Ukrainian Church given "broad autonomy"

This of course needs more clarification and more commentary on this will be forthcoming.

Feb 3, 2009 (KyivPost) - The local council of the Russian Orthodox Church has approved a broad autonomy for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Metropolitan Volodymyr of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) announced this at a press conference.

According to him, the local council approved the amendments that the Council of Bishops made to the statutes of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2008.

According to the approved statutes of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) is a self-governing church with a broad autonomy.

Volodymyr expressed the hope that the council's decision and the Russian Orthodox Church's new Patriarch Kirill will facilitate unity among Orthodox Christians in Ukraine.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Metropolitan Volodymyr has said that creation of an Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church is premature.

Experts that the Agency for Modeling Situations polled in July 2008 said that President Viktor Yuschenko's initiative on creation of a unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church was a public-relations move.