Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (1919–1937)

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The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church ( Ukrainian Українська автокефальна православна церква ) was an autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

After the proclamation of the first independent Ukrainian state, the Ukrainian People's Republic , on January 25, 1918, Ukrainian clergy tried to underpin state independence by founding an autocephalous Orthodox Church. A resolution of the Russian Orthodox Church in September 1918 approved the recognition of an autonomous Ukrainian church. Due to the chaotic conditions, the first efforts were unsuccessful. The Bolsheviks , victorious in the civil war, wanted to weaken the Russian Orthodox Church and were initially benevolent to the idea of ​​a Ukrainian national church . The first autocephalous Ukrainian church was founded in Kiev in May 1920 and elected Vasyl Lypkivskyi as its first metropolitan in October 1921 . Since he lacked the necessary recognition from a patriarch , he was consecrated by priests and laypeople by the "laying on of hands", which was not compatible with Orthodox canon law. The first UAOK was therefore not recognized by the other Orthodox churches. Nevertheless, in the mid-1920s, it was able to gather 3–6 million believers in the Ukraine, who were organized in 1,000 parishes with 1,500 priests and 30 bishops. After the deputy patriarchal administrator Sergei (from 1943 patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church) made a declaration to the Soviet state in 1927 , in which the Russian Orthodox Church accepted the separation of church and state, the Bolsheviks lost their interest in Ukrainian autocephaly. Bishop Lypkiwskyj was forced to resign and banished that same year, and the church lost its autocephaly in 1930. In the following years, over 1,000 of its clergy were banished. In 1937 it ceased to exist.

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