The Processes of Institutional Religion in Ukraine
This article is an analysis of the statistics on religious organizations in Ukraine as of 1 January, 2001. These statistics are available in RISU's "Resources" section:
- Religious Organizations in Ukraine
- Number of Religious Organizations broken down according to regions of Ukraine
1. From 1988, when limitations on their creation gradually began to disappear, until 2000, the number of religious organizations in Ukraine increased almost four times and exceeded more than 25 thousand. In this period of time the statues of 50 religious centers were registered: before Perestroika only the Ukrainian exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Association of Evangelical Baptists in Ukraine, an integral part of the European Baptist Federation, legally operated. Almost 250 monasteries and religious communities have been created in the last 12 years, with 5130 male and female religious (previously there were 9 such communities); there are over 120 educational institutions with about 18 thousand students. (Until 1988 there was only one Orthodox seminary in Odessa.) There are approximately 200 religious periodicals. (Previously there was one, Orthodox Messenger, which was created with the main goal of convincing Greek Catholics to become Orthodox.)
Over the last decade a great number of religious institutions have been created, whose activities were previously forbidden by law: now there are over 200 mission, more than 50 societies; about 7.7 thousand Sunday schools. At the beginning of 2001 there was one religious community for approximately every 2000 Ukrainian citizens. (In 1986 there was one religious community for about every 8.2 thousand citizens. Note that, in addition to the growth of registered communities in this time, the population of Ukraine has also decreased.)
2. With the legalization of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), the rebirth of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), the creation of administrative structures and spiritual centers for the Roman Catholic Church, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses and others, the confessional configuration of Ukraine has changed significantly. A description follows.
2.1 Fifty-three percent of all religious organizations in Ukraine are Orthodox. Of these, more than 70% belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate [UOC-MP] (more than 9 thousand communities, 122 monasteries, 7.5 thousand priests; liturgy is celebrated in 7755 churches and another 840 are being built). About one fifth of Orthodox communities belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate [UOC-KP] (2.8 thousand communities, 22 monasteries, 2.2 thousand priests; liturgy is celebrated in 1943 churches and another 228 are being built). About 8% of the Orthodox communities whose statutes are registered according to current legislation belong to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (1015 communities, 1 monastery, 628 priests; liturgy is celebrated in 697 churches and another 101 are being built).
Less than 2% of Orthodox communities belong to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia, the True Orthodox Church, independent communities and other groups.
2.2 The proportion between the number of parishes which belong to the UOC-MP and the number of Ukrainian Orthodox parishes which announced their independence did not change significantly during the 1990s. To a significant extent this is a result of the situation of Ukrainian society and the sense of self-identity of its members but this question is beyond the limits of this article.
In this context we note that the UAOC, and eventually the UOC-KP also, having declared independence, have not subsequently shown sufficient skill at organizing themselves: intrigues, struggles and further divisions have become the constant phenomenon of ecclesiastical evolution. Both churches have regularly suffered from the instability and even departures of their hierarchs (some of whom have been in all three Orthodox jurisdictions), from disputes and battles for power.
At the same time some of the more undesirable qualities of Russian Orthodoxy have appeared: constant appeals to civil authorities requesting that competitors be silenced; lack of interest in mission activity, and the priority of outward fame before interior spiritual perfection; participation in narrow, partisan conflicts, together with inattention to the severest social problems and the absence of real dialogue with society. There are attempts to change the situation: to recreate canonical structures, to reform parish life, to recreate it as a community for creative laypeople, to improve qualitatively the level of preparation of priestly candidates, to increase the mission to that socio-demographic part of the population alienated from the church. But such attempts are more linked with separate figures than with the general development of the Churches.
Back in 1923 V. Lypynskyi suggested that "the fate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is not tied to directing all its energies to an outward, generally materialistic 'Ukrainianization," but rather it is tied to a great internal, spiritual religious revival"(V.Lypynskyi, Religion and Church in the History of Ukraine, Kyiv, reprinted in 1993, p.94) This seems to describe the situation at the end of the century as well. The newly independent Churches were not able to compete with the UOC-MP in the context of the old church model; this model had crystallized in Soviet times as a much worse copy of the Orthodox synodal model. As a result, at the beginning of 2001 the UOC-MP had 9047 communities compared to the 3796 of the other two independent churches combined, that is, 2.4 times more. During 2000 the number of UOC-MP communities increased by 557, UOC-KP by 290, UAOC by 26.
