Abstract
The decline of the communist regime in the late 1980s stimulated decentralizing processes within the Russian Orthodox Church; a final result being the emergence of Eastern Christian Churches in independent Ukraine: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Throughout the next two and a half decades the Ukrainian religious landscape has been simultaneously characterized by sharp conflicts and a search for ways of peaceful coexistence between various confessions; ecumenical initiatives, and asserting one’s “canonicity” against the “schismatic” others; attempts by some Churches to act as civil agencies and national institutions; attempts by the state under President Yanukovych to revive a “state” Church following the Russian model; moves towards a Local Ukrainian Orthodox Church and also towards “Russkii mir” (The Russian World). Crucial issues are – the Churches’ search for their place in the post-Soviet Ukrainian realm and their choices of models for coexistence with Ukrainian officialdom and society. In its approach the article provides a general profile of each Church, examines state policies towards religion and the Church in independent Ukraine, and describes a turning point, that being the Revolution of Dignity’s deepinfluence on the Churches’ perceptions of themselves and their place in Ukrainian life.
Highlights
The decline of the communist regime in the late 1980s stimulated decentralizing processes within the Russian Orthodox Church; a final result being the emergence of Eastern Christian Churches in independent Ukraine: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Throughout the two and a half decades the Ukrainian religious landscape has been simultaneously characterized by sharp conflicts and a search for ways of peaceful coexistence between various confessions; ecumenical initiatives, and asserting one’s “canonicity” against the “schismatic” others; attempts by some Churches to act as civil agencies and national institutions; attempts by the state under President Yanukovych to revive a “state” Church following the Russian model; moves towards a Local Ukrainian Orthodox Church and towards “Russkii mir” (The Russian World)
The organizational might of the Church can be explained by its much stressed “canonical status” and by the “wise policies” of Metropolitan Volodymyr
Summary
Observers use the term “the most pluralistic religious market in Eastern Europe” to describe the religious landscape in independent Ukraine Eastern Christian Churches (all the Orthodox Churches and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church), to which roughly 80% of believers in Ukraine claim their belonging, are widely considered traditional national Churches of the Ukrainian people The origins of such a heterogeneous religious landscape can be traced as far back as to the millennium celebrations of Kyivan Christianity in 1988. Patriarch Filaret assumed full control within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate in 1995 after the death of his predecessor, Patriarch Volodymyr (Romaniuk) This was the dramatic beginning of the story of Eastern Christian Churches in independent Ukraine. I further examine in more detail official policies towards the Church and events of the Revolution of Dignity that both define the Churches’ positions and choices of models for coexistence with the Ukrainian state and society
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