In late December 2025, the “Sofia Brotherhood” NGO published a book containing texts presented between April and October of that year, in various formats, by members of the organisation and invited experts for broad public discussion. The book is entitled Contemporary Ukrainian Orthodoxy: Debunking Myths for the Sake of Reconciliation Among Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and the Consolidation of Ukrainian Society. The materials include several texts by Sergii Bortnyk.
In general, the authors of the texts collected in one volume are clergy and laity belonging to the UOC, the OCU, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as well as Ukrainian scholars: philosophers, theologians, religious studies researchers, historians, public intellectuals, religious analysts, and social activists. Among them are Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, Archpriest Serhii Prokopchuk, Archpriest Volodymyr Vakin, Yurii Chornomorets, Oleksandr Filonenko, and many others.
In one of his published texts, Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun shares his vision of how the current US political establishment perceives the religious situation in Ukraine and examines the reasons for the critical attitude towards the OCU and the Tomos of the Orthodox Churches in America. Fr. Cyril concludes: “Strategically, it would be important for Ukraine now to strengthen the dialogue between the OCU and the UOC. That is, the path of confrontation, the path of separation from each other, which both the UOC and the OCU are following, the path of their own exclusivity, is not constructive; it is harmful to Ukraine, especially now.”
Tetiana Derkatch draws attention not only to the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war, which is currently causing “deliberate mutual delegitimisation – canonical on the part of the UOC in relation to the OCU, and social on the part of the OCU towards the UOC.” What is also important are Ms. Derkatch’s reflections on the unwillingness of both jurisdictions to engage in honest self-analysis and self-criticism, combined with a fervent desire to defend their own righteousness as if it were the dogmatic truth of the Church.
In his reports, Sergii Bortnyk emphasises the distorted portrayal in the Ukrainian media of ordinary UOC parishioners, who are often depicted as “fanatics of the Russian world, secret saboteurs and the like.” Prof. Bortnyk believes that the reasons for the complicated communication between the UOC and contemporary Ukrainian society should be sought not in the media or politics, but rather in theological terms, viewing them through the prism of classical biblical dialectics – Church-world, spiritual-carnal. In particular, Sergii Bortnyk points out: “If a person has experienced prayerful exaltation, a touch of truth, and the presence of grace, it is not so easy to convince such a person that the Church in which he or she has received this experience is hostile to the country and should be banned.”
Overall, this book can be considered a quite successful interim summary of the numerous and diverse activities of the “Sofia Brotherhood” aimed at developing intellectual resources that could help overcome the antagonism between Orthodox believers in Ukraine and seek reconciliation in the spirit of Christian tolerance, mercy, and mutual forgiveness.
You can read the book published by the “Sofia Brotherhood” at this link: https://sofiyske-bratstvo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/zbirka-publikacziyi-dopovidi-statti.pdf
