Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine

St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv remained the main seat of the head of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv until 1299/1300, when due to another Mongol-Tatar invasion, Kyiv suffered considerable ruin and desolation and virtually ceased to be a permanent residence of the Russian metropolitan and his court, and then Metropolitan Maxim, after Mongol-Tatar attack, "left the metropolis and fled from Kyiv… with all his life" to Vladimir-nad-Klyazma.[1]

With the division of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv into Ukrainian-Belarusian and Moscow parts in 1415 and the election of Hryhoriy (Tsamblak) as the head of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv, the actual capital of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv (within the Polish-Lithuanian state) became the city of Novgorod with the Cathedral of Saints Boris and Gleb.[1]

Shortly after 1458, when Pope Pius II nominated Hryhorii Bolharynovych as Metropolitan of Kyiv, Vilno began to be considered the capital of the newly formed Ukrainian-Belarusian part of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At the same time, Kyiv remained the canonical department of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv. However, as the spiritual and religious center of the Russian metropolitanate, Kyiv fell into disrepair again after the Tatar invasion of 1482, when Khan Mengli Giray plundered the city, including by looting St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.[1]

In 1595, the Metropolitanate of Kyiv accepted a union with the Roman Catholic Church, thus becoming Catholic, and forming the Metropolitanate of Kyiv as part of the Catholic Church. Despite the de facto loss of control over Kyiv as early as the 1630s and the Pereyaslav Council's complete annexation in 1660 by Muscovy of the Hetmanate, which then occupied most of left-bank Ukraine, the heads of the Metropolitanate of Kyiv within the Catholic Church "- until the death in 1838 of Jehoshaphat (Bulgakov). At the same time, on the territory of the Right Bank of Ukraine, sometime in 1620, the Metropolitanate of Kyiv began to operate as part of the Orthodox Church, and its superiors also retained the title of "Metropolitan of Kyiv."[2]

In 2018, after the granting of the tomos and the creation of the OCU, the title was renewed and renamed the Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine.

Epiphanius I has become the first Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine with the title of Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine. He was elected at the Unification Council and received the tomos of autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarch on 6 January 2019.[3][4][5]

After the council, the newly elected metropolitan addressed the public on the Sophia Square in Kyiv.[6]

The head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine[7] (Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine) is elected for life.[8] According to the draft Statute, which is currently governed by the PCU, the Metropolitan of Kyiv is elected from three by the Local Council chaired by the vicar by secret ballot.

The head of the UOC-MP religious organization Onufrii Berezovskyi was warned by the Ecumenical Patriarch that after 15 December 2018, the election of the head of the Ukrainian Church, representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate have no right to ecclesiologically and canonically bear the title of Metropolitan of Kyiv. that they use now in violation of even the terms of official documents of the ROC of 1686.[9][10][11] This was reflected in the yearbook of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, published after the Orthodox Church of Ukraine received autocephaly: the bishops of the ROC in Ukraine are named in it only by reference to the place of residence; for example, Bishop Onufrii Berezovsky is no longer mentioned as the Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine, but is called "the Metropolitan of Kyiv." The entire episcopate of the ROC in Ukraine in the yearbook of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is included in the list of bishops of the Orthodox Church of Russia.[12] Patriarch Bartholomew also met with ROC Patriarch Kirill and said that "the Ecumenical Patriarchate has decided to use all means to resolve the issue of granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The decision was made in April. And [Fanar] implements this decision "(according to the representative of Bartholomew, Metropolitan of Gaul Emanuel).[13]

The Moscow Patriarchate used this title for the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) at the suggestion of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1990 in Moscow.

• Filaret Denysenko (1990–1992)
• Volodymyr Sabodan (1992–2014)
• Onufrii Berezovskyi (2014–2018)