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This article should Duplicate articles material from Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchy), Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and Patriarch Filaret (Mykhailo Denysenko).

Dominant role of Byzantine Christianity established

The acceptance of Byzantine Christianity as a dominant religion in the area, as well as a state religion, was marked by 988 mass Baptism of Kiev by Vladimir I of Kiev, a ruler of Kievan Rus. After the great East-West Schism that soon followed, the territory of Kievan Rus remained with the Byzantine Patriarch's Eastern Orthodoxy. While most of the Christians in Ukraine were and still are Orthodox, since 1598 an Eastern Rite Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), which claimed varying with time but always a significant membership in western Ukraine, is in full communion with the Catholic see. Still, Eastern Orthodoxy remained a traditional religion in Ukraine and at some points in history was inseparable from most Ukrainians' national self-identity.

The political jurisdiction of Orthodox churches in Ukraine changed several times in its history. Currently, three major Ukrainian Orthodox church bodies coexist, and often compete, in Ukraine: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Of them only the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, autonomous under the Patriarch of Moscow, has a canonical standing (legal recognition) within the worldwide Eastern Orthodox Church organization, and operates in communion with the other Eastern Orthodox Churches. However, since the differences within Ukrainian Orthodoxy are purely political rather than doctrinal, this situation may be resolved at some future point with a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church to unite the Orthodox Christians in the nation.

The Protestantism, that had some notable presence in the territory of Ukraine since at least the sixteenth century, was preached for the following centuries mostly by the foreign visitors and settlers. While this situation changed somewhat in the recent decades, the Protestants in today's Ukraine remain a relatively small minority.

Early history

The apostle St. Andrew is thought to have preached on the southern borders of Ukraine, along the Black Sea. Legend has is that he travelled up the Dnieper River and reached the future location of Kiev, where he erected a cross on the site where the Church of St. Andrew currently stands, and prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city. A representative from Crimea was present at the First Council of Nicaea (325). Around this time, these churches and the inland farther north came under the control of the Goths, some of whom were Christians.

Some of the Slavic population of Kiev and Western Ukraine under the rule of Great Moravia were Christians in the 9th century. Christianity was gradually spreading among the Rus' nobility with Princess Olga (St. Olga) being the first known ruler to have been baptized as Helen. Her baptism in 955 or 957 in Kiev or Constantinople (accounts differ) was a turning point in religious life of Rus' but it was left to her grandson, Vladimir the Great, to make Kievan Rus' a Christian state.

Christianity became dominant in the territory with the mass Baptism of Kiev in the Dnieper River in 988 ordered by Vladimir. Following the Great Schism in 1054, the Kievan Rus' that incorporated most of modern Ukraine ended up on the Eastern Orthodox side of the divided Christian world.

Early on, the Orthodox Christian metropolitans had their seat in Pereyaslav, and later in Kiev. The people of Kiev lost their Metropolitan to Vladimir-Suzdal in 1299, but regained a Ukrainian Metropolitan in Halych in 1303. The religious affairs were also ruled in part by a Metropolitan in Navahradak, (present-day Belarus).

After the Breakup of the Kievan Rus

In the 1400s, the primacy over the Ukrainian church was restored to Kiev, under the title "Metropolitan of Kiev and Halicia". One clause of the Union of Krevo stipulated that Jagiello would disseminate Roman Catholicism among Orthodox subjects of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, of which Ukraine was a part. The opposition from the Ostrogskis and other Orthodox magnates led to this policy being suspended in the early 16th century.

Following the Union of Lublin, the polonization of the Ukrainian church was accelerated. Unlike the Roman Catholic church, the Orthodox church in Ukraine was liable to various taxes and legal obligations. The building of new Orthodox churches was strongly discouraged. The Roman Catholics were strictly forbidden to convert to Orthodoxy, and the marriages between Catholics and Orthodox were frowned upon. Orthodox subjects had been increasingly barred from high offices of state.

