Ukraine's Religious Diversity: Then and Now

July 31, 2024
Ukraine is home to all three Abrahamic religions. Let's explore how these different faiths coexist there and what they are. 
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The majority of Ukrainians believe in God, while the number of atheists in the country is decreasing each year. While the general tendency is apparent, God and way of paying respect for the entity vary as Ukraine is home to Christians, Muslims, Jews, and even some alternative religions or religious-philosophical movements.

Freedom of religion is enshrined in the Ukrainian Constitution, and today, people of a wide range of faiths live in peace with each other. However, it has not always been this way.

Let's look at the basic facts about Ukraine's main religions and their history.

Jews Brought Monotheism to Ukraine, Resulting in New Denominations

The Ukrainian Black Sea Belt played a key role in the histories of all three Abrahamic faiths, and Judaism was the first of them to appear on what is now Ukrainian soil. It arrived in the antique Crimea, where polis Khersones, now known as Sevastopol, and the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus were back then.

Many important archeological findings have been made in those lands, particularly remnants of an old Roman basilica in Panticapaeum, built on the site of the city's ancient synagogue. This not only reveals how far Ukraine's Jewish history dates back but is also indicative of attitudes towards Jews in much of the land's history:

"The synagogue's failure to be rebuilt suggests it might have been intentionally destroyed. This likely occurred amidst the rising influence of the Christian Church in the city and a shift in Byzantine authorities' general attitude towards the Jewish population for the worse,"explains Crimean scholar Mikhail Kizilov.

However, there was a rise of Judaism in Ukrainian lands, and it was during the Khazar Khaganate.

Before Kyiv Rus appeared, the Khazars controlled almost half of modern-day Ukraine. In the 9th century, the Khazars, originally a Turkic people, converted from paganism to Judaism, a decision that many scholars still find unusual. After the Khazar Khaganate fell, both Rabbinic Jews and Karaites, as well as Jewish Khazars, have lived in Kyiv.

The oldest known synagogue in Ukraine, built in 1532, Sataniv, Khmelnytska Oblast.

In late Kyiv Rus, 1215 marked a turning point for Jews in Ukrainian lands. That year the Catholic Church's Fourth Lateran Council codified anti-Jewish measures, including requiring Jews to wear distinctive clothing and barring them from holding public office or testifying against Christians.

As there already were Catholics in Kyiv Rus and links with Catholic states, the Council's anti-Jewish ideas also infected Ukrainian lands, and Christian Europe became a place where Jewish religious life was treated with general hostility.

Another dark period for Judaism came during the uprising of Orthodox Cossacks, peasants, and townspeople against Polish rule, Catholics, and Greek Catholics, led by Bohdan Khmelnytskyi in the 17th century.

One may wonder, what did Jews have to do with that? Well, according to Herman Rosenthal, chief of the Slavonic Department of the New York Public Library, due to their long history of involvement in trade and other economic aspects of European business, Jews were agents and managers of Polish nobility and tax collectors. Thus, Cossacks considered them collaborators with their enemies.

According to the Chronicle of Nathan Hanover, who witnessed events during the Khmelnytskyi uprising, Cossacks sacked and destroyed many synagogues in their rage and forced many Jews to flee to the West.

About a century later, the Haskalah movement, sometimes called the Jewish Renaissance, began emerging in Ukrainian lands and Europe generally and would run from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It led to a cultural revival among Jews in Ukraine, fostering a sense of pride in Jewish heritage and embracing modernity.

"Starting in 1863, Kyiv's Jewish community had its own rabbi. His name was Yevsey Zukerman, a 22-year-old graduate of the Zhytomyr Rabbinical School," writes Ukrainian scholar Hanna Konovalenko.

Despite Kyiv being part of the Russian Empire, which enforced many antisemitic policies like the Pale of Settlement, the ice gradually melted. As a result, local authorities approved the building of synagogues. In 1884, there were nine synagogues in Kyiv, and in the 1990s, monumental synagogues began to be erected at patrons' expense, according to Konovalenko.

