KYIV, April 17 - President Petro Poroshenko will ask the head of Orthodox Christianity to bless the creation of a Ukrainian Church independent of Russia, 10 years after the first such request has been denied.

Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, during his visit to Kyiv in July 2008, declined to grant the Ukrainian church independence despite the request made by then-President Viktor Yushchenko.