So the usual thing that happens in organized religion, a minority group splits off and takes a hard turn away from convention, and the church that existed for hundreds of years views it as illegitimate. Which, honestly, valid. The Ukrainian church serves as a means of encouraging nationalism and anti-Russian arguments, while the Russian one has been seen as the legitimate Orthodox church for hundreds of years the world over.
It was state sponsored schism which only purpose was yet another “Russia bad” show. I imagine it was and will be pretty damaging for orthodoxy in Ukraine and mostly for the benefit of catholic church which had longstanding conflict with Moscow patriarchate about catholic proselytysm in Ukraine.
The “spiritual” could be a reference to Ukrainian Orthodoxy, which the Russian Orthodox Church sees as illegitimate.
Here is an article by Pew Research on the denominations.. The short version is Ukraine’s church broke off from Russia’s and claims only Ukrainian Patriarchs. Russia, in contrast, claims both Russian and Turkish Patriarchs.
So the usual thing that happens in organized religion, a minority group splits off and takes a hard turn away from convention, and the church that existed for hundreds of years views it as illegitimate. Which, honestly, valid. The Ukrainian church serves as a means of encouraging nationalism and anti-Russian arguments, while the Russian one has been seen as the legitimate Orthodox church for hundreds of years the world over.
It was state sponsored schism which only purpose was yet another “Russia bad” show. I imagine it was and will be pretty damaging for orthodoxy in Ukraine and mostly for the benefit of catholic church which had longstanding conflict with Moscow patriarchate about catholic proselytysm in Ukraine.