Union of Brest and its aftermath

In order to oppose such restrictions and to reverse cultural polonization of Orthodox bishops, the Ecumenical Patriarch encouraged the activity of the Orthodox urban communities called the "brotherhoods" (bratstvo). In 1589 Hedeon Balaban, the bishop of Lviv, asked the Pope to take him under his protection, because he was exasperated by the struggle with urban communities and the Ecumenical Patriarch. He was followed by the bishops of Lutsk, Cholm, and Turov in 1590. In the following years, the bishops of Volodymyr-Volynskyy and Przemysl and the Metropolitan of Kiev announced their secession from the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In 1595 some representatives of this group arrived to Rome and asked the Pope to take them under his jurisdiction.

In the Union of Brest of 1596 (colloquially known as unia), a part of the Ukrainian Church was accepted under the jurisdiction of the Roman Pope, becoming a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, colloquially known as Uniates Church. While the new church gained many faithful among the Ukrainians in Galicia and Volhynia, the majority of Ukrainians in the rest of the lands remained within Eastern Orthodoxy with the church affairs ruled by then from Kiev under the metropolitan Peter Mogila (Petro Mohyla). The eastward spread of the Union of Brest led to violent clashes, for example, assassination of the Uniate archbishop Kuncewicz by the Orthodox mob in Polotsk in 1623.

Khmelnytsky Uprising

As the unia continued its expansion into Ukraine, its unpopularity grew, particularly in the southern steppes where Ukrainian Cossacks lived. Most of them valuing their traditions and culture saw the unia as a final step of polonization, and as a result became even more fiercely loyal to the Orthodox Church. Such feelings played a role in the mass uprising whose targets included Catholic and Uniate clergy. During this time metropolitan Mogila took full advantage of the moment to restore the Orthodox domination in Ukraine, including returning one of its sacred buildings, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev.

Rule of the Empires

Territories gained by Pereyaslavl Rada

In 1686, 40 years after Mogila's death, the Ottomans, acting on the behalf of the regent of Russia Sophia Alekseyevna, pressured the Patriarch of Constantinople into transferring the Orthodox Church of Kiev and all Rus' from the jurisdiction of Constantinople to the Patriarch of Moscow, established a century prior to that. The legality of this step is occasionally questioned to this day along with the fact that the transfer was accompanied by the bribery, which in church affairs amounts to an ecclesiastical crime. The transfer itself, however, led to the significant Ukrainian domination of the Russian Orthodox Church, which continued well into the 18th century, Feofan Prokopovich, Epifany Slavinetsky, Stephen Yavorsky and Demetrius of Rostov being among the most notable representatives of this trend.

Territories gained from Crimean Khanate

In the late 18th century, the Ottaman Vassal Khanate crumbled before Russia, and having annexed most of the southern steppes and Crimea, colonisation of these lands was actively encouraged by Orthodox people, particulary Ukrainians and Serbs. As New Russia (Novorossiya), as it was then known) was settled, Orthodox parishes were created and increased. Mass construction of Cathedrals that show some of the best examples of late 19th century Russian Architecture were built in large cities like Odessa and Sevastopol.

Territories gained from partitions

In the late 17th century the Poland became less and less influential and internal corruption as well as the pressure from its powerful neighbors resulted in its partitions by neighbouring empires. The Russian Empire, in particular, gained a lot of ethnically Ukrainian land and all of the Belarusian lands. After nearely two centuries of polonization, the uniate influence on the Ruthenian population was so great that hardly any remained Orthodox. However in the ethnically Ukrainian lands, particularly Podolia, where the Cossack legacy remained strong, many chose to revert immediately. However due to Empress Catherine II's decree on the newely acquired territory, most of the Polish magnates retained all of the control including the lands with Ruthenian population of Belarus and Volhynia. In such conditions, where the unia already gave deep roots into the population, reversion to Orthodoxy did not happen, and all of the church property remained in the Catholic and Uniate authority.

Nevertheless the first Russophile tendencies demonstrated themselves at that time, and came in the face of the Uniate Bishop Joseph Semashko. Believing that the Uniate Church's role as an interim bridge between Catholicism and Orthodoxy is over now that the ruler of the lands is no longer a Catholic but an Orthodox Monarch, he began to push for an eventual reversion of all uniates. Although this was shared by most of the lower priests, the ruling synod, controlled by the still strong Polish influence refused any of this to gain momentum. In addition many of the Latin Catholic authorities responded to this with a threat by actively converting the uniates into pure Latin Rite Catholicisim.

