The Impact of the Ukrainian Crisis on Religious Life in Ukraine and Russia 

Mark R. Elliott

Editor’s note: The author wishes to thank Paul Steeves (Russian Religion News), Darlene Elliott, Joy Ireland, and Kathryn Brown for their contributions to this article. 

In late November 2013, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich declined to sign an agreement with the European Union, opting instead for closer ties with Russia. This move, in turn, triggered the Maidan (Independence Square) demonstrations (November 2013 to February 2014) that forced Yanukovich from office and led to the emergence of a pro-Western government in Kyiv. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin, deeply angered by his loss of leverage in Kyiv, seized and annexed Crimea in March. Ethnic violence has since rocked both eastern and southern Ukraine. Only time will tell if Ukraine’s new president, chocolate billionaire Petro Poroshenko, will be able to stem separatist efforts and restore peace. 

Hopeful Trends Now Threatened 

All the above has had myriad consequences for religious life, both in Ukraine and in Russia. Events in strife-torn Slaviansk in eastern Ukraine, may serve as illustration of once hopeful trends in Christian ministry now threatened by heated ethnic passions. In recent years in this city of 130,000, an evangelical church, an indigenous mission, and international ministries have been working together on behalf of homeless children, but they now see their collaboration jeopardized by supercharged nationalist agendas at loggerheads. 

In June 2010 I attended a worship service at Moscow’s Pentecostal Word of Life Church. A guest speaker that morning was a pastor visiting from Ukraine. Sergiy Demidovich shared how he and his wife and other families in their church in Slaviansk had been led by faith to adopt. Their Good News Church (membership of 600; weekly attendance of 1,000) has spearheaded a movement in their congregation that at that point had resulted in the adoption of 100 orphans.1

 Since then Good News Church members and likeminded evangelicals in Kyiv and Mariupol, all sharing a burden for their country’s homeless children, have together launched a ministry called Ukraine Without Orphans (UWO). This campaign to encourage Christian families to adopt has now spread not only to Russia, but worldwide. In Ukraine alone some 120 national parachurch groups working with at risk children are connected in some way with UWO.2 Back in Slaviansk, through Ukraine Without Orphans, to date hundreds of orphans have now been adopted or are living in Christian foster homes. Tragically, however, in this city deeply divided between pro-Russian separatists and those who want to remain part of Ukraine, some now distrust local Ukraine Without Orphans activists on the basis of their ties with adoption advocates in Russia and abroad. Even the word traitors has been hurled at them. Pro-Russian forces in Slaviansk now occupy the Good News Church as a base of operations, and on 16 May Sergiy Demidovich’s brother Aleksey, a bishop in Ukraine’s Church of God denomination, was abducted, held in isolation for seven hours, and then released.3 

A Legacy of Ukrainian-Russian Discord 

One may ask: how far in the past can the discord between Ukraine and Russia be traced? Does the present conflict only date back to this past winter, Viktor Yanukovich’s ouster from power, his replacement by a strongly pro-Western government, and Russia’s move into Crimea?  

Or does the present conflict date back to the Orange Revolution of 2004-05? In this case, public protests over the fraudulent presidential victory of Yanukovich forced a new election that was won by Viktor Yushchenko.

 Or does the present crisis find its roots in the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War (1918- 21)? In those years Ukraine momentarily proclaimed its independence, only to be reabsorbed into a new Soviet version of the old tsarist Russian Empire.  

Or can the present conflict be traced back to Muscovy’s seizure of Ukrainian lands from the Poles and Ottoman Turks in the 17th and 18th centuries? In the train of those victories Moscow gave no cultural quarter to its new Ukrainian subjects, pejoratively calling them “Little Russians” and suppressing use of the Ukrainian language. 

Russian and Ukrainian Orthodoxy in Contrast  

Whatever the ultimate origins of the conflict, a starting point for comprehending its religious dimensions involves recognition of the fundamental contrast between Orthodoxy in Ukraine and Orthodoxy in Russia. In Russia the Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate is so revered as a cultural linchpin and unifying force that in public surveys even Russian non-believers identify themselves as Orthodox. Putin recognizes this fact, sees benefit in Orthodox hierarchs’ political support, and, in turn, grants privileges to the Orthodox Church at the expense of other Christian confessions and faiths. 

In contrast, in Ukraine three different Orthodox Churches vie for followers, and strong Eastern-Rite Catholic and Protestant churches must also be taken into account. As a result, religious tolerance and freedom of conscience, of necessity, are much more in evidence in Ukraine than in Russia. In addition, for whatever reasons, the dynamism of Ukrainian church life, be it Orthodox, Eastern-Rite Catholic, or Protestant, compared to Russia, is striking. The strength of Christian expression in Ukraine compared to Russia may be illustrated by the number of churches per capita. With a population of 46 million, Ukraine, for example, has 16,811 Orthodox parishes, while Russia, with a population of 142 million, has 14,616 Orthodox parishes.4 In the Soviet period, for good reason, Ukraine was referred to as the Bible Belt of the U.S.S.R. Today, in the post-Soviet era, this characterization is just as appropriate. Unfortunately, counter balancing the vigor of Ukraine’s church life is the troubling reality that it suffers as much from moral disarray as Russia: widespread corruption and bribery in business, government services, education, and medical care; human trafficking; wealthy oligarchs out for their own interest; and high rates of drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, divorce, poverty, and homelessness.5 ]

The Impact of the Ukrainian Crisis on Religion 

As will become evident, the present UkrainianRussian conflict undermines confessional unity across political borders, sows seeds of strife within faith communities, and jeopardizes the presence and ministry of foreign religious workers, in particular Catholic priests and Protestant missionaries, in parts of Ukraine and in Russia. In coming to terms with the impact of the Ukrainian crisis on churches and their mission, six topics deserve special attention: 1) the status of Ukraine’s three Orthodox jurisdictions; 2) the relationship between Orthodoxy in Ukraine and Orthodoxy in Russia; 3) the role of the Eastern-Rite Catholic Church; 4) the relationship between Ukrainian and Russian Protestants; 5) the related question of the impact of the crisis upon non-Orthodox churches in Russia; and 6) the impact of the crisis on missionaries and foreign clergy serving in Ukraine and Russia.

 The Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate

 Arguably the most complex of these five issues is the question of multiple Orthodox jurisdictions in Ukraine. To make sense of the divisions, a brief description of Ukraine’s three Orthodox churches is in order. By far the largest is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP), