This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

As relations between Russia and Ukraine deteriorate over the seizure of three ships by Moscow, the long-running conflict between the two countries is also playing out in the pews.

The Ukrainian Orthodox church has been granted independence from the Russian church in a historic move that is likely to result in a split in eastern Orthodoxy.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate, led by Bartholomew I of Constantinople, issued a brief communique late on Thursday at the end of its assembly. It said the synod had drafted a constitutional charter for the Ukrainian church after an earlier decision by the patriarch to grant it independence, or autocephaly.

The Ukrainian church has been under the authority of the Russian Orthodox church for centuries, and the independence move is a significant blow to Moscow and a boost to the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko.

Many have seen independence for the Ukrainian church as a proxy for political tensions between Moscow and Kiev over Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula and its support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. Those tensions escalated this week when Russian authorities rammed and seized three Ukrainian vessels and 24 seamen near Crimea on Sunday.

On Friday, the Ukrainian intelligence agency searched the home of the father superior of Kiev’s biggest and oldest monastery, which is part of the Russian Orthodox church.

Ihor Guskov, the chief of staff of the SBU intelligence agency, told reporters on Friday that its officers were searching the home of Father Pavlo, who leads the Pechersk monastery in Kiev. He said the cleric was suspected of “inciting hatred”.

The Russian Orthodox church, whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, is closely allied to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, announced last month it would break off relations with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, splitting the world’s largest Eastern Orthodox denomination.

In response to the this week’s communique, Poroshenko said: “A historic decision has been made to set up an autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox church.”

Orthodox communities would now have to convene at a date announced by Bartholomew to formally form a new church, Poroshenko said.

The loss of the powerful and wealthy Russian church will be a blow to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, although there have long been tensions between Kirill and Bartholomew, who is considered “first among equals” of all Orthodox church leaders.

Kirill has objected to Bartholomew’s close relationship with the Roman Catholic church and Pope Francis.

The Russian church, thought to be the biggest of 15 “autocephalous” churches under Bartholomew’s leadership, also resents that the Orthodox community in Istanbul – as Constantinople is now known – is small, estimated at about 3,000.

Ukraine’s government has lobbied strongly for autocephaly as part of a larger break from Russian influence in the country’s affairs.

“Autocephaly is part of our pro-European and pro-Ukrainian state strategy,” Poroshenko said last month. He called Moscow’s loss of control over the Ukrainian Orthodox church “the fall of the ‘third Rome’ as the most ancient conceptual claim of Moscow for the global domination”.

An 18th-century Orthodox church in Kiev, St Andrew’s, was attacked this month when Molotov cocktails were thrown and pepper spray was used against a priest. The firebombs failed to explode and no damage was caused.

The church’s spokesperson, Archbishop Yevstraty, accused Russia of being responsible for the attack. “We see Moscow’s henchmen are dropping clear hints to intimidate representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarch,” he said.