However in 1831, the general discontent of the Poles with the Russian rule erupted into a revolt, now known as the November Uprising, and the Uniate synod supported it. As a result following the successful suppression of the uprising by Russia, all of synod's clergy was removed, in addition most of the powers of Polish magnates were taken away. With the Polish influence in the land significantly reduced or eliminated, the uniate church began to crumble. In the Ukrainian land of Volhynia the famous Pochayiv Lavra was returned to the Orthodox Church in 1833. The culmination ended with the Synod of Polotsk in 1839 where the remaining uniate clergy, headed by Bishop Semashko agreed to terminate the accords of Union of Brest and all remaining uniate property on the territory of the Russian Empire was reincorporated into the Russian Orthodox Church.

Austrian Galicia and World War I

Although the Partitions of Poland awarded most of the Ruthenian lands to the Russian Empire, this excluded the southwestern Kingdom Of Galicia (constituting the modern Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and parts of Ternopil oblasts), which fell under the control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Similarly to the situation in the lands of the Russian Empire, the uniate Ruthenian (Ukrainian) peasentry was largely under the Polish Latin Catholic domination. The Austrians granted equal legal privileges to the Uniate Chruch and removed Polish influence. As a result, within Austrian Galicia over the next century the Uniate Church ceased being a puppet of foreign interests and became the primary cultural force within the Ukrainian community. Most independent native Ukrainian cultural trends (such as Rusynophilia, Russophilia and later Ukrainophilia) emerged from within the ranks of the Uniate Church. For many people, the Austrians were seen as having saved the Ukrainians and their Church from the Poles.

During the nineteenth century there was a struggle within the Uniate Church (and therefore within the general Galician society) between Russophiles who desired union with Russia and Ukrainophiles who saw the Galician Ruthenians as Ukrainians, not Russians. The former group were mostly represented by older and more conservative elements of the priesthood, while the latter ideology was more popular among the younger priests. The Russophilia of the Galician Ruthenians was particularly strong during the mid-19th century, although by the end of that century the Russophiles had declined in importance relative to the Ukrainophiles. The Austrian authorities during this time began to be more and more involved in the power-struggle with Russia for the rule of the Balkans, as the declining Ottoman Empire withdrew, and in so doing opposed the Russophiles. The Balkans themselves were largely Orthodox and crucial to the Russian Panslavism movement. In this situation, the Galician Ruthenians found themselves in the pawn's position.

When the power struggle erupted into the First World War, the Russian Army initially quickly overran Galicia (see Eastern Front (World War I)). Free of Polish domination, unlike in other areas of Ukraine the Uniate church had become closely linked to the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian national movement. For this reason, the population in general were quite loyal to the Austrian Habsburgs, earning the nickname "Tyroleans of the East", and resisted reunion into the Orthodox Church. A minority of them, however, welcomed the Russians and reverted to Orthodoxy. After regaining the lost territories with the counterattack in late 1914, the Austrian authorities responded with repressions: several thousand Orthodox and Russophilic people died while being interred at a Talerhof concentration camp for those deemed disloyal to Austria. Already a minority, the Russophiles were largely extinguished as a religious-cultural force in Galicia as a result of these actions.

Twentieth Century

Soviet Union

After the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War the Bolsheviks seized power in the Russian Empire and transformed it into the Soviet Union. Religion in the new socialist state had little value, but particularly the Russian Orthodox Church who was actively supportive of the White Movement. Massive arrests and repressions began immediately. In the Ukrainian SSR (one of the founding republics of the USSR) as early as in December 1918 the first execution of the head of the Ukrainian Exarchate Metropolitan of Kiev and Halych took place. This was only the start which culminated in mass closing and destruction of churches that (some standing since the days of the Kievan Rus) and executions of clergy and followers.

