20 Hryven The Issue of Tomos

Issued to mark the granting of the Tomos of Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople in January 2019 — a decision that formalized the independence of Ukrainian Orthodoxy from the Russian Orthodox Church after centuries of ecclesiastical subordination dating to 1686. The political timing was deliberate: the grant came months before a contested Ukrainian presidential election, with Moscow furiously lobbying against recognition.

Constantinople's formal acknowledgment drew immediate retaliatory severance of communion by the Russian Orthodox Church.