the almost-warring parties, these were often unsuccessful, as many of the local branches in the ever-crumbling Soviet authority sympathised with the national sentiments in their areas. Violence grew especially after the UGCC's demand that all property that was held prior to 1939 would be returned. It is now believed that the only real event which helped to contain the growing schism in the former-uniate territories was the ROC's reaction of raising its Ukrainian Exarchate to the status of an autonomous church, which took place in 1990, and up until the break up of the USSR in late 1991 there was an uneasy peace in western Ukraine. After the nation became independent, the question of an independent and an autocephalous Orthodox Church arose once again. Post-Soviet period In November 1991, Filaret, the Metropolitan of Kyiv, asked the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church to grant the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) autocephalous status. The skeptical hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church called for a full Synodical council (Sobor) where this issue would have been discussed at length. Filaret, using his support from the old friendship-ties with the then newly elected President of Ukraine (Leonid Kravchuk), convinced Kravchuk that a new independent government should have its own independent church. In January 1992 Filaret convened an assembly at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra that adopted a request of autocephaly for Ukrainians, addressed to the Moscow Patriarch. Upon returning to Kyiv from a Russian Orthodox Church synod meeting, Filaret carried out his reserve option: he revealed that his resignation from the position of Primate of the UOC had taken place under pressure and that he would not resign. The Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk gave Filaret his support, as did the Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries, in retaining his rank. In a crisis moment the Hierarchical Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church agreed to another synod which met in May 1992. The council convened in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where the majority of the bishops voted to suspend Filaret from his clerical functioning. Simultaneously they elected a new leader, Metropolitan Volodymyr (Viktor Sabodan), native of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast and a former Patriarchal Exarch to Western Europe. With only three bishops giving him support, Filaret initiated unification with the UAOC, and in June 1992 established a new Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) with 94-year-old Patriarch Mstyslav of the UAOC as a leader. While chosen as Mstyslav's assistant,