Prior to the Bolsheviks victory, Ukraine was controlled by several short-lived yet independent governments which revived the Ukrainian national idea. One of the suggestions that some of the states put up was a creation of an independent and autocephalous Orthodox Church. Following the Soviet regime's taking root in Ukraine and despite the ongoing Soviet-wide antireligious campaign, the Bolshevik authorities saw the national churches as a tool in their goal to suppress the Russian Orthodox Church always viewed with the great suspicion by the regime for its being the cornerstone of pre-revolutionary Russian Empire and the initially strong opposition the church took towards the regime change (the position of the patriarch Tikhon of Moscow was especially critical). Hence in 1921 and with blessing of the authoroties, a group of clergy announced the creation of the new Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), the so called "first formation". However, as there were no available bishops willing or able to lead or ordain an hierarchy for a new autocephaly, the church ordained its own hierarchy itself, a practice questionable under the canon law, in a so-called "Alexandrian" manner - by laying on priests' hands for two senior candidates who became known as Metropolitan Vasyl (Lypkivsky) and Archbishop Nestor (Sharayivsky) (reportedly the relics of St. Clement of Rome who died in Ukraine in the first century were also used).* Despite the canon law controversy, the new church was recognized in 1924 by the Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory VII. In the wake of the Ukrainization policies carried out in Soviet Ukraine in the first decade of the Soviet rule many of the Orthodox clergy willfully joined the church to avoid persecution that awaited them should they remain inside the Russian Orthodox Church. As the government tolerated the new Ukrainian national church for some time, the UAOC gained a wide following among the Ukrainian peasantry.

However in the early-1930s the Soviet government abruptly reversed the policies in the national republics and the UAOC fared no better than the Russian Orthodox church as the mass arrests of UAOC's hierarchy and clergy culminated in the liquidation of the church in 1930.

On the eve of the Second World War only 3% of the pre-revolutionary parishes on the territory of Ukraine remained open to the public, often hidden in deep rural areas.

Second Polish Republic

The treaty Peace of Riga in 1921 following the Polish-Soviet War gave the newly created Second Polish Republic significant areas of the ethnically Ukrainian (and Belarusian) territories. This included Polesie and Volhynia, areas with almost exclussively Orthodox population amongst the rural peasents. As well as the former Austrian province of Galicia with its Uniate population.

While the Greek Catholic church, which functions in communion with the Latin Rite Catholicism, could have hoped to receive a better treatment in Poland, whose leadership saw the Cathlocism as one of the main tools to unify the nation, whose non-Polish minority comprised over one third of the citizenry, the Poles saw the Greek Catholic Galicia Ukrainians as even less reliable and loyal as the Orthodox Volhynia Ukrainians. Also, despite the communion with Rome, The UGCC attained a strong Ukrainian national character of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Polish authorities sought to weaken it in various ways. In 1924, following a visit with the Ukrainian Catholic believers in North America and western Europe, the head of the UGCC was initially denied reentry to Lviv until after a considerable delay. Polish priests led by their bishops began to undertake missionary work among Eastern Rite faithful, and the administrative restrictions were placed on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church .

With respect to the Orthodox Ukrainian population in eastern Poland, the Polish government initially issued a decree defending the rights of the Orthodox minorities. In practice, this often failed, as the Catholics, also eager to strengthen their position, had official representation in the Sejm and the courts. Any accusation was strong enough for a particular church to be confiscated and handed over to the Roman Catholic church. During the Polish rule, 190 Orthodox churches were destroyed and 150 were forcibly transformed into Roman Catholic (not Ukrainian Catholic) churches . Such actions were condemned by the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, who claimed that these acts would "destroy in the souls of our non-united Orthodox brothers the very thought of any possibility of reunion."

In addition to persecution from the new authorities, the Orthodox clergy found itself with no ecclestical link to submit to. Like most ex-Russian Orthodox communities that ended up outside the USSR, and thus with no possible contact with the persecuted mother church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople agreed to take over Moscow Patriarchy's role and in 1923 the Polish Orthodox Church was formed out of the parishes that were on the territory of the Polish republic although 90% of its clergy and believers were non-Polish people.