During the Holocaust, which also took place in Ukraine, Jews faced the imminent threat of extinction, and their religious life shattered as they fought desperately to simply survive.

Approximately 1.5 million Jews were killed in Ukraine during the Holocaust, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

While there was involvement by Ukrainians in these crimes, there were also Ukrainian heroes. Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum, has recognized 2,961 Ukrainians as Righteous Among the Nations. The Holocaust, followed by decades of Soviet antisemitism, left Ukraine's Jewish community tremendously diminished by the time Ukraine achieved independence.

However, thanks to the spirit of Ukrainian Jewry and the efforts of Jews abroad, there are now over 200 synagogues throughout the country, including restored historical buildings and newly constructed ones. Moreover, Ukraine is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.

Ukraine also remains a key site of world Jewish life, particularly for Hasidism. This Jewish religious movement originated in the old province of Podilliya, then in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century. Two of its branches are known by the Ukrainian towns from which they emerged, Chornobyl and Bratslav.

Thus, Ukraine has important places of pilgrimage for Hasidic Jews. Medzhybizh in Khmelnytskyi Oblast is the burial place of Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the whole Hasidic movement. Uman in Cherkasy Oblast hosts the tomb of  Rabbi Nachman, the founder of Bratslav Hasidism. Every year on the Jewish new year of Rosh Hashanah, thousands of his followers come to celebrate the holiday with their leader.

Christianity Gradually Replaced Paganism

One of the most important events in Eastern European history is the Baptism of Rus, initiated by Kyiv's Prince Volodymyr in 988. That year, Volodymyr announced that paganism was to be swept out in favor of the new Christian religion, which was brought from Constantinople.

Princess Olga, Volodymyr's grandmother, was the first of Kyiv Rus rulers to be Baptized. This miniature from the Radzivill Chronicle depicts the process.

Although we talk about this fact as if it happened in one year, it took centuries for Christianity to spread and dominate throughout Ukrainian lands. However, the soil was not new to its ideas.

Numerous scholars claim that Andrew the Apostle, one of the twelve apostles who knew Jesus Christ, visited the lands that would become Kyiv Rus. Later, Clemens Romanus I, one of the Seventy Apostles, preached in Khersones, Crimea, and died there in 97 AD.

Besides them, there are enough mentions of early Christians on the Ukrainian terrain during their first missions in the 1-2 centuries. However, the Crimean peninsula, not being a part of Kyiv Rus, had its own path towards Christianity and was the first Ukrainian land to experience it.

Khersones, which was an independent city-state at the time, opened its gates to the first Christians in the first century and was a home in exile for Christians expelled by Rome untilthe Edict of Milan in 313. It was this persecution that brought Clemens to the city.

Reconstrustion of the Desyatynna Tserkva by P. Tolochko and V. Kharlamov, Istorychna Pravda. Its fundament and some parts were preserved.

The main church of Kyiv Rus, Desyatynna Tserkva, was built on a Kyiv hill by Volodymyr after he had the country baptized. It was designed with icons and crosses made in and brought from Khersones.

Also, there was the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus, which extended from the Crimea peninsula's east to the Taman Peninsula in modern-day Russia. According to various sources, as early as the 4th century, the Kingdom had its bishop's offices, Gothic and Bosporus. Both their bishops, Theophilus Gothiae and Kadm Bosporus, took part in the First Christian Council in history in 325 in Nicaea, representing their land.

Theophilus Gothiae's presence in the council was documented in the book Life of Constantine the Great, where he is referred to as the bishop of Scythia, and Ukrainians consider themselves descendants of the Scythians.

As it entered Ukrainian lands from multiple directions, Christianity slowly but surely established itself as the dominant faith.

However, just as the new state religion was settling in, there was a great schism in Christianity in 1054, dividing the Christian world into followers of the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the East.

