Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church

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The Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church (Ukrainian: Українська Автономна Православна Церква) was a short-lived Ukrainian Church that existed during the times when Ukraine was occupied by Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

[edit] History

The church was created on August 18, 1941, by a secret synod of Ukrainian bishops in Pochaiv Lavra headed by Archbishop Oleksiy (Hromadsky) of Lutsk, who became the new church's Metropolitan.

The Church's creators announced their intention to achieve Autocephalous status for the Ukrainian church but rejected the path towards autocephaly adopted by the renewed Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church as uncanocical and unilateralist, as it had simply announced itself independent. As such, the new church was proclaimed under the canonical link to the Moscow Patriarchate and invoked the 1918 decision of the Russian Orthodox Church that granted Autonomy to the Ukrainian church. At the same time the bishops rejected the idea of any part of Ukraine's being the canonical territory of the Polish Orthodox Church, despite the fact that the Polish Orthodox Metropolitan Dionysius continued to claim jurisdiction over the Western Ukrainian territories formerly controlled by Poland between the World Wars.

The Church's influence spread from Volhynia to the Dnieper Ukraine, where several parishes and monasteries joined the church, including the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the cradle of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the region. The spreading of the church brought about a fierce rivalry with the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which was suppressed by the Soviet authorities in the 1930s but revived under the German occupation. Metropolitan Oleksiy and Bishop Mstyslav of the Autocephalous Church attempted unification of the two churches, and an Act of Unity was signed in Pochaiv on October 8, 1942. Under the pressure of his bishops, Oleksiy later renounced the union, withdrawing his signature, and on May 7, 1943 he was murdered by nationalists from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, who saw this as an act of treason.

After the murder of Metropolitan Oleksiy, the church was led by Archbishop Pamteleymon (Rudyk) and the relationship with the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church remained tense throughout 1943-1944, by which time the Red Army offensive pushed the German invaders out of Ukraine.

Upon the "liberation" of Ukraine from the Nazi occupation, the Autonomous Church's hierarchs joined the Russian Orthodox Church, but those who ended up outside of the USSR at the end of the war joined the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

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