Czechoslovakia

The redrawal of national boundaries following World War I also affected yet another ethnically Ruthenian territory. In 1918, the country of Czechoslovakia was formed, the nation included several minorities. In the easternmost end of the country, Transcarpathia lived the Rusyn population. For most of their history they were ruiled by the Hungarians, who unlike the Austrians ruling Galicia were quite active in opposing Ukrainophile sentiments. Instead, the Hungarians supported a Rusyn identity (separate from either a pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian orientation) through pro-Hungarian priests in an effort to separate the Ruthenian people under their rule from their brethren across the mountains. Thus despite being Uniate at the time of the formation of Czechoslovakia, the population was about evenly divided between Rusynophile, Ukrainophile and Russophile orientation. The general Russophilic sentiment was very strong amongst them, and these cultural and political orientation impacted the local religious communities. Even before the first world war already quite a lot of distant mountain communities were de facto Orthodox, where priests simply ceased to follow the Uniate canons. However, much more significant changes took place in the interwar period.

In the 1920s many Russian emigres, particularly Orthodox clergy, settled in Serbia. Loyal to the Orthodox state, they became actively involved in missionary work in central Europe. A group, headed by Bishop Dosifei went to Transcarpathia. Because of the historical links between the local Greek Catholic clergy to the disliked Hungarian authorities, mass conversions to the Orthodox Church occurred. By the start of the Second World War, approximately one third of all of the Rusyn population reverted to Orthodoxy *. The region's local Hungarian population, estimated at slightly less than 20% of the population, remained overhwlemingly Calvinist or Roman Catholic. (For the Ruthenian population left outside Ukraine in 1945 (Preshov territory in Slovakia) see Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church)

Second World War

In September 1939 the Red Army walked across Polish borders (See Polish Defence War) and the eastern territories were annexed into the Soviet republics of Ukraine andByelorussia. Since the Ukrainians were in large, discontent with Polish rule most of the Orthodox clergy actually welcomed the Soviet Troops.

With the addition of the ethnic Ukrainian territory of Volhynia to the USSR, this created several issues. Having avoided the Bolshevik repression the Orthodox church of this rural region outnumbered the rest of the Ukrainian SSR by nearly a thousand Churches and Clergy as well as many cloisters including the Pochayiv Lavra. The ecclestical link with Moscow Patriarchy was immediately restored. Within months nearely a million Orthodox pilgrims, from all over the country, fearing that these reclaimed western parishes would share the fate of others in the USSR, took the chance to visit them. However the Soviet authorities, although confiscating some of the public property, did not show the repressions of the post-revolutionary period that many expected and no executions or physical destruction took place.

On October 8, 1942 Archbishop Nikanor and Bishop Mstyslav (later a Patriarch) of the UAOC and Metropolitan Oleksiy (Hromadsky) of the Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church concluded an Act of Union, uniting the two national churches at the Pochayiv Lavra. Later German occupation authorities and pro-Russian hierarchs of the Autonomous Church convinced Metropolitan Oleksiy to remove his signature. Metropolitan Oleksiy was murdered in Volhynia on May 7, 1943 by the nationalists of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army which saw this as treason.

Post War Situations

The Russian Orthodox Church regained its general monopoly in the Ukrainian SSR after World War II following another shift in the official Soviet attitude towards Christian churches. As a result many started to accuse it of being a puppet of the Communist Party. After the suspicious death of Patriarch Tikhon, the UAOC and UGCC sought to avoid the transfer under the Moscow Patriarchy; something that Moscow tolerated until after World War II, for example the head of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Nikita Khruschev attended the funeral of the head of the Uniate Church in 1946. Nevertheless as the Uniate Church did in some cases support the Nazi regime, the overall Soviet attitude was negative. In 1948 a small group of priests started to proclaim a reunion with Orthodoxy. The Soviet state organized in 1948 a synod in Lviv, where the 1596 Union of Brest was annulled. Thereby breaking the canonical ties with Rome and transferring under the Moscow Patriarchy. In Transcarpathia, the reigning Greek Catholic bishop was murderedand the remaining priests were forced to return their Church to Orthodoxy. This move's acceptance was mixed. With many clergy members and lay believers turning to the ROC, some adamantly refused. As a result of this the Patriarchate of Moscow could now legally lay claim to any Orthodox church property that was within the territory of its uncontested jurisdiction, which it did. Some believers refused to accept liquidation of their churches and for nearly 40 years the UAOC and UGCC existed in Western Ukraine underground lead by the clergy members under the threat of prosecution by the Soviet state. Much of the UGCC and UAOC clergy not willing to serve in the ROC emigrated to Germany, the United States, or Canada. Others were sent to Siberia and even chose to be martyred *. Officially the Moscow Patriarchate never recognised the canonical right of the synod as it lacked any bishops there.