2.3 At the same time Patriarch Filaret and the proponents of the Kyivan Patriarchate have emphasized a number of times that, according to the results of sociological research on church membership: of those polled, a greater number admit that they belong to the UOC-KP than admit they belong to the UOC-MP. Various sociological services have carried out research along these lines with the following results: from 25 to 32% of the respondents admit they belong to the UOC-KP; from 7 to 12% admit they belong to the UOC-MP; from .5 to 2% admit they belong to the UAOC. Those who are familiar with the realities of religious life in Ukraine would only interpret these results in one way: declaring membership in the Kyivan and not the Moscow Patriarchate, the person declares his identity, which has a Ukrainian vector. In the vast majority of cases, therefore, we are dealing, obviously, with nominal Christians, "non-practicing," and sometimes with "nonbelieving Orthodox."
Consider the research of the Democratic Initiative Center, which showed that 12.2 % of the respondents in Donetsk and 35.3% of the respondents in Simferopol belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. These were the results, though, at least officially, there are NO communities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Donetsk and there are less than 10 Russian Orthodox communities in all of Crimea, compared to more than 300 UOC-MP communities. According to the research of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology [from the end of 1997 to the beginning of 1998, they polled 2182 people] 10.8% of the respondents belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church and only 6% claimed they belonged to the UOC-MP.
If the questionnaire gives as a choice, as did the polling service Sotsis-Hellap-Ukraina, "Orthodox, not declaring confession," this answer receives 40% in some regions of Ukraine.
2.4 It is necessary at the same time to admit that the figures which characterize the religious and institutional processes in Orthodoxy are to a significant measure influenced by the political process and interdenominational conflicts. These disputes lead to the artificial creation of religious communities which, it turns out, in reality do not exist. This happens with the goal of raising the reputation of one Church or another, so that they have the right to claim church buildings, monastery complexes, and other buildings which formerly belonged to different churches and whose future ownership is now open to discussion. This also happens because of some particularities of Ukrainian legislation regarding freedom of conscience and religious organizations.
A number of official announcements attest to the more or less serious exaggeration of the real number of religious communities, but the most well-known was the statement of Archbishop Ihor Isichenko of the UAOC (Kharkiv and Poltava) at the beginning of 2000. He declared that, though the government Committee on Religious Matters states that the UAOC has about 1000 communities, it really has about half that number, and in his eparchy he has long desired to take the inactive communities off the registration list, but legislation does not allow him to do this.
3. Ukrainian Greek Catholics make up 13.5% of all religious organizations, the UGGC has about 30% of all the monasteries in Ukraine, it has 12 spiritual educational institutions with 1.4 thousand students, 79 monasteries (1.2 thousand male and female religious). The UGCC has 1.8 thousand priests, liturgy is celebrated in 2777 churches and another 305 are being built. More than 86% of all Greek Catholic organizations in Ukraine are centered in the three western regions of Galicia and another 9% in far western Transcarpathia. In 1998 Lubomyr Husar, then the Auxiliary-Bishop to the head of the UGCC, stated that his Church in Ukraine has 3.5 million faithful.
4. A quarter of the religious organizations in Ukraine are Protestant, the largest among which are Evangelical Baptists, Pentecostals and Jehovah's Witnesses, and, to a lesser degree, the Seventh-Day Adventists. Protestant communities generally are fairly small. At the beginning of 1998 with 1874 communities in the All-Ukraine Union of the Association of Evangelical Baptists, there were 125,457 members; that is, an average of 67 members per community. At their Second All-Ukraine Congress in 2000 it was announced that in the Union there are 130,000 faithful, joined into almost 2100 communities; that is, the average number of members per community is even smaller.
In 1999 the All-Ukraine Evangelical Union numbered 901 communities with 88,227 members- an average of 98 members in each community (See Holos Nadii ["Voice of Hope"] no.4- April, 1999, Reporting Conference of the All-Ukraine Evangelical Union).
The Jehovah's Witnesses have 108 thousand active members organized into 850 communities, an average of 127 members per community. The average Adventist community has 106 members.
Therefore, though there are a significant number of Protestant communities in Ukraine, this does not reflect their numerical significance in the general population and in the general Ukrainian confessional configuration. The Major Archbishop of the UGCC officially announced that, according to church statistics (perhaps seriously exaggerated), the average parish in the UGCC's Ivano-Frankivsk eparchy has 1448 members; the Lviv archeparchy has 1844; Ternopil has 1899. This, we can see, is a figure of a different order, even if we agree that for very many people who declare their membership to a church this is mostly a formality.
