Ever since the outbreak of hostilities in early 2014, the undeclared war between Russia and Ukraine has had a religious dimension. Prior to the conflict, rival Orthodox churches had coexisted somewhat uneasily in independent Ukraine, with the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate owing loyalty to Russia, while the numerically superior Kyiv Patriarchate remained internationally unrecognized.
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Khrystyna Karelska, Andreas Umland: Russia will escalate fight against Ukrainian Orthodox independence
This handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on Jan. 6, 2019, shows Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I (L) and Metropolitan Epiphanius, the head of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church (R), during the official ceremony of "Tomos" decree of autocephaly handing at the Patriarchal Church of St George in Istanbul.