The relatively permissive post-war government attitude towards the Orthodox Church came to an end with Nikita Khruschev's "Thaw" programme, which included closing the recently opened Kiev's Caves Lavra. However in the west-Ukrainian dioceses, which were the largest in the USSR, the Soviet attitude was "softest". In fact in the western city of Lviv, only one church was closed. The Moscow patriarchy also relaxed its canons on the clergy, especially those from the former-uniate territories, allowing them, for example to shave beards (a very uncommon Orthodox practice) and conduct liturgy in Ukrainian instead of Slavonic.

Late Soviet period

In 1988 with the millennium anniversary of the baptism of Rus, there was yet another shift in the Soviet attitude towards religion, coinciding with the Perestroika and Glasnost programmes. The Soviet Government publicaly apologized for oppression of religion and promised to return all property to the rightful owners. As a result thousands of closed religious bulidings in all areas of the USSR were returned to their original owners. In Ukraine this was the then ROC's Ukrainian Exarchate, which took place in the central, eastern and southern Ukraine. In the former-uniate areas of western Ukraine things were more turbulent. As UGCC survived in diaspora and in the underground they took their chance and were immediately revived in Ukraine, where in the wake of general liberalization of the Soviet policies in the late-1980s also prompted the activization of Ukrainian national political movements. The Russian Orthodox Church became viewed by some as an attribute of Soviet domination, and bitter, often violent clashes over church buildings followed with the ROC slowly losing its parishes to the UGCC.

The UAOC also did not wait long and quickly followed suit. Sometimes possessors of Church buildings changed several times within days. Although the Soviet law-enforcement did attempt to pacify 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 including the property that was initially of the Orthodox church.

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. However after the nation became independent, the question of an independent and an autocephalous Orthodox Church arose once again.

Post-Soviet period

What historians now see as the reason for the following events was the decision of the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Metropolitan of Kiev and all Ukraine Filaret to achieve total autocephaly (independence) of his metropolitan see with or without the approval of the motherchurch required by the canon law. These events followed Filaret's own unsuccessful attempt to gain a seat of the Moscow Patriarch to himself (1990) and the Ukrainian independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in August, 1991. In November 1991 Metropolitan Filaret requested the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church to grant the Ukrainian Orthodox Church 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 him that a new independent government should have its own independent church. Despite the unpopularity of the UAOC outside Galicia, Filaret managed to organise a covert communion with the UAOC in case Moscow Patriarchy refused.

At the synod in March-April of 1992, however, most of the clergy of the UOC who initially supported Filaret, openely criticised this move and immediately put most of the other bishops against him. Questions of his upopular disregard to monastic vowes (having a common-law wife) as well as the allegations of improper financial dealings with the church finances made the council vote for Filaret to retire from his position which was confirmed by a sworn oath.

Upon returning to Kiev Filaret carried out his reserve option revealing that the retirement swore was given under pressure and that he is not resigning. The Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk gave Filaret his utmost support as did the nationalist Paramilitaries, in retaining his rank. In a crisis moment the Hierarchical Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, agreed for another synod which met in May 1992 (real fear for the clergy's security forced them to conduct the council 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 remaining at his support Filaret initiated the unification with the UAOC, and in June 1992 creating a new Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy (UOC-KP) with 94-year-old Patriarch Mstyslav as a leader. While chosen as his assistant, Filaret was de-facto ruling the Church. A few of the Autocephalous bishops and clergy who opposed such situation refused to join the new Church and following the death of Mstyslav a year later. The church was once again ripped through a schism and most of the UAOC parishes were regained when the churches re-separated in July 1993.

