Some 45% of respondents support independence of Orthodox Church of Ukraine – poll

Forty-five percent of Ukrainians support the granting of the tomos of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, while 31% are indifferent to the issue and only 19% oppose the move.

That’s according to a survey conducted by the Rating Sociological Group, Ukrinform reports.

It is noted that the greatest support is seen among residents of Ukraine’s western and central regions, the elderly respondents, as well as those who identify as Greek Catholics and the OCU followers. According to the study, voters of the Opposition Platform – for Life party, the parties led by Murayev and Sharij mostly voice a negative attitude toward autocephaly, or independence, of the Ukrainian church.

The poll was run on July 23-25, 2021, and covered 2,500 Ukrainian residents aged 18 and older across all regions but the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas. The poll applied the CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews) method, based on a random sampling of cell phone numbers. Margin error in the study with a confidence level of 0.95 is within 2.0%.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, on December 15, 2018, a Unifying Council of Churches met in Kyiv where the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine was founded and Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv and All Ukraine was elected its Primate.

The newly created church has absorbed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and individual bishops of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate.

In early January 2019, the newly formed church received a tomos of autocephaly from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

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