Russia, Ukraine, and the battle for religion | European Council on Foreign Relations

Russia, Ukraine, and the battle for religion | European Council on Foreign Relations:

There are no fewer than three main Orthodox churches in Ukraine. Why so many? One of these, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), was set up in 1921 but banned under Stalin in 1930. It survived in the diaspora and returned to Ukraine in 1990. The current trio derives from an unsuccessful attempt in 1992, just after Ukraine’s political independence in 1991, to broker a merger between the UAOC and the existing Orthodox hierarchy in Ukraine. The merger created a new church, dubbed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kievan Patriarchate (OUC-KP). But there was resistance on both sides: many in the UAOC refused to join, because they saw the existing Orthodox hierarchy as compromised by the KGB. While most of that compromised hierarchy refused to join the Kievan Patriarchate, for additional reasons of ‘canonicity’, traditionalism, and Russian nationalism. They remained under the Russian church, but relabelled it as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (OUC-MP). Just for good measure, there is a fourth church, the Greek Catholic Church – half-Orthodox and half-Catholic – banned in 1946, but revived in 1989, largely based in western Ukraine.