Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox church

Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox church (Українська Автономна Православна Церква; Ukrainska Avtonomna Pravoslavna Tserkva). An Orthodox church jurisdiction that existed during the German occupation of Volhynia and eastern Ukraine in the Second World War. It was headed by Metropolitan and Exarch Oleksii Hromadsky, formerly a bishop of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox church (PAOC). It was formed in August 1941 by a synod of bishops held at the Pochaiv Monastery. The church based itself on a 1918 statute of the Russian Orthodox church that had granted it some measure of autonomy. It accepted the canonical dependence of the Ukrainian Orthodox church on the Moscow patriarchate, but considered this relationship suspended as long as the patriarch was subject to Soviet control. The Autonomous church attracted the conservative Orthodox faithful as well as the Russified segment of the population, especially the clergy. Its hierarchy (a total of 15 bishops) included bishops of the PAOC as well as several bishops consecrated by the Russian Orthodox church during the Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine (eg, P. Rudyk, archimandrite of the Pochaiv Monastery). Some monasteries of the Volhynia and the Dnipro River regions also joined the Autonomous church, among them the Kyivan Cave Monastery.

Throughout the Second World War the Autonomous church competed with the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church for predominance in Ukrainian Orthodox church life. The competition was encouraged by the German authorities, who generally favored the Autonomous church but feared the emergence of a united church. In October 1942 a joint conference of the two churches (attended by Metropolitan Oleksii Hromadsky, Archbishop Nykanor Abramovych, and Bishop Mstyslav Skrypnyk) was held at the Pochaiv Monastery. Steps were taken to unite the two jurisdictions. Union would have involved de facto recognition of the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox church and the calling of a joint synod of Ukrainian bishops. Most Autonomist bishops, however, as well as the German authorities, were hostile to the idea, and the plans were never realized. Hromadsky was unintentionally killed in an ambush by partisans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in May 1943, and he was replaced by Archbishop P. Rudyk. Tensions continued between the churches until 1944, when the Red Army retook Ukraine. Most of the Autonomous church bishops emigrated to the West and joined the Synodal Russian Orthodox Church in Exile. Those bishops and priests who remained in Ukraine joined the Russian Orthodox church under the Moscow patriarch.

Arkadii Zhukovsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]