THE STATE OF UKRAINIAN INDEPENDENCE: An overview from Harvard: Religious life (08/25/96)

THE STATE OF UKRAINIAN INDEPENDENCE: An overview from Harvard

Religious life

by Andrew Sorokowski

The revival of religious life in Ukraine had begun well before independence was declared in August 1991. By that time the formerly clandestine Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC), the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) and other groups were functioning openly and legally. By 1993, the government had registered 63 religious denominations and over 14,000 religious organizations (parishes or groups of believers).

Ukraine's largest religious denomination remains the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), under Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), with an estimated 3,000 parishes. Its chief rival, the Uk-rainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), headed by the controversial Patriarch Filaret (De-nysenko), controls 1,500 parishes. Having enjoyed support from the Kravchuk government as a quasi-national Church, the UOC-KP has suffered a number of defections since its split with the UAOC after a joint synod in June 1992.

The UAOC, which was headed by the emigre hier-arch Mstyslav (Skrypnyk) as patriarch until his death in June 1993, remains in third place with under 1,000 parishes. Now led by Patriarch Dmytriy (Yarema), the UAOC finds its strongest support in western Ukraine, where it has vied for parishes and properties with the 4 million to 5 million strong UGCC under Cardinal Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky.

Other denominations include Latin-rite Catholics, both Reformed and Catholic communities of Germans and Hungarians, Evangelical Baptists, Pentecostals, Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. Relatively new are the Mormon Church, Bahai and Buddhists, as well as the neo-pagan Ukrainian National Faith (RUNVira). With the world's fifth largest Jewish population, last year Ukraine counted some 50 synagogues, four yeshivas and 65 schools, including the largest Jewish school in Eastern Europe. By 1993 Ukraine's Muslims, concentrated in the Crimea, had over 30 mosques and 42 communities. In late 1993 an apocalyptic cult called the White Brotherhood earned much notoriety, and prison terms for its leaders.

Will the religious revival last? In western Ukraine, it continues apace. Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (HUSI) students Jouri Sakvouk and Roman Zaviyskiy, both Greek-Catholic seminarians from Lviv, cite massive youth participation in church services and an overwhelming number of applications to seminaries and monasteries.

But what is the situation in Ukraine as a whole? Studies have found that at least half the population holds some kind of religious belief. The Kyiv Center of Political Research and Conflict Studies reports, however, that some 42 percent of those who consider themselves believers do not belong to any confession; practicing Christians constitute only about 25 percent of the population.

Wesley Jordan, a HUSI student who worked in Ukraine from 1991 to 1995 with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, found that most people called themselves simply "believers"; these did not necessarily belong to any Church. He met few atheists or agnostics. Mr. Jordan also points to a generational divide: while both the older generation and those under 30 or 35 are actively interested in spiritual matters, the middle generation, which has experienced the most thorough atheist indoctrination, remains resistant. Almost all the young people Jordan met had been baptized by their grandparents, sometimes secretly in remote villages.

What place will religion find in Ukrainian society? Many Ukrainians, whether believers or not, support religion as a social force.

In June 1996 the Scientific Center of Political Psychology of the Ukrainian Pedagogical Academy reported that 33 percent of persons interviewed claimed to strongly support religion as a social phenomenon; 20 percent were passive supporters; 27 percent were not interested in religion; and 19 percent were either active or passive opponents of religion. Women and country-dwellers were more religious than men and city-dwellers. Support for religion was strongest in western Ukraine; eastern Ukrainians were mostly non-believers.

A 1994 statistical survey conducted by the Ukrainian Institute for Problems of Youth revealed that young Ukrainians generally felt that religion was an important social force. They were less sanguine, however, about the role of the Church; here, initial post-independence expectations seem to have been disappointed.

It has been argued that, under Soviet rule, Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy replaced religious Orthodoxy as a closed and dominant philosophical system; in this interpretation, it is only now that Ukraine has become truly "secularized." Dr. Borys Gudziak, vice-rector of the Lviv Theological Academy and HUSI lecturer, remarks that Ukraine is moving rapidly from a closed to an open society, while experiencing an explosion of information technology. Diverse Western influences - individualism, materialism, consumerism, as well as various spiritual and cultural traditions - are penetrating society.

As Mr. Jordan puts it, after independence "the floodgates opened, letting in both good water and bad water." In this marketplace of ideas and beliefs, many are searching for new values. A return to pre-1917 Orthodoxy or pre-1939 Greek-Catholicism is unlikely. Only new and open religious forms can attract followers.

In the cultural sphere, religious themes, which for centuries dominated Ukrainian arts and literature, have recovered some of their importance. In a recent lecture at Harvard, composer and musicologist Yakov Goubanov provided examples of the vitality of both Orthodox and Catholic traditions in contemporary Ukrainian music. Writer and literary critic Solomea Pavlychko, who is lecturing at HUSI, has noticed a considerable number of young poets - perhaps 15 percent - writing on religious themes. But she warns that the Church must change if it is to appeal to the post-modern intelligentsia.

Much will depend on the attitude of the state. Article 35 of the 1996 Constitution guarantees the right to one's own world view and religious confession. It also declares the separation of Church from state, and of Church from school. It prohibits the state from making any religion compulsory.

In Dr. Gudziak's view, state attitudes have been influenced not only by revived interest in the Churches, but also by a "profound theoretical ignorance" of Church life, and a "lack of sensitivity to the dynamics of Church life, religious life, even individual spirituality in implementing policy." Consequently, even well-intentioned officials have made mistakes to the detriment of religion.

What does the future hold for religion in Ukraine? "There are signs," says Dr. Gudziak, "that the state will seek to control religious life to a greater degree." The Rev. Dr. Andriy Partykevych of St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Boston adds that "the plenipotentiaries [for religious affairs], especially in eastern Ukraine, favor the status quo." There, inertia favors the Moscow Patriarchate. As for religion itself, Dr. Gudziak predicts that "within 10 years there will be a radical departure from much of Ukrainian religious tradition.... I think the role of Protestant groups will grow, the whole question of New Age movements, all kinds of neo-gnosticisms, neo-pagan movements will have a role in Ukrainian religious life."

For the Ukrainian Orthodox, unification will be a priority. For the UGCC, respected as a martyr Church and a national Church, the challenge is to find a new role. For both, ecumenism is a pressing issue. "I think we have to start talking about the nation as one, and a combined shared spiritual and national heritage that is found within Eastern Christianity," says the Rev. Partykevych. Dr. Gudziak concurs: "The Churches have to make progress in the ecumenical sphere or lose credibility completely."

Andrew Sorokowski, managing editor of Harvard Ukrainian Studies, holds a Ph.D. in East European history (specializing in Ukrainian Church history) from the University of London and a J.D. from Columbia University.