MOSCOW — Vyacheslav Gorshkov, who teaches the catechism at a Kiev cathedral, was among the majority of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine who had reconciled themselves to the fact that their church answers to the Russian Orthodox patriarch in Moscow.
No longer. Mr. Gorshkov does not want to break with the faith, but does want to split with the Russian Orthodox Church, incensed by what he sees as the Kremlin using the church as an instrument of its old imperial control.
He is among the majority of the faithful hoping that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader for the estimated 300 million Eastern Orthodox believers worldwide, will defy Russia and grant independence — known as “autocephaly” in the church — to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
“Acquiring autocephaly is part of the process of exiting the imperial orbit of Moscow,” said Mr. Gorshkov, a religious studies expert.
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