Per aspera ad astra is exactly the path Ukraine has walked to rightfully get its own Local Orthodox Church. All thorns and hardships on Ukraine’s path were, in fact, “Russian-made.” There have never been any obstacles put forward by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. On the contrary, Patriarch Bartholomew’s actions have played a prominent role in establishing historical justice.
This has become the largest-scale and truly historic battle in the Orthodox world. It is during this fight when the Ukrainians realized that at the time of the occupation, their faith is yet another war domain.
Russia has employed in its battle against Ukraine all of its usual means of warfare: slander, manipulation, “kompromat,” bribery, threats, and blackmail. One of the examples was a media spin about Ukrainians allegedly “bribing” Patriarch Bartholomew. Such tools for manipulating public opinion are inherent in Russian propaganda. After all, since the Stalin era, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has been an instrument for enslaving the society.
It should be noted that this is not the first confrontation between the Ecumenical and Moscow patriarchs and neither is it Russia’s first attempt to usurp powers. The ROC has long sought to usurp the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
This is evidenced by the annexation in 1686 of the Kyiv Metropolis – a canonical (rightfully owned) territory of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. That is how the Moscow Patriarchate appeared in Ukraine.
In 1970, the Moscow Patriarchate has independently granted autocephaly to the “Orthodox Church in America,” which was never recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and whose status thus remains unclear.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, some countries of the post-Soviet camp where the majority of the population was Orthodox, gained church autonomies within the Ecumenical Patriarchate once they achieved independence.