NEW YORK, Sept. 22 – Ukraine’s rival Orthodox Christian church leaders are close to creating a unified church that would be independent from Moscow, President Viktor Yushchenko said Tuesday.

Yushchenko, who has been strongly advocating the creation of the unified church since becoming president in January 2005, said now “there was a critical mass for the mutual understanding.”

This is the first time that Yushchenko has expressed his strong optimism that the process may quickly end in success. This comes amid speculations that the rival churches may have recently started the important talks.

The Moscow patriarchate has been steeply opposing the unification process amid concerns it would lose a half of its parishes currently controlled by Ukraine's main Orthodox Church, the only one loyal to Moscow.

Yushchenko believes the unification of the Ukrainian church and making it independent would work strongly to unify the country, which is currently split between Russian-speaking eastern and southern, and Ukrainian-speaking western and central regions.

“This would be the biggest present that the nation can expect from its leaders,” Yushchenko said addressing Ukrainian Americans in the Ukrainian Museum in New York. “The answer to this problem is in Ukraine, not anywhere else.”

Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the head of Orthodox Christianity, visited Ukraine in July 2008 to join celebrations marking the anniversary of converting Ukraine and Russia to Christianity in 988.

Yushchenko publicly asked Patriarch Bartholomew I to recognize the Ukrainian church independent from Moscow, but the patriarch did not speak directly on the issue.

This is the first visit by the head of the world Orthodox Christianity to Ukraine over hundreds of years. Last time the patriarch visited Kiev in the middle of 17th century as he had traveled home after paying a visit to Moscow.

The dispute over the allegiance of Ukraine's Orthodox believers has faced opposition not only from the Moscow patriarchate, but also from Russia’s Foreign Ministry, which has earlier accused Yushchenko of fomenting a schism.

Russian officials fear the Istanbul-based Bartholomew might recognize Ukraine's two dissident Orthodox Churches and possibly take a unified Church under his authority, against Moscow's wishes.

The Moscow patriarchate is concerned it could thereby lose control over a significant portion of the 11,000 Ukrainian parishes run by Ukraine's Orthodox Church loyal to Moscow.

The medieval state of Kievan Rus, which both Russia and Ukraine ultimately emerged from, converted to Christianity during the reign of Vladimir the Great.

The Ukrainian Orthodox church directly reported to the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch until the middle of 17 century, when it had been forcibly taken under authority of the Russian Orthodox Church. The shift has been pushed hard by Russia’s tzar Peter the Great.

A rival Ukrainian church was formed after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, only the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchy, is recognized in Eastern Orthodoxy.

Proponents of the independent church in Ukraine have considered placing it under the jurisdiction of Constantinople - as an Orthodox church in Estonia did in the 1990s — to win recognition later. (nr/ez)