ШЛЯХ ДО АВТОКЕФАЛІЇ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ПРАВОСЛАВНОЇ ЦЕРКВИ У 1918 РОЦІ (КРІЗЬ ПРИЗМУ ДОКУМЕНТІВ ДРУГОЇ СЕСІЇ ВСЕУКРАЇНСЬКОГО ПРАВОСЛАВНОГО ЦЕРКОВНОГО СОБОРУ)

Abstract

The events that are taking place today in the church field of the Ukrainian State testify to the importance of the national church in building the national security of the country. The union of the church with the state has been formed for centuries, and to consider the absence of this tandem today would be wrong. However, such an alliance can be dangerous for the state if the church provokes separatism, ignites national conflict, undermines the national security of the state. Evidence of this is the aggressive policy of the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church towards Ukraine throughout history, which has turned the church into an instrument of political games. Thus, by annexing the Metropolitan of Kiev in 1686 and establishing a protectorate over the Ukrainian church space, the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church did everything to destroy the Ukrainian church tradition. History of Ukraine of the twentieth century testifies to the repeated attempts of Ukrainians to get out of the grip of the Russian Orthodox Church and build their own independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church. A striking example of this is the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council of 1918, which, in the context of national competitions of the Ukrainian people for their own state, brought to the agenda of the revolutionary events the question of independence of the Ukrainian Church. At the second session of the Council, the idea of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for the first time in many years consolidated a small part of the Ukrainian church and political elite around it. This article is devoted to analyzing the documents of this council session. The author tries to present the main stages of the competition for the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the difficulties that have arisen.