Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said religion was one topic his family never brought up at dinner.
This may be because he was a minority Jew, or because the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Christians were divided into several branches.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has become increasingly pro-Ukrainian, to the detriment of the once-powerful pro-Russian church, a trend accelerated now that Kyiv and Moscow are at war.
The conflict between the pro-Kyiv Ukrainian Orthodox Church (OCU) and the pro-Moscow Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is buried in the international coverage of the battlefield drama.
However, about 80% of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, so even if less than half probably attend church regularly, the split between the two churches seeps into politics. I’m here.
Christmas in Kyiv
Religious conflicts crept into the news last month when the pro-Kyiv church allowed all Ukrainian parishes to celebrate Christmas on December 25 if they wished.
The symbolism of allowing Christmas to be celebrated on the dates used in the West has not been lost among Ukrainian believers.
The roots of this clash go back to the communist era. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union but was under the umbrella of the Russian Orthodox Church.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church continued to operate in the newly sovereign Ukraine, but declared allegiance to the Moscow Patriarchate.
Ukrainian patriots objected, saying they deserved to have their own church. Their rival, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, was founded in 1992, shortly after Ukraine’s independence. In 2019, it was recognized as an independent (independent) church by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Istanbul, the highest authority in Orthodox Christianity.
Politics of prayer in Ukrainian
The two churches have the same theology, liturgy, and even architecture. as Moscow ChurchHowever, the Kyiv Church prays in Ukrainian, not Church Slavic, and declares its allegiance to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Istanbul, rather than Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
Originally a larger church, the Moscow Church saw parishes defect to rivals, especially after the war began. Under this pressure, the Ukrainian branch declared independence from Russia in May, denouncing the aggression and refusing to recognize Patriarch Kirill in its liturgy.
It is not known which church is larger. But the head of the Kyiv Patriarchate, Metropolitan his Epiphinius, told the Religious News Service in May: “Every day, Ukrainians are gradually beginning to understand which churches are truly Ukrainian and which are Russian.”
The Moscow Patriarchate tried to prevent Russian-occupied Crimea by creating its own metropolitan area (archdiocese) in June. The Kyiv Church did not allow this.
When Putin annexed four Ukrainian territories in September, although he did not gain full control over them, he tried to justify the move from a religious point of view, calling it a “brilliant spiritual called “choice”.
Preaching, spying, security forces
But Kyiv increasingly viewed the pro-Moscow church as a fifth column, or Putin’s spy. In October, the acting head of the Ukrainian Security Service said it had discovered 33 suspected Russian agents among the clergy of the Moscow Church in Ukraine.
Some gave pro-Russian sermons, others had anti-Ukrainian literature, and some military chaplains passed on information about Ukrainian artillery to Russian agents, Kyiv said. rice field.
At that time, the Kyiv Church approved that all Ukrainian parishes would celebrate Christmas on December 25th if they wished. On December 1, Zelensky stepped up his demands, calling for an official ban on all activities of the Moscow Patriarchate.the church of in Ukraine. Parliament has been asked to draft an appropriate law, which may be difficult given the Ukrainian constitution’s provisions on religious freedom.
In late December, Ukraine refused to renew the Moscow Church’s lease on the Dormition Cathedral in Kyiv’s Cave Monastery, traditionally the center of Ukrainian Orthodox Christianity.
On January 7, the head of the pro-Kyiv church, Metropolitan Epiphanius, celebrated a traditional Christmas there to show that he was the new head.
And in a recent conversion to faith, Russia called for a 36-hour truce to celebrate its traditional Christmas on January 7th.
The struggle on the battlefield is still the main story, both in its ultimate importance and in the story of David and Goliath that readers will understand. Religious conflict is always secondary.
But these needlesticks in terms of faith will bring a new phase to the growth of local nationalism and help boost morale in Ukraine. and has done more than anyone else to build a united and rebellious Ukrainian state.
