In the wake of the 2014 Maidan revolution - the "revolution of dignity" - as Ukraine has begun its movement towards greater democratic rule and closer relationships with its European neighbours, it has struggled with conflicts over the Russian annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. Part of this revolution of dignity has been a movement within the Ukrainian Orthodox churches toward the establishment of an autocephalous (self-governed) Church in Ukraine. At the same time, the Russian government has tried to maintain the Moscow Patriarch's position in Ukraine, in part to advance its concept of the Russian World, a Russian sphere of influence. With the decision of the Constantinople Patriarchate to reassert its role as the Mother Church of the Orthodox of Ukraine that has the right to grant autocephaly, a confrontation has emerged affecting Orthodox Churches throughout the world. This roundtable brings together scholars who will address various aspects of the history leading to the process of granting of autocephaly to a new Ukrainian Orthodox Church; international inter-Orthodox relations and divisions; the conflicts with the Russian Orthodox Church's control over a segment of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine; and what a newly established autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church might look like.
Olga Kesarchuk
416-946-8938
Rev. Dr. Jaroslaw Buciora
Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Volodymyr; Professor, St. Andrews College, Winnipeg
Dr. Frank Sysyn
Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta
Anatolii Babynskyi
Journalist, Doctoral Research Fellow, Sheptytsky Institute; PhD candidate, Ukrainian Catholic University
Dr. Jaroslav Skira
Acting Director, Sheptytsky Institute; Assoc. Prof., Regis College
Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine
Center for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies
Slavic Department, University of Toronto
The Sheptytsky Institute
Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Toronto Office
Official webpage of the event: https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/ceres/event/26318/