Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church

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Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
The Church of St. Andrew in Kyiv was the main cathedral of the UAOC
Abbreviation	UAOC
Primate	Metropolitan Macarius (last primate)
Language	Ukrainian Church Slavonic
Headquarters	Kyiv, Ukraine
Territory	Ukraine
Possessions	Western Europe United States
Founder	1st All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Assembly
Origin	1921 (first), 1942 (second), 1989 (third)
Recognition	Full communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople restored in October, 2018 Polish Orthodox Church (1942–1946)
Separations	UAOC in diaspora UAOC in exile
Merged into	Orthodox Church of Ukraine
Defunct	1936 (first), 1944 (second), December 15, 2018 (third)
Members	3 million

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The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC; Ukrainian: Українська автокефальна православна церква (УАПЦ), romanized: Ukrayinska avtokefalna pravoslavna tserkva (UAPTs)) was one of the three major Eastern Orthodox churches in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church began in 1917 during the dissolution of the Russian Empire as part of the Ukrainian independence movement and in order to restore the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that existed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1620–1685 and was annexed by the Moscow Patriarchate without approval of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

It was re-established for the third time on 22 October 1989, right before the fall of the Soviet Union. The UAOC, in its contemporary form, has its origins in the synod of 1921 in Kyiv, shortly after Ukraine's newly found independence. On 15 December 2018, at the Unification Council, the UAOC and the UOC-KP, along with metropolitans from the UOC-MP, unified into the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Metropolitan Epiphany (former bishop of the UOC-KP) was elected as the new Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine.^[1]

During the UAOC and the UOC-KP's existence, only the UOC-MP enjoyed recognition by the Orthodox Christian community worldwide, until 11 October 2018, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople lifted the excommunication which afflicted the UAOC and the UOC-KP.^[2] It was clarified on 2 November that the Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized neither the UAOC nor the UOC-KP as legitimate and that their respective leaders were not recognized as primates of their churches.^[3][4]