Both Translate Literally as “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”: OCU, UOC, and the 2024 Law

Ukraine has two Orthodox churches with very similar names. One is “Православна церква України” (in English, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, or OCU). It was formed in December 2018 and granted independence (autocephaly) from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in January 2019. Our article on the date of Christmas translates its name into Japanese as “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” (ウクライナ正教会).

The other is “Українська православна церква” (in English, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, or UOC). Its name likewise translates literally as “Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” but it is a church that has long belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate (the Russian Orthodox Church). To avoid confusion, this article refers to the two below as the OCU and the UOC. In August 2024, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada adopted a law banning the Russian Orthodox Church’s activities within the country, and the UOC’s central organization has been subject to proceedings under this law.

The 1686 Letter and the 2018 Decision

The starting point goes back to 1686. According to an announcement issued on October 11, 2018, by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the letter of that year granted the Patriarch of Moscow, as an act of “oikonomia” (a measure of ecclesiastical expediency), the right to ordain the Metropolitan of Kyiv chosen by an assembly of the clergy and faithful of the Kyiv Metropolitanate. The announcement states that the Metropolitan of Kyiv was to commemorate the Patriarch of Constantinople as first-ranking hierarch at every liturgy.

At the Synod held from October 9 to 11, 2018, the Patriarchate decided the following.

• To reaffirm its already-made decision to proceed with the procedure for granting independence to the church in Ukraine
• To re-establish a stauropegion (a church under the Patriarch’s direct authority) in Kyiv
• To accept the appeals of Filaret (Denysenko), Makariy (Maletych), and others who had until then been outside communion with the Orthodox Church, and to restore them to their clerical rank
• To revoke the legal force of the 1686 letter
• To call on all parties to avoid seizing church and monastery property by force, and to avoid violence and reprisals

According to the history on the OCU’s official site, a “Unification Council” was held at St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Kyiv on December 15, 2018. Just before it, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) each held their own council and decided to end their activity as separate organizations and unite into a single church. The Unification Council was joined by all the bishops of both churches, plus two bishops from the Moscow Patriarchate side, and it decided on the OCU’s establishment and statute and elected Metropolitan Epifaniy as primate by secret ballot.

The Tomos Granting Independence

The document by which the Patriarchate grants independence is called a “tomos.” According to the OCU’s history, Patriarch Bartholomew signed the tomos on January 5, 2019, and handed it to Metropolitan Epifaniy the next day, January 6, during a liturgy at the Patriarchate’s Church of St. George in Constantinople (Istanbul). The English translation of the text posted on the Patriarchate’s site provides as follows.

• The whole of the Orthodox Church within the borders of the Ukrainian state is to be an independent, self-governing (autocephalous) church
• The primate holds the title “Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine”
• Its jurisdiction is limited to the territory of the Ukrainian state; it may not place bishops or establish churches abroad (the faithful abroad remain under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople)
• On serious canonical and doctrinal matters, it is to seek the opinion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

The OCU’s history states that on January 9, all members of the Constantinople Synod signed the tomos, formally completing the procedure for independence.

The UOC After the Full-Scale Invasion

The UOC held a council in Kyiv on May 27, 2022, three months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of February 24, 2022. The resolution posted on the UOC’s official site condemns the war as a violation of God’s commandment “Thou shalt not kill” and states that it “does not agree” with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow’s position on the war. It also states that it made additions and changes to its statute “demonstrating the UOC’s complete autonomy and independence.”

The same resolution listed, as conditions for dialogue with the OCU, ending the “forcible seizure” of church buildings and the forced transfer of parishes, and resolving the question of the legitimacy of the ordination of OCU bishops. The resolution stated that recognizing OCU bishops as legitimate would require the restoration of apostolic succession, meaning that, at this point, the UOC did not recognize the OCU’s clergy as legitimate.

