The recent synaxis (assembly) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople dispelled Moscow's illusions that Ukraine is a canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said.

"A unified communal local Orthodox church is a precondition of public accord and unity of our state. This is a guarantee of our spiritual independence from Moscow, which is unfortunately still in thrall to its mistaken idea that we are its canonical territory," Poroshenko said at an annual meeting of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) organized by the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation in Kyiv on Friday.

"And the September synaxis, the assembly of bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, has completely dispelled Moscow's wrong illusions," he said.

Autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is important to those who are outside the country, Poroshenko said. "Ukrainians around the world will also have their church. And here is yet another important factor: the Third Rome concept, as Moscow's longest-standing claim of global hegemony, is collapsing like a house of cards," he said.

"The future of world Orthodoxy is also being decided here: we also understand it differently than the Russians," Poroshenko said.