Religion in Ukraine
Two percent of the population declared affiliation to a mainstream Protestant Church, and a further 2% identified with some alternative sect of Christianity.
With Christianity in Ukraine overwhelmingly predominant, representative statistical samples of the population surveyed by KIIS in 2020, 2021, and 2022 reported 0% of respondents identifying with Judaism and Islam.
An older survey by the Razumkov Center in 2018 estimated Jews in Ukraine at 0.4% of the population, with smaller 0.1% minorities following Hinduism, Buddhism and Paganism (Rodnovery).
[3] Another religion that is present in Ukraine besides Christianity is Rodnovery (Slavic native faith), which comprises Ukrainian- and Russian-language communities (some Rodnover organizations call the religion Orthodoxy [uk] (Ukrainian: Правосла́в'я, romanized: Pravoslávʺya), thus functioning in homonymy with Christian Orthodox churches).
[4][5] Crimean Tatars professing Islam represent a significant part of the population in Crimea, which prior to 2014 was a subject of Ukraine, but has been since that year occupied by Russia.
[3] Since before the outbreak of the war in Donbas in 2014, but even more violently so from that year onward, there has been unrest between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian religious groups in the country.
After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "signed a decree enacting a National Security and Defense Council decision to impose personal sanctions against representatives of religious organizations associated with Russia".
[7] Ukraine's government will specifically examine the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and ban any activities relating to pro-Russian movement.
Later traditions and legends relate that in the first century CE the Apostle Andrew himself had visited the site where the city of Kyiv would later arise.
[9] In the 10th century the emerging state of Kievan Rus' came increasingly under the cultural influence of the Byzantine Empire.
This began a long history of the dominance of Eastern Orthodoxy in Ruthenia, a religious ascendancy that would later influence both Ukraine and Russia.
Judaism has existed in the territories of present-day Ukraine for approximately 2,000 years: Jewish traders appeared in Greek colonies.
Crimean Tatars accepted Islam as the state religion (1313–1502) of the Golden Horde, and later ruled as vassals of the Ottoman Empire (until the late 18th century).
Only a small fraction of people remained official church-goers in that period, and the number of non-believers increased.
[clarification needed] As of 2022, according to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), 85% of Ukrainians identified as Christians.
A significant shift in Orthodox identity occurred in the wake of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The decline was geographically uniform: UOC-MP peaked in Eastern Ukraine at 6%, only slightly above 3-5% reached elsewhere in the country.
[3] (including Greek) (other Christian) A February 2015 survey by Razumkov Centre, SOCIS, Rating and KIIS gave the following data at oblast level:[19] (unspecified) (incl.
They elected their primate, Epiphanius,[26] and adopted a charter for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine during the same unification council.
Outlawed by the Soviet Union in 1946 and legalized in 1987, the church was for forty-three years the single largest banned religious community in the world.
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk is the present head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
The Latin Church is traditionally associated with historical pockets of citizens of Polish ancestry who lived mainly in the central and western regions.
Historically, there were two main ways of spreading Islam in Ukraine: the eastern (North Caucasus) and southern (Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire).
A major part of the south steppes of modern Ukraine at a certain period of time were inhabited by Turkic peoples, most of whom were Muslims since the fall of the Khazar Khanate.
The Nogays, another Muslim group who lived in the steppes of southern Ukraine, emigrated to Ottoman Empire in the 18th–19th century.
[3] Buddhism in Ukraine has existed since the 19th and 20th century, after immigration from countries with Buddhist populations, mainly North Vietnam and Korea under Communist period.
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness managed to propagate the Hindu faith through their missionary activities.
[39] Lev Sylenko founded the Church of the Native Ukrainian National Faith (RUNVira) in 1966 in Chicago, United States, and only opened their first temple in the mother country of Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Far-right Ukrainian nationalist groups such as Freedom have assaulted members of the Moscow Patriarchate and otherwise harassed them.
[53] In territories not controlled by the government of Ukraine, Jehovah's Witnesses have faced persecution by Russian and separatist authorities.