Statements that Ukraine is rapidly undergoing Protestantization cannot be verified by any research. Since 1998 the number of Protestant religious organizations in Ukraine has grown at the same rate as the number of Orthodox communities.
4.1 The success of "New Protestant" movements is a separate question. Some contemporary Ukrainian youth are alienated from the traditional Churches for the following reasons: the uncertainty and fragmentation of the spiritual climate in which the generation which reached adulthood at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s was socialized; the contrast between the spiritual questions of this generation and the answers which the traditional churches provide; the activity of foreign missionaries and their financial means, which are significantly higher than the means of the traditional Churches of Ukraine; and also some particularities of these movements, above all the Pentecostals.
First of all, the Charismatic movement is clearly not "a professor's religion," as S. Bulgakov remarked of contemporary Protestantism in 1910: "...Theological knowledge, serving God in a faithful and true search for intellectual truth." Continuing Bulgakov's comparison, it would be helpful to call the Charismatic movement "a manager's religion." In contrast with Orthodoxy, it proposes visible blessing, carrying out God's will, which unfolds not only in the eschatological perspective, but in "this world." God's grace is a consequence of the concrete actions of each individual, and his success in life witnesses to God's acceptance of him, how adequately he understands and implements the divine will. Researching the value orientation of members of the Union of Pentecostal Churches in the USA, M. Dearman concluded that they call for a return to those values which, in their opinion, made America great. Achievements and success, practicality and effectiveness, material comfort and equality have a special place among these values. Today Ukrainian Charismatics use this rhetoric and these ideas in their religious services. "In their services Christian life becomes not a way of pacifism, sacrifice and humility. Instead, "victory," "triumph," disciplined understanding, which includes the positive, and similar convictions echo forth so often that you get the impression you are in a Dale Carnegie gathering."(M. Dearman. "Christ and Conformity: A Study of Pentecostal Values" // JSSR- Vol.13. no.14, December, 1974, p.443. [This is a re-translation back to English from the Ukrainian translation, NOT the original text.]
Sociologists have been trying for a long time to separate the components which have led to the unprecedented dynamic growth of Charismatic movements, even in comparison with communities which are closely related to them. Obviously it will be agreed that especially attractive are the manifestations of the spiritual gifts which members receive, healings, prophecies, speaking in tongues (and interpretation of tongues), miracles, exorcisms. (These gifts are nine in number and classified according to three principles: three gifts of power, three of revelation and three of language). Among other factors which determine the record growth of the Charismatic movement, commentators on its growth in the USA mention its special doctrines, the effectiveness of which is not grounded in content but in the degree of conviction with which they are preached; encouragement to action and certainty in carrying out God's plans; effective organization and system of increasing the number of faithful. (See Juther P. Gerlach and Virginia H. Hine. "Five factors crucial to the growth and spread of a modern religious movement." // JSSR- Vol. VII, no.1, Spring 1968, pp.23-29)
It is worth mentioning that the "Charismatic Awakening" which dates back to the 1950s encompassed both Americas, and, in contrast to the first Pentecostal wave at the beginning of the century, made great progress at the margins of society, among the lower classes and the social periphery. It touched Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians and Catholics. The range of this "awakening" became extremely evident after the first contacts of American and Scandinavian Charismatics with Ukrainian Pentecostals.
The Charismatic Churches encourage their members in the direction of successful living, a clear sign of which is financial flourishing, professional proficiency, career achievements and physical health. Tithing and other donations and prayers for healing play an important role as ways to carry out the word of God, and special success is an indicator of the righteousness of one's spiritual life. Unstable conditions and the absence of dependable guarantees for keeping one's status and one's business are sorely felt by small and middle businessmen in transitional societies. So "New Protestantism" becomes rather attractive for people who need a "new spirituality," guaranteed with the consequences of relations with the transcendent. Obviously, we see in Charismatic communities more people of success than compared to, let's say "old Protestantism" ("old" and "new" here are relative to their appearance in Ukraine.) Compared to these Churches, Charismatic Churches are, without a doubt, more "capitalistic" Churches: not only does wealth not cause suspicion and distrust but it is entirely desirable. (See an interview with a national deputy in Ukraine's parliament, pastor of the Charismatic Church "Word of Faith," V. Shushkevych- in the Ukrainian-language publication Liudyna i Svit.2000.No.4, pp.47-49)
Research into the motivations for joining the Charismatic movement, carried out among the faithful of the largest Christian community in the world, Seoul, Korea's Central Church of the Full Gospel (500,000 members) provides evidence: 37.6% out of 921 respondents named "material blessings" as the main motive for their joining the church; another 30.6%, healing; but only 16.9% salvation and 7% "eternal life."
