Ukraine is waiting for “Tomos”, a decree on the establishment of an independent United Local Orthodox Ukrainian Church. Photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0: Luca Moglia / Flickr. Some rights reserved.
Over the last few months, the lexicon of many Ukrainians has been enriched by two new words: “Tomos” and “autocephaly”. These words, whose literal meanings are “religious decree” and “religious autonomy”, have been all over the newspapers, social media and TV screens. In April this year, Ukraine’s president and parliament asked the Patriarch of Constantinople, the highest arbitrator in the Orthodox world, to recognise the canonical independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
