Paper short abstract:

Today the situation in Orthodoxy in Ukraine is threatening to national security. The largest part of the Orthodox Church is under the jurisdiction of Russia, which is a destabilizing factor for society.

Paper long abstract:

The largest Orthodox churches in Ukraine are: the UOC MP, UOC KP UAOC who cannot find a common denominator to unite into a single church body and such divisions lead not only to decline of an unified Ukrainian Orthodoxy, but also constitute a threat to national security of the country. Accordingly, there is an actual problem of formation and recognition of the Ukrainian Local Orthodox Church, which is not considered either by clergy or the believers as just a Church problem.

Orthodox Churches received their status «Local» mainly when their states have been extremely sensitive to the status of their Orthodox Churches. After all, the recognition or non-recognition of the autocephalous status of Orthodox churches was an indirect recognition or non-recognition of state of these nations.

The lack of an unified Ukrainian Local Orthodox Church undermined the international prestige of the country. Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the largest religious structure and hence the whole world identifies the Ukrainian Orthodox Church only as part of the Moscow Patriarchate, which helps destabilize Ukrainian society.

So we can say that the problems of Orthodoxy in Ukrainian society draw increasing attention to political problems, including the positioning of power . Therefore, we can confidently predict that in the church the self-determination of citizens will induce further political changes. But the politicization of these issues is fraught with the risk of polarization in the Orthodox and inter-regional relations.