Abstract
This paper studies the relationships between religion and migration in modern-day Ukraine. We focus on Ukraine’s numerous churches and their attitude toward the phenomenon of emigration, their relevant activities with regard to the outward migration from the country, and the migration experiences and intentions of the believers. We find that the Greek Catholic Church has put special attention on the emigration phenomenon in its social doctrine, while the doctrines of other churches have been less elaborate, both in general terms and with regard to the issue of external migration in particular. Moreover, we demonstrate that worshippers belonging to the different churches have very similar growing concerns about the negative effects of Ukraine’s economic development—social divide and unemployment in particular.
Highlights
International migration has gained unprecedented importance and acquired new forms, becoming a part of the social as well as the spiritual life of the people
Our analysis of migration experiences and the intentions of Ukraine's population showed greater intentions toward outward migration expressed by the UGCC believers, and, in the hierarchy of motives for emigration, UCGG believers named political instability significantly more often than members of other churches
For the UGCC, the “Church of the migrants” in the past and the near future, there is a significant increase in the activities of migrants abroad, and the appropriate infrastructure and adaptation activities in host countries
Summary
International migration has gained unprecedented importance and acquired new forms, becoming a part of the social as well as the spiritual life of the people. The following factors can be identified as the causes of this phenomenon: growing individualization in the cultural, social, and economic life of Ukrainian households; loosening of discriminatory barriers that forced members of migrant communities to create dense social networks to deal with the hostile and arrogant environments; increasing the segmentation of society based on lifestyle, expertise, values, and interests as opposed to that built on the basis of language and ethnicity. All these aspects of current Ukrainian migration can be studied in different ways. To the best of our knowledge, our paper represents the first written account of such research and can be seen as very timely, especially with regard to the notion that the recent split of the Ukrainian society might well be based (among other things) on religious beliefs and belonging to a church
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