriach) of the UAOC and Metropolitan Oleksiy (Hromadsky) of the Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church concluded an Act of Union uniting the two national churches at the [[Pochaev] Lavra (monastery). Nazi occupation authorities and pro-Russian hierarchs of the Autonomous Church forced Metropolitan Oleksiy to remove his signature. Metropolitan Oleksiy was executed in Volhynia on May 7, 1943.

The Russian Orthodox Church regained its general monopoly in Ukrainian SSR after World War II. Most of the other churches were forced out as the Soviet government only recognized the Moscow Patriarchate, revived at the time of the Russian Revolution, as the only legitimate church in most of the Soviet Union. Many accused it of being a puppet of the Communist Party. After the suspicious death of Tikhon of Moscow these autocephalic churches sought to remain independent; something that Moscow tolerated until after World War II when many Ukrainian Orthodox clergy not affiliated with Moscow fled to Germany, the United States, or Canada. The UAOC and UGCC and its church property in Ukraine was then liquidated by the Soviets with the assistance of the Patriarchate of Moscow, which could legitimately lay claim to any Orthodox church property that was within territories where its jurisdiction was uncontested. Any UAOC hierarchs or clergy who remained in Ukraine and refused to join the Russian Church were executed or sent to concentration camps. In the next several years, similar actions were taken against the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Western Ukraine and Transcarpathia.

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