The current schism in the Eastern Orthodox Church – a split over recognizing or rejecting the Orthodox Church of Ukraine which was created in 2018.
by
u/Joseon1
The
specifics behind the schism are fairly complicated (and have shades of
the Judean People’s Front) but they can be boiled down as follows:
- Before
2018 there were several Orthodox churches in Ukraine, but only one was
recognised by the other Orthodox churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
which was under the juristiction of the Russian Orthodox Church - In
2018, two independent churches, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox
Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate, merged to
form the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (the name is confusingly similar to
the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the one under the Russian Church) - This
new Orthodox Church of Ukraine was recognised as the legitimate local
church by the Ecumenical Patriarch – who is the “first among equals” of
the Orthodox patriarchs (the top bishops). He also granted this church
autocephaly, which means it’s self-governing and not under the
juristiction of another church. His argument was that the Ecumenical
Patriarch had transferred the Ukrainian church to the Russian church in
the 1600s, so he claimed the power to take back this transferral. - Unsurprisingly,
the Russian church was incensed about this, and some other church
leaders were concerned about the legitimacy of the new Orthodox Church
of Ukraine because it was formed from two break-away churches. - In
response, the Russian Orthodox Church refused to recognise the new
Orthodox Church of Ukraine and severed communion with the Ecumenical
Patriarch (i.e. they don’t recognise their church services as legitimate
or part of the true church). - Several
other Orthodox patriarches, archbishops and metropolitans made official
announcements about which position they supported. Several others
avoided explicitly picking a side and tried to mediate an agreement. - To
complicate the picture further, following the 2022 Russian invasion of
Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (the one that had stayed part of
the Russian Church) itself split from the Russian Church and declared
itself autocephalous. The Russian Church didn’t recognise this
autocephaly either, and announced that Ukrainian churches under Russian
control would be directly governed by the Russian Orthodox Church.
TL;DR
– A new Ukrainian church was created by a merger in 2018 and a top
bishop (in Istanbul) recognised it as the official church of Ukraine,
independent from the Russian church. The Russian church didn’t like this
and severed relations with that top bishop. Other bishops entered the
fray, and they still haven’t repaired relations. This schism is unlikely
to be mended soon, especially after the invasion of Ukraine.