6. Approximately 2% of religious communities are composed of ethnic minorities: Reformed Hungarians in Transcarpathia (105); Jews (about 200, though in recent years the significance of Reformed Judaism is growing), Armenians, Koreans and also Crimean Tatars and other ethnic groups which are traditionally Islamic (about 400, with almost 300 in Crimea); Germans and Swedes founded a small amount of Lutheran communities.
7. Roman Catholic communities (807 at the beginning of 2001) in Ukraine have a distinctly ethnic character. Two thirds of them are centered in the Zhytomyr, Lviv, Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytskyi and Ternopil regions, where the lion's share of Ukrainian Polonia lives; a number of Hungarians also traditionally have belonged to Roman Catholic communities.
8. Neo-mystical and Oriental movements have not made a serious mark on the Ukrainian scene. The largest of these groups, the Society of Krishna Consciousness, at the beginning of 2001 had only 42 communities. Nevertheless, these new cults have had an influence on youth.
9. In the middle of the 1990s 15% of all the religious organizations in Ukraine were centered in the Lviv region; 9% in the Ternopil region, about 7% in Transcarpathia and 8% in Ivano-Frankvisk. In general, a majority of the religious organizations in Ukraine were found in the 7 western Ukrainian regions which had been outside the borders of the USSR before World War II. This gave these areas special weight compared to the general population of Ukraine. (This is even without taking into account the Bessarabian districts of the Odessa region, which until June 1940 were part of Romania). Clearly, until the first real steps toward liberalization of Soviet religious policy, 56% of the religious organizations of Ukraine were centered in these 7 western regions, compared to: Donbas, which had less than 5%; the 2 industrial regions near the river Dnipro, which had 2%; and so on. Thus, when destroyed ecclesiastical structures had the opportunity to revive in their natural locations, these locations, in general, were determined by the religious needs of the nation, though political and socio-cultural factors also played their role.
Regarding the level of these needs, regional differences were unusually pronounced. In the western area, where people of the older generation were, more or less, fully catechized, the process of collectivization occurred without the terrible uprooting of institutionalized religion that happened in the rest of Ukraine. In the west the Church was a social and cultural nucleus parallel to the official society; therefore, without a doubt, the people felt their religious needs more strongly than was felt in the east. It is, therefore, hardly paradoxical that, in the western Chernivets region, which has the smallest population in Ukraine, 480 religious organizations were created from 1988 to 1986, but in the most-populated region, Donetsk, only 406 were created.
In this article we are not considering the nature of religious needs and more subjective considerations such as "religious faith." We will only venture the following conclusion: for a significant number of western Ukrainians (those in Galicia, Volyn, Bukovyna and Transcarpathia) the Church and everything associated with it remains integral to their way of life and system of social communication, but, for the inhabitants of the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, religious institutions have, to a major degree, lost these functions.
Nevertheless, beginning with the second half of the 1990s, the situation has begun to even out. In 1998 western Ukraine, already very saturated with religious institutions, was responsible for only 13% of the general growth in religious communities in Ukraine. But Donbas and Dnipropetrovsk contributed 14.5%, the north 18% and so on. Because these churches and religious communities expanded into what was considered a "religious wasteland," the dynamic growth in the number of religious communities has continued over a fairly long period of time. Indeed, the period from 1988 to 1991 was characterized by an entirely understandable "explosion" in the number of religious communities. (The faithful were finally able to form communities, an opportunity which had been denied them for many years; the UGCC came out from the catacombs, the UAOC was reborn). But religious communities continue to grow at a high rate. From 1992 to 1998 there was an annual average of 1150 communities created; in 1998 the average was even higher; but in 2000 a record number of communities were created in Ukraine, 1707 (half of these were Orthodox).
Viktor Yelenskyi
Viktor Yelenskyi is the chief editor of Liudyna I Svit ("Person and World"), a monthly academic journal dealing with religious themes. He is one of the foremost experts on religious studies in Ukraine.
