Ukraine's united, divided churches

[Gerardooo]

Churches have responded to Ukraine's crisis with prayers for peace and calls for reconciliation.

Statistics suggest Ukraine is one of the most religious states in Europe. Over the past few months its main churches grown considerably in importance.

In light of the crisis, more and more people have turned to religion, because they "don't see another way." About three-quarters of the population regard themselves as religious, according to one opinion poll, 10 percent more than a year ago.

Yet in hardly any other country in the world is the religious landscape as fractious as in Ukraine. Around 70 percent of Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians. But there are two Ukrainian Orthodox Churches - one is subject to Moscow and the other has its power base in Kyiv.

The two churches have no theological disagreement, but for the past two decades they have fought for influence in the country. The Moscow Patriarchate has successfully prevented the Kyiv Patriarchate - and the smaller, national-mined Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church - from having their canonical status recognized by the broader Orthodox communion.

Meanwhile, the Greek Catholic Church, which also follows Byzantine rites but is in full communion with Roman Catholicism, is the largest denomination parts of western Ukraine, but has only a small following elsewhere.

Throughout history, the ruling powers - Russia, Poland-Lithuania and Austria-Hungary - tried to project their power in Ukraine by altering church structures. The political conquest of the country has always been accompanied by the destruction of church life.

Frictions over several centuries

In the early 1990s there were scuffles as the rival denominations claimed church buildings. But this has a long history. Divisions between the churches in the 16th and 20th centuries, most for political reasons, still awaken emotions today.

In 1946, Ukraine's Soviet rulers banned the Greek Catholic Church and handed its property over to the Russian Orthodox Church. This inevitably caused conflict when the ban was lifted in 1989. The Greek Catholic Church shaped the national consciousness in western Ukraine since the 19th century and in 1991 it played an important role in the founding of the independent Ukrainian state.

The Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchy came into being in 1992. The reason for its founding was the refusal of the Moscow Patriarchate to award the Ukrainian Orthodox Church autocephaly - autonomy from the Russian Orthodox Church.

All Ukraine's churches offered support to the anti-government Euromaidan movement during the winter. They spoke out in favor of human rights and civil liberties and against corruption. There were prayer tents on the Maidan, the center of the protests, and they held services on the central stage used by the protest movement.

"There were parallels to 1989 in East Germany," said Ralf Haska, pastor of the German Evangelical Lutheran parish of St. Catherine in Kyiv. "The churches here gave a forum to the protesters and also supported their justified protest."