The Making of Orthodox Church of Ukraine: Damocles Sword or Light at the End of the Tunnel?

On 6 January 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch (EP) of Constantinople Bartholomew signed a decree on autocephaly that allowed Ukraine to have its canonical independent church a separate from the Russian one. This marked a monumental event for Orthodox Christianity in general and the beginning of a new era for religion in Ukraine in particular. This article briefly examines the process of the making of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) as reflected in the politicization of religion in Russo-Ukrainian relations and conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and EP. Before moving to the contextual part and an argument, however, it worth defining a few central terms and concepts used during this article.