Most of the fate of control of church buildings was decided by the church parishes, but as most refused to follow Filaret, paramilitaries, especially in Volyn and Rivne Oblasts where there was strong nationalist sympathy amongst the new regional authorities, carried out raids bringing property under their control. The lack of parishes in eastern and southern Ukraine prompted President Kravchuk to intervene and force the still closed buildings since the Communist times to re-open under the UOC-KP's ownership. Upon the 1995 election of Leonid Kuchma, most of the violence was promptly stopped, and the presidency adopted a de-facto neutrality regime to all the four major church groups.

Modern Times

The recent events of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election and the Orange Revolution affected the religious affairs in the nation as well. As the UOC-KP, UAOC, and UGCC actively supported the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko, the current President of Ukraine, the UOC (MP) supported the former Prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, who was running against him. After Yushchenko's victory, the UOC (MP) criticised him for what they see as support of the "uncanonical organisations" like celebrating Orthodox Christmas in St. Volodymyr's Cathedral (owned by UOC-KP). However, Yushchenko himself, a devote Orthodox Christian and a practicing member of a UOC-MP parish, attempts to distance himself from conflicts between churches, at least publicly, as he pledged to do during his presidential campaign. The President did claim that his intention was to achieve a unity of the nation's Eastern Orhtodox Church affairs. However questions still arise on what will be the ecclestical status of the Church and who will head it.

One of the biggest recent controversies involved having the almost exclusively western Ukraine based UGCC move its administrative centre from Lviv to Kiev whilst their new cathedral's construction was sponsored by the first lady, Kateryna Yushchenko-Chumachenko.

Presentely the situation remains extremely politicised and sensitive. The present situation of Ukrainian Christianity is such:

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Abbreveated as UOC, (sometimes referred to as UOC (MP)), operates as an autonomous church under the Moscow Patriarchy. The Metropolitan Volodymyr (Viktor Sabodan) is enthroned since spring 1992 as the head of the UOC under the title "Blessed Metropolitan of Kiev and all Ukraine". Presentely is the largest religious body and currentely has the leading amount of parishes (more than half).

Geographically its main areas of support are the Russophone eastern and southern regions where its percentage of parishes peaks between 80 to 90 and 70 to 80 respectfully. In the central and Volhynian western provinces this falls from 60 to 70 percent. In Transcarpathia and in Kiev city this further drops to about half of all the parishes. And in the Galician districts this falls bellow 10 percent. Presently the Church lacks any parishes abroad, as its followers identify under the same umberella as those of the Russian Orthodox Church, and likewise are members of the latter's abroad parishes.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy

Abbreveated as the UOC-KP, the church was created in 1992, and claims to have equal standing (though canonicaly unrecognised) amongst other Eastern Orthodox churches. Since 1995 UOC-KP is headed by Patriarch Filaret (Mykhailo Denysenko) who until 1990 was a Metropolitan of Kiev and Halych (Galich) under the ROC, which defrocked him in 1992 and excommunicated in 1997 "for schismatic activities".

Geographically the church's main areas of support are the Volhynian districts (where it holds from 30 to 40% parishes) and the capital Kiev. The church enjoyes moderate support in the central and Galician provinces (ranging from 30 to 15 percent). The church also contains several abroad parishes in the west and in Russia, where it has agreed to annex some of the priests that have been excommunicated by the ROC for various breaking of canonic laws.

The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church

Abbreveated as the UAOC, the church was established and re-established several times in Ukraine. Originally formed in the 1920s, and encouraged by communists before being destroyed and forced into exile. Then once again re-establishing on the Nazi occupied territories during World War II, and again driven underground following the Red Army's liberation of Ukraine. Finally re-gaining its official recognition in the late 1980s, it was initially ruled from abroad by Patriarch Mstyslav and then following his death in 1993 re-established itself as an independent church, following the brief union with the UOC-KP. Since then the church has been more successful in dialogue with the UOC (MP).

