POLEMIC WORKS OF IDEOLOGISTS OF THE UKRAINIAN AUTOCEPHALIC ORTHODOX CHURCH (UAOC) AND THE UKRAINIAN AUTOCEPHALIC SYNODAL CHURCH (UPASC) IN THE 1920S

(To the 100th Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Autocephaly of the UPASC at the 2nd All-Ukrainian Local Council on May 17–27, 1925)

Abstract

May 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Synodal Church (UOASC) at the II All-Ukrainian Local Council of this Church, which was held in Kharkiv on May 17–27, 1925. The activities of the UOASC and its leaders during this period have been little studied due to the lack of documentary sources. So far, only a small number of newspaper materials have been found about the conciliar activities of this Church and the polemics with supporters of the UAOC, in particular the collection “Voice of Orthodox Ukraine”.

Sources from the history of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church led by Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky (1864–1937) have been much better preserved due to their inclusion in special collections in the state archives of Ukraine after the political process of the “Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” in 1930, as well as due to the publishing activities of the Ukrainian church diaspora after World War II, which published documentary sources and publications.

Despite the almost complete destruction in the 1920s and 1930s of the church-administrative structures and hierarchy of both the UPASC and the UAOC, the archives partially preserved polemical works of theologians of the Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Synodal Church and theologians and ideologists of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which were devoted to the main problem - the presbyteral ordination of Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky of the UAOC in 1921 and the corresponding argumentation, which was based on the works of the holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church. The negative attitude of Metropolitan Hilarion (Ohienko) is due not to the orientation to the writings of the holy Fathers of the Church, but rather to the ignoring of him as the Minister of Confessions of the UNR government in Poland during the formation of the UAOC in Kyiv in 1921.