After a three-day synod last week, the Istanbul-based spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church took a momentous step. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople said he intended to grant a breakaway church in Ukraine full recognition, or autocephaly, removing it from control of the Russian Orthodox church in Moscow. The Russian church has signaled it might respond by breaking with Istanbul — potentially the biggest rupture since the Great Schism between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism in 1054.
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Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate speaks during a mass prayer to express gratitude to the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate for granting approval to establish Ukraine's independent, or "autocephalous," church on Oct. 14, 2018 in Kyiv.
