Will the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Declare Spiritual Independence?

ROC Patriarch Kirill has gone so far as to say that all Russians who die in the conflict will have complete remission of their sins and guaranteed entrance to heaven—an idea that eerily echoes claims of the leaders of ISIS about their “martyrs.” Priests of the ROC bless the soldiers, bombs, and aircraft that kill Ukrainians. The Russian World idea has been vigorously condemned as heretical by the Orthodox world. Even the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the Eastern Orthodox Church affiliate in Ukraine which is largely autonomous but not entirely separate from the Putin-dominated Russian Orthodox Church, is strongly opposed to the declaration that Russia’s war on Ukraine is holy. However, despite the UOC’s protests against Russia’s invasion, that it still has any formal ties to Moscow at all make it an object of suspicion among many Ukrainians.