Geographically the church operates almost exclussively in the western Galcian provinces with minute support elsewhere. The church used to have a lot of parishes abroad in the Ukrainian emigre communities in Canada and in the United States which now formed two separate churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada and Ukrainian Orthodox Church of USA. In 1995 the Ecumenical Patriarch accepted the latter churches under his patronage citing the transfer controversy of the Kiev Metropolitan's see to Moscow Patriarchy in 1686 and, thus, fulfilling a necessary step for the achievement of the canonical standing by these diaspora (still not universally recognised). While this move, as well as the cited reason, soured relations between the Orthodox Church of Constantinople and the ROC (who refused to recognise it), the standing of the diaspora churches does not affect the status of the UAOC itself.

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Abbreveated as the UGCC, and originally formed from the Union of Brest. The Church was re-established in 1989. Since 2001 UGCC is headed by Major Archbishop and Cardinal Lubomyr Husar.

Geographically, the Church's parishes are almost exclussively confined to the Western provinces of Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk, as well as the Lemko areas in Poland. In addition the church has mass parishes abroad in the North American continent, South America, and Australia.

Other Christain groups in Ukraine

Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholicism is predominately practiced by non-Ukrainian minorities, like Poles and Hungarians. Originally holding a large amount of parishes, most of the buildings remain empty after World War II which is attributed due to the Massacre of Poles in Volhynia and the Population transfers in the Soviet Union

Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the Greek Catholic church in Transcarpathia emerged from the underground and was restored as a Greek Catholic Church separate from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church based in Galicia despite the protests of a portion of the Church members led by the bishop of Khust who demanded to be integrated into the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Despite this revival, unlike in Galicia there are only 60% as many Greek Catholic as there Orthodox parishes in Transcarpathia.[http://www.risu.org.ua/content.php?page_id=167&l=en

Old Believers

Traditionally the Ukrainian clergy, following the annexation of Kievan Metropolia, were one of the main oppositions to the Old Believer schism which took place at the time, under Patriarch Nikon. None of the Ukrainian parishes followed the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church. Although in 1905 the Tsar's decree on freedom of religion allowed the Old believer church to reform, it gained minute support in Ukraine. Presentely, however the Old Believer's community very much exploited the politicised schism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy and as of 2004 number 53 communities scattered throughout Ukraine. *

Protestantism in Ukraine

In the 16th century small groups of Anabaptists appeared in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, but the influence of the Reformation in Ukraine remained marginal until the three centuries later.

Protestantism arrived to Ukraine together with German immigrants in the 18th century, who were initially granted religious freedom by the Russian Imperial authorities, unlike the native population. One of earliest Protestant groups in Ukraine were Studists (the name originated from the German Stunde, "hour") German Evangelical sect that spread from German villages in Bessarabia and Ekaterinoslav province to the neighbouring Ukrainian population. Protestantism in Ukraine rapidly grew during the liberal reforms of Alexander II in the 1860s. However, towards the end of the century authorities started to restrict Protestant proselytism of the Orthodox Christians, especially by the Studistis, routinely preventing prayer meetings and other activities. At the same time Baptists, another major Protestant group that was growing in Ukraine, were treated less harshly due to their powerful international connections.

In the early 20th century, Volyn became the main centre of the spread of Protestantism in Ukraine. During the Soviet period Protestantism, together with Orthodox Christianity, was persecuted in Ukraine, but the 1980s marked the start of another major expansion of Protestant proselytism in Ukraine.

Today largest Protestant groups in Ukraine include Baptists (All-Ukrainian Union of the Association of Evangelical Baptists), Pentecostals (All-Ukrainian Union of Christians of the Evangelical Faith-Pentecostals) and Seventh-day Adventists (Ukrainian Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists). Of note is Hillsong church in Kiev. One of the most prominent protestants in modern Ukraine is the practicing baptist pastor Oleksander Turchinov, after the Orange Revolution the head of the SBU, Ukraine's successor to the KGB. Despite the rapid growth and aggressive missionary activities, today Protestants in Ukraine remain a small minority in a largely Orthodox Christian country.

References

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External links

Articles to be merged | Eastern Orthodox churches | Religion in Ukraine

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "History of Christianity in Ukraine".

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