Having adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, Kyiv Rus has mostly remained under Constantinople's religious sway. However, the impact of the Roman Church was also felt within. Some scholars even called the immediate post-schism period a 'fight for the Ukrainian church,' as there was an ongoing presence of Catholic missionaries in Kyiv Rus and communication between Orthodox metropolitans and Roman Popes, which made the Patriarchate of Constantinople nervous, according to Ukrainian scholar Dmytro Zabzaliuk.

The Catholic Church was not forbidden in Kyiv Rus, so its bishops operated there freely then as they do now. However, Ukraine's west, where most Ukrainian Catholics live, has long resisted the Roman religious tradition.

Most of those territories were part of the Kingdom of Galicia--Volhynia, which balanced preserving Kyiv Byzantine traditions, including the Cyrillic alphabet,with cooperating with Western Catholic allies. After the Kingdom fell in the 14th century, the lands were divided between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Catholicism became natural there for good and all, both of Greek and Roman tradition.

Protestantism and Ukrainian Greek Catholicism Arrive Together

As we have already realized, divides or schisms are a regular part of religion, and one such brought the Reformational movement to Ukraine in the 16th century. At the same time, a uniting though bloody act,the Union of Brest, takes place, evoking serious confrontation in Ukrainians' minds.

The Ukrainian lands, which were then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century, were represented by the following voivodeships: Ruthenian (Galicia), Belz, Volhynia, Kyiv, Podolia, Bratslav, and Chernihiv (from 1618) in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

As upcoming Protestantism had roots in many aspects of different classes' lives, such as the economy, national awakenings, and general fatigue of the Roman suppressing attitude, Catholicism was temporarily losing its position in Europe. Even Polish nobility, such as the Radziwiłł family, appeared among those desiring a change and turning into Protestants.

At the same time, Roman Catholics continued pushing on the part of Kyiv metropolitan to get them under the Pope's influence, and the Union of Brest was the culmination.

The Union of Brest was an agreement in 1596 that brought a portion of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth into communion with the Roman Catholic Church, creating the Greek Catholic Church. This union aimed to preserve Eastern liturgical traditions while accepting the authority of the Pope.

Modern religious scholar Victoria Lubaschenko sees the appearance of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church as a reflection of national movements awoken across Europe by the Reformation. However, the majority of the Union's contemporaries from the Orthodox side were against it, including those who were tolerant of Catholics, such as Prince Kostiantyn Wasyl Ostrozkyi, for instance.

As an Orthodox Christian himself, Ostrozkyi founded the Ostroh Academy, a Slavic-Greek-Latin school. He did not avoid Catholic literature, the Latin language, and relations with people from Catholic countries. He did, however, oppose merging the Catholic and Orthodox worlds, which is why he found himself involved in polemics between Jesuit Petro Skarga and the opposition to the Union.

"Correspondence of the Radziwiłł family preserved from the 1570s shows that [Ostrozky and Jerzy Olelkowicz] were the most influential Ruthenian magnates at the time. It was no coincidence that in 1577, Skarga dedicated his work On the Unity of the Church of God to Ostrozkyi, counting on his conversion to Catholicism or at least recognition of papal authority while maintaining the Greek rite, which in practice would mean a transition to the Union," writes scholar Polish scholar Tomasz Kempa.

Unfortunately, this affair did not limit itself to polemic.

After the Union entered into force in 1596, Eastern Orthodox Chirstians who did not agree to identify as Greek-Catholics were outlawed, and their churches were closed one by one.

As a result, the bishop of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Yosaphat Kuntsevych, was killed by supporters of Eastern Orthodoxy.

There is evidence that while this pressure was being applied to Orthodox Christians, Polish nobles who had already adopted Protestantism did not approve of what Roman Catholics were doing. One of them was Janusz Ostrozky, son of Kostiantyn Wasyl Ostrozkyi, who feared growing Catholic dominance.

