(15 Dec 2018) Orthodox believers in Moscow protested on Saturday against the meeting of Ukraine's Orthodox clerics in Kiev that is expected to form a new, independent Ukrainian church.
Several dozen people with banners and icons gathered and prayed near a monument to the Ukrainian writer Taras Shevchenko.
Representatives of three Ukrainian Orthodox churches were holding a closed-door synod on Saturday to approve the charter for a unified church and to elect leadership.
The Ukrainian Church has been the part of the Russian Church for centuries enjoying broad autonomy, but Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has pushed for the creation of an independent church.
Poroshenko will attend the synod as a non-voting observer.
The newly formed community would then be expected to receive independence from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
The Istanbul-based institution, considered the so-called "first among equals" of leaders of the world's Orthodox Churches, has already drafted a charter for an independent Ukrainian church.
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