This confrontation had and has clearly political undercurrents as the UOC MP is – in spite of its official name – de facto a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) which, in turn, is a manifestly national (rather than pan-national) church that is unofficially, but closely linked to the Kremlin. As such, the ROC and UOC MP were and are today important soft-power instruments in the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare against Ukraine. They are a major medium for Moscow’s foreign policy and facilitate the Kremlin’s neo-imperial schemes under such headings as “Orthodox civilization”, “Russian World”, or “Eastern Slavic brotherhood”.
Russia's War Against Ukraine
OP-ED
Andreas Umland, Khrystyna Karelska: Ukraine autocephaly as a dilemma
Metropolitan Epiphanius, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, leads the Orthodox Christmas service in St. Sophia on Jan. 7, 2019, in Kyiv.