Afterward, many events followed, such as the Counter-Reformation, Moscovia's liquidation of Kyiv Orthodox Church autonomy, Cossacks fighting both Catholics and Muslims and other continuous polemics between members of each confession. However, no denomination was able to wipe out the other, and Ukraine retains robust communities of Greek and Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Protestant denominations to this day. Ukraine's population of Greek Catholics is the world's largest.

Also, Ukraine got its autocephaly back in the 21st century.

According to a 2022 survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 72% Ukrainians identified as Orthodox, 8% as Greek Catholic, 2% as Protestant, and 1% as Roman Catholic.

Islam Is Ukraine's Second Largest Religion

Southern Ukraine, which was the first part of the country to encounter Christianity, now has the country's largest Muslim population. Islam came to these lands through many wars and territorial divisions, but has survived the centuries and is now Ukraine's second-largest religion after Christianity.

Crimea once again played a crucial role, as Islam spread into Ukraine from its territory when part of it belonged to the Khazar Khaganate.

The Khazars, who were mostly Judaic, had a certain number of Muslims within their ranks. This was likely the result of the Khaganate's relations with Muslim Bulgaria, the Abbasid Caliphate, and the Samanid Empire.

However, Islam gained a serious position in what is now Ukraine only in the 13th century, when the Golden Horde conquered most of the lands. At that time, the first mosques appeared in Ukraine, and connections were established with other Muslim lands like Egypt and Persia.

After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate emerged as the homeland of the Crimean Tatars, who are the largest Muslim group in Ukraine.

Since then, Islam has only strengthened within the Ukrainian Black Sea belt.

"During the Crimean Khanate, from the mid-15th century, the Sufi Mevlevi brotherhood was active on the peninsula. Sufism played a significant role in the Islamization of broad sections of the population, as Sufis were often tolerant of local customs and easily found common ground with followers of other faiths," writes Ukrainian scholar Mykhailo Yakubovych in his book Islam in Ukraine: History and Modernity.

If we talk about the oppression of Islam, we should go back to the aforementioned the Catholic Church's Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 handed down repressive measures against Muslims as it did against Jews.

Scholar Murad Ramzi once wrote about Ibrahim al-Kirimi, a Crimean Tatar Islamic scholar and authoritative Sufi, that upon arriving in Crimea in the 14th century, al-Kirimi 'encountered much oppression and many affairs contradicting the Sharia [Islamic law]. Feeling powerless to enact change, the sheikh subsequently moved to Istanbul.'

Now, the main branch of Islam in Ukraine is Sunni Islam, followed by the majority of Crimean Tatars. A certain number are devotees of Sufism.

Crimea used to be Ukraine's main center of Muslim culture and religion, which freely evolved until the peninsula was occupied by Russia in 2014. Since then, many Crimean Tatars have had to flee their homeland and join Muslim communities of Ukraine's other cities.

According to the representatives of Muslims in Ukraine, about 2 million Muslims live on the Ukraine-controlled lands now.

Ukraine's Faithful Stand United During the War

Through its 33 years, independent Ukraine has managed to enjoy peace among its religious communities. Indeed, all of its major religions have been supportive of national unity, especially since the onset of the war in 2014.

The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations works to promote harmony among Ukraine's Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, and other faith communities through mutual understanding and dialogue. It is the biggest organization of this type and maintains relations with leaders in Ukraine and abroad. There is also  the Institute of Religious Freedom, which aims to monitor and protect Ukraine's freedom of religion.

Many other private initiatives also promote harmonious religious life in the country.

Aisha Issa, the head of the Ukrainian Muslimah League, shared insights about the Prayer Marathon organized in 2014 by people of various faiths in Donetsk. This event allowed local faith communities to honor those defending their community against the aggression looming over their city. Unfortunately, members of the  Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate refused to take part in it, as various media reported.

Interreligious prayers are still held often in Ukraine, sometimes with the participation of the country's President. The most recent session on July 11, 2024 in Kyiv's Sofia Square with the participation of a delegation of the European Movement for Nonviolent Actions (MEAN) from Italy.

Lisa Dzhulai
Journalist at UkraineWorld