Recognise the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as independent of the Russian Orthodox Church
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church had been linked with, and under the jurisdiction of, the Russian Orthodox Church and had resisted for more than 300 years. A formal split between the Orthodox churches in the two countries, seen as part of a wider history of political tensions between Russias geopolitical ambitions in the region and Ukraines resistance to them, came to a head in 2018. The tomos was signed in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople which heads the Eastern Orthodox Church for Christianity. The change in classification for the Hagia Sophia happened in 2020.