The multiple strands of modern Ukrainian Orthodoxy present a fractured and complex history, involving no fewer than eight different church formations in the past century. The Orthodox Church in Ukraine: A Century of Separation admirably assesses all of these strands with a focus on the major identity markers promoted by each form of Ukrainian Orthodoxy against a backdrop of modernization and shifting political regimes from 1917 to 2016. Delving into the papers of church councils, church publications, and episcopal correspondences, Nicholas Denysenko presents coalescing and diverging views among the bishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs on liturgical Ukrainization, sobornoparvnist΄ (conciliar governance), and varying political theologies. Although the Ukrainian Orthodox Church now embodies a new iteration of autocephaly recognized in the 2019 tomos of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the history outlined in this book provides valuable background to the current situation.

For Denysenko, the outstanding meta-narrative is one of continued division. In his words, “[t]his study aims to show how the failure of Orthodox Church leaders to reach a consensus on autocephaly and Ukrainization resulted in the splintering of the Church and a pattern of dispute that evolved from 1917 to 2016” (5). Accordingly, the five chapters highlight the dynamic of new Ukrainian Orthodox church formations and resulting divisions chronologically and regionally, centering on, by chapter: the first Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), formalized in 1921 and liquidated in 1930; Orthodoxy in western Ukraine during World War II, from subordination to the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Poland to the creation of the second UAOC of 1942, to incorporation into the Moscow Patriarchate; the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches of Canada and the US from their start in 1921 to 2016; the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate under the constraints of the Soviet regime from 1945 to 1989; and, finally, the third iteration of the UAOC in 1989, the creation of the Kyiv Patriarchate in 1992, and the deepening division between the churches of the Moscow and Kyiv Patriarchates in the context of the 2013 Euromaidan movement and Ukrainian/Russian hostilities in east Ukraine. In conclusion, Denysenko laments the lack of success in the unification efforts between the various churches, stating, “to date, even the Ecumenical Patriarch has failed to resolve the differences among Ukrainian Orthodox” (204). While recent events contradict this conclusion, they do not undermine the careful research and balanced construction of the history presented here.

A brief review cannot do justice to the many analytical highlights, but one strength of this study is Denysenko's attention to the legacy of the stigma of ecclesial illegitimacy of the UAOC from its origins in 1921, when its governing council broke with global Orthodox tradition by consecrating its own episcopate. The resulting perception of illegitimacy formed a stumbling block to later efforts at unification with other branches of Orthodoxy. The Polish autocephalous church pointed a way forward by turning in 1924 to the Ecumenical Patriarch, not Moscow, as “the rightful patron of the Kyivan Church” (68), dismissing as uncanonical the 1686 transfer of jurisdiction of the Kyivan Metropolia to Moscow. After the UAOC brought the stigma of illegitimacy to the New World, Archbishop John Teodorovich of Canada agreed to undergo a “canonical correction” of his episcopal ordination in 1949, marking “a permanent shift among autocephalist Orthodox Ukrainians toward the traditional canonical pattern of global Orthodoxy” (101). The churches in Canada and the US entered into communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch in 1990 and 1995 respectively, becoming ardent advocates for unity among the Ukrainian Orthodox under Constantinople. In contrast, Denysenko underscores the ambition of the Moscow Patriarchate to replace the Ecumenical Patriarch as the first among equals for the Slavic churches, particularly with its recent promotion of the Russkii mir (Russian world) ideology that sees Kyiv as one of the core regions of Russian Orthodoxy. In the end, this colonial perspective, according to Denysenko, undermined the Moscow Patriarchate's political theology of peacemaker for a multinational flock, since “it could never tolerate an ‘otherness’ rooted in ecclesial and national independence. . .” (158).

This study could have been strengthened by some elaboration of the experiences of the parishes, as well as more explanation of the hardships endured by Orthodox Ukrainians during the anti-religious campaigns, purges, and wars of the twentieth century. Lacking that, a discussion that focuses on the hierarchy seems a bit removed from the often traumatic realities on the ground. Organizationally, the plethora of small sub-sections in each chapter provides an overly disjointed narrative that could have been better woven together. These quibbles aside, Denysenko has created a valuable guide to this complex history and identity construction that is otherwise difficult to assess from its disparate parts. This achievement should be welcomed by scholars of church history, Ukrainian history, and religious and national identity.