Russia and Ukraine

Abstract

"A report on the press conference at the conclusion of the Plenary Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church on 22 February 1997 quoted Patriarch Aleksi 11: '[in Russia] without seeking to become the church of the state, ... our church remains open to the idea of cooperation with the structures of power at all levels ... [in Ukraine] the authorities, certain circles, and the press are openly supporting the dissident Orthodox entities ... '. I The Russian patriarch thus distinguished two approaches towards the relationship between church and state, two paths for the development of Orthodox churches in postsoviet society. Although Orthodoxy in both Ukraine and Russia is often presented as a 'traditional' religion and both states have promulgated laws on religion which establish criteria and expectations for the registration of all religious bodies, we have in fact two different approaches to the question of religious liberty and two models for how Orthodox church life is to develop in the postsoviet era. In this paper I shall first describe the religious liberty situation in each of the two states; I shall then discuss the position of the Orthodox Church in both Russia and Ukraine; and finally I shall seek the roots of the present- day differences in the clearly different experiences of the two cultures in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. My underlying thesis is that although Russia and Ukraine have shared much common historical, political and religious experience over the past 300 years, the religious situation as it has evolved over the past decade demonstrates a deep underlying difference: Ukraine has had an experience of religious pluralism and tolerance which is now making demands upon its body politic, whereas such has not been the case in Russia."