On 5 January 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople signed the ‘Tome of Autocephaly’(constitutional charter) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In the preceding months, the Patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople initiated a series of debates and diplomatic missions reaffirming their views on their respective jurisdictional claims over Ukraine, with the Moscow Patriarchate unilaterally breaking communion with Constantinople and the issue of autocephaly resulting in a regrettable schism. Scaffolds of the Church could not be a timelier publication since it introduces the reader to the historical and canonical background necessary to understand the tension, its reasons and its outcome. Though the book’s scope is much broader, discussing eastern Orthodox ecclesiology from a socio-cultural perspective, the ‘case of Ukraine’is a substantial part of the fourth chapter of the book and an …
