Former Primate’s view on autocephaly discussed at conference

Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan). Photo: UOC press service

On October 21, 2025, at the XVII International Scientific and Practical Conference "Spiritual and Secular Education: History of Relations, Modernity, and Prospects," Metropolitan Viktor of Khmelnytskyi presented a report on the position of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan) regarding the canonical status of the UOC.

The presentation was dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the birth of the UOC Primate, who led the Church from 1992 to 2014.

As the Khmelnytskyi archbishop noted, Metropolitan Volodymyr firmly opposed transferring the issue of church status into the political plane. At the Bishops' Council of the ROC in 2008, he stated: "On one hand, some claim that autocephaly is destructive for church unity. However, such an opinion would mean that there is no church unity between the local Orthodox Churches with autocephalous status, which fundamentally contradicts the Orthodox teaching about the Church. On the other hand, there is an opinion that autocephaly is the only and non-alternative way to solve the Ukrainian church problem."

Metropolitan Viktor quoted the Primate's words addressed to the delegates at the Local Council of the ROC in 2009: "It is quite obvious that even today there is no unanimity among the Ukrainian church people regarding the optimal canonical status for our Church. Therefore, any final decisions on this issue would be premature now, but this does not mean that we should abandon open pan-church discussion of the mentioned problem."

The task of Metropolitan Volodymyr was to preserve and affirm the status of the UOC obtained in 1990, but he considered its further improvement fundamentally possible and open for resolution.

In his speech at the Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw in 2008, His Beatitude Volodymyr outlined three conditions for discussing the canonical status of the UOC: discussion exclusively in the theological palne, in the context of overcoming the schism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy, and in agreement with the fullness of Orthodoxy.

"Principally refraining from taking any ideologically conditioned position, we have tried all this time to adhere strictly to church priorities: remaining in Eucharistic unity with Universal Orthodoxy and preserving unity and conciliarity in the internal life of the Church," Metropolitan Viktor quoted the "Spiritual Testament" of the former Primate.

On November 23, 2025, it will be 90 years since the birth of His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan).

Earlier, the UOJ analyzed what the late Primate actually said about autocephaly.

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