19.09.2007, [19:00] // Survey // RISU.ORG.UA
Washington – On 14 September 2007, the US State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor released its regular annual report “International Freedom of Religion 2007,” which included an analysis of the religious situation in Ukraine. In particular, it states that the right to freedom of religion, guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine, is, generally, adhered to; however, certain problems in the sphere do exist.
According to the report, cases were sited in which local government takes the part of this or that religious organization. Also, the problem of restitution of church property remains unsolved; cases of anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic behavior are an issue as well. The US State Department states that such organizations as the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, the Council of Evangelical Protestant Churches, the Board of Representatives of Ukraine’s Christian Churches and the Ukrainian Interchurch Council continue solving the conflicts between different denominations.
The section “Religious Demography” provides data presented by the Razumkov Sociological Center, revealing that 40 per cent of respondents consider themselves to be believers without referring to any religious organization, while 36.5 call themselves believers and refer to a certain religious organization. According to survey results, 33 per cent of Ukrainians consider themselves to be faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP), 31 per cent of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), 18 per cent of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), and 2.5 per cent of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC). Less than 5 per cent of those polled identified themselves as Roman Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Jewish. 21 per cent of those surveyed consider themselves to be atheists. As a rule, Western Ukraine has more practicing faithful than all other parts of the country.
According to the report’s statistics, the UOC-MP has 38 eparchies and 11, 085 communities; the UOC-KP – 30 eparchies and 3, 882 communities; the UAOC – 12 eparchies and 1, 155 communities; and the UGCC has 9 eparchies, 2 exarchates and 3, 480 communities. Some Muslim leaders say that there are nearly 2 million Muslims in Ukraine, while the state registers only 500, 000. Ukraine has 487 registered Muslim communities. Roman Catholics in Ukraine have 7 dioceses with 890 communities.
Protestant organizations are growing in number. Among them are Evangelical Christians Baptists, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists as well as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons.
According to statistic estimates, Ukraine has 103, 600 Jews, and 240 registered Jewish organizations, among which the Orthodox dominate. There are also 104 Khabat-Lubavicz communities and 48 communities of Progressive Jews.
Also, statistics indicate 15 non-traditional religious movements in Ukraine. On register are 35 communities of Krishna’s Consciousness and 53 Buddhist communities.
Part Two of the report, “Religious Freedom Status,” states the equal right of all religious organizations in Ukraine and the absence of state religion. Nevertheless, cases were observed in which local government takes the part of one confession or another which dominates in the region. In Ukraine all major religious holidays are marked on the state level. Religious organizations are free to conduct publishing work. According to legislation, registration of religious organizations takes from one to three months. Also, the report mentions the right of religious organizations to establish their private schools and demand the restitution of church property from local governments. The secondary schools provide courses in Ethics, paying equal attention to all denominations.
The report enumerates rare cases of the restriction of religious freedom in Ukraine. For example, in June 2007, the parish of St. Nicholas’ Church in Kyiv took an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against the Kyiv City Administration. The case of this community, which decided to convert from the UOC-MP to the UOC-KP, has been under review since the 1990s. Since that time, the community of the UOC-KP has been refused registration. Also, the Mormon leaders complain that the Rivne Regional Administration does not allow them to carry out their missionary work. In addition, the report makes mention of a conflict which arose in Zhytomyr between the local archival body and the Jewish community which was illegally accused of destroying a Torah cover. Among other religious violations, a case was mentioned in which local authorities in the village of Ivanivka in Luhansk Region banned a Christian music concert sponsored by the Protestant community.
The issue of restitution of church property confiscated by the soviet regime was named as the gravest problem in the religious life of Ukraine. The report links the existing problems to the poor economic situation in the country, which restricts funds for acquisition of new buildings for organizations. Thus, the Roman Catholics have not been returned their St. Nicholas’ Church in Kyiv up till now. The same goes for the church buildings of the RCC in Chernivtsi, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Mykolayiv, Sevastopol, and Simferopol. Up to this day, the Roman Catholics in Odesa have not been returned a seminary building which was confiscated in soviet times. Representatives of Progressive Judaism complain that their confiscated property in Kharkiv and Kyiv has not been restored to them. The issue of restitution of the Jewish Cemetery in Volodymyr-Volynskyi to the Jewish community still requires solution. Representatives of the UOC-MP complain that Lviv authorities continue to ignore their numerous requests to give them land for construction of a cathedral. In Lviv, the UGCC has not been returned all buildings of St. George’s Cathedral Complex. The local authorities explain they do not have the necessary funds to resettle more than ten families living there since soviet times. Muslims have filed complaint that they have not been returned a 118-year-old mosque in Mykolayiv, a mosque in Dnipropetrovsk, a 150-year-old mosque in Masandra, a mosque in Yalta, and a ruined mosque in Alushta which dates back to the 18th century. Nevertheless, the report does state that many buildings were returned to the religious organizations.
The problem of allotting land for construction of religious buildings remains open in Ukraine. The issue of rent free use of church land is also unsolved.
During the reporting period, no one was convicted of a crime with religious motives. The report however enumerates separate cases of anti-Semitic manifestations in Ukraine. Cases were heard concerning vandalism in synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust memorials in, for example, Odesa, Chernihiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Kolomyya, Berdychiv and Zhytomyr.
Overall, the US State Department report notes positive tendencies in terms of adherence to religious freedom taking place in Ukraine.
The report was prepared on the basis of facts gathered in the religious freedom monitoring conducted by RISU in 2005-2007.