All-Ukrainian Church Sobor

All-Ukrainian Church Sobor (Vseukrainskyi Tserkovnyi Sobor). The first session of the sobor convened in Kyiv on 7 January 1918 under the auspices of the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council. It was interrupted on 19 January by the advance of the Soviet Army. The second session (20 June to 11 July 1918) was dominated by a Russophile majority, which expelled the initiators of the sobor from its membership (there were 198 votes for expulsion, 108 against). The initiators continued their work in co-operation with the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Because of opposition by Russian hierarchs to the strivings of nationally conscious Ukrainians, the minister of religion, Oleksander Lototsky, announced on behalf of the Hetman government at the autumn session of the sobor (12 November 1918) that the Ukrainian Orthodox church was to be autocephalous (see Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]