Orthodox Christians in Ukraine \u2013 and in Orthodoxy worldwide \u2013 are in confusion following Metropolitan Filaret (pictured on the left) of Kiev\u2019s break from the new Ukraine Orthodox Church, established just a year ago by Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.<\/p>\n
The Patriarch\u2019s decision ended three centuries of Russian Orthodox canonical authority over all Ukraine Orthodox.<\/p>\n
Ninety-year-old Filaret, the Soviet-era Russian Orthodox Church leader in Ukraine who formed the breakaway nationalist \u2018Kiev Patriarchate\u2019 when the USSR dissolved, was Patriarch Emeritus and joint leader of the new church, which comprised his patriarchate and an earlier breakaway, the small Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.<\/p>\n
Led by Metropolitan Epiphany, the new church claims to control some 7,000 parishes, 77 monasteries and 47 dioceses, with some 500 parishes having switched allegiance from the continuing Russiaaligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church [Moscow Patriarchate] \u2013 voluntarily or under nationalist pressure.<\/p>\n
Declaring the new church \u201ctoo much under the control\u201d of the Ecumenical Patriarch, and that in practice his own role counted for little in its decisionmaking rather than being \u2018side by side\u2019 with Metropolitan Epiphany, Filaret has proclaimed the re-establishment of his former Kiev Patriarchate. He is busily rebuilding its support following an extraordinary \u2018restoration assembly\u2019 of his followers in Kiev\u2019s historic St Volodymyr\u2019s Cathedral last June, defying both Epiphany and the Ecumenical Patriarch.<\/p>\n