June 3, 1988, thirty years ago, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Metropolitan Kyiv Filaret was awarded with the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. This order was received not by him alone, but by a whole group of church hierarchs for ‘active peacekeeping activities and due to the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Rus’. The era of ‘glasnost-perestroika-uskoreniye’ has touched religion as well.
As a result of the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of new independent states, a huge number of people gradually received freedom and legal rights to exercise religion. However, the legal right has not always coincided with the canonical one. For example, according to various surveys, the number of Ukrainians who consider themselves as members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) is constantly increasing (Razumkov Center, pp. 16). However, the question of the canonical status of the UOC-KP still remains open. Perhaps, with the thirty-year span, Filaret – already the Patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus-Ukraine – will receive an order for solving this issue, but from another president of another country.