The Ukrainian government does not recognize the substance of this “independence.” The State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS, hereafter “the State Service”), which handles religious policy, published in December 2022 the UOC’s statute dated May 27, 2022, along with a 1990 document dated October 27 from Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow, among other materials. In January 2023, the State Service compiled an expert examination by religious studies specialists, concluding that the UOC is part of the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The August 2024 Law

On August 20, 2024, the Verkhovna Rada adopted Law No. 3894-IX, “On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of the Activity of Religious Organizations.” It took effect on September 23 of the same year. The preamble cites, as reasons for the law, the Russian Orthodox Church’s support for Russia’s armed aggression and the threat that unlawful acts by the Russian Orthodox Church and organizations under it pose to the security of the state and society.

The core points of the law are as follows.

• It bans the Russian Orthodox Church’s activity in Ukraine (Article 3, paragraph 1). The article gives as its reasons that the Russian Orthodox Church is “an ideological extension of the aggressor state’s regime” and “complicit” in the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Russia’s name
• It does not permit the activity of religious organizations “affiliated (афілійовані)” with the Russian Orthodox Church, and dissolves them through the procedure the law sets out (Article 3, paragraph 2)
• It sets out seven criteria for finding an “affiliation,” including being part of the Russian Orthodox Church’s structure, decisions of the Russian Orthodox Church being binding, and the Russian Orthodox Church appointing or approving the organization’s head (Article 5-1, added to the Law on Freedom of Conscience)
• It does not permit relations, ties, or contact with a banned organization without the State Service’s consent (Article 4, paragraph 4)
• It bans using religious organizations to propagate the ideology of the “Russian World” (русский мир) (Article 5)
• At the same time, it provides that no provision of the law is to be interpreted as restricting freedom to practice a religion or belief, or the right to observe religious rites (Article 1, paragraph 2)

The procedure proceeds in stages. The State Service first investigates whether there is an “affiliation,” and if criteria for affiliation are found, it issues an order (припис) requiring the violation to be corrected. The organization may correct the violation and report back within 30 days (extendable to a maximum of 60 days on application). If it is not corrected, the State Service issues a decision finding the organization “affiliated” and applies to a court for its dissolution. The first-instance court is to decide within one month, and the appellate court (a panel of five or more judges of the Supreme Court) is also to decide within one month, becoming final with the Supreme Court’s decision. The provisions on this court procedure were set to take effect nine months after the day following the law’s promulgation.

The same law also amended the Law on Freedom of Conscience to explicitly state the right of a parish (religious community) to change its affiliation by decision of its general assembly. The general assembly to change affiliation can be convened by the community’s own members.

Proceedings Concerning the Kyiv Metropolitanate

The first entity to which this law was applied was the “UOC Kyiv Metropolitanate,” the legal entity at the center of the UOC. Following the State Service’s announcements, events proceeded as follows.

The list of “affiliated” organizations that the State Service updated on June 10, 2026, includes three organizations: the Kyiv Metropolitanate, the Korets Convent, and the Holosiivo Monastery in Kyiv. In a statement of July 31, 2026, the State Service said it would withdraw its suit if the Kyiv Metropolitanate complied with the order and decided to remove parishes, dioceses, seminaries, monasteries, and the like from the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church.

There is also a separate case concerning the 2023 expert examination. According to the State Service, the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal, on April 6, 2026, quashed the State Service’s order approving the examination, on the procedural ground that it had not separately responded to a challenge the Kyiv Metropolitanate side had filed against members of the examination panel. The State Service states that the court did not quash the examination’s conclusion itself; after considering the challenge, it re-approved the examination on May 13, 2026, and has also appealed to the Supreme Court. The State Service states that this case does not affect the finding of “affiliation” under the 2024 law.

Telling the Names Apart

When news coverage refers to the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” it is necessary to check which church is meant. The OCU is the church granted independence in 2019; the UOC is the church that declared “complete autonomy and independence” in 2022 but is regarded by the Ukrainian government as part of the Russian Orthodox Church. What the 2024 law bans is the activity of the Russian Orthodox Church and of organizations found “affiliated” with it — not the faith of individual believers. The law also writes into its text a path for a parish to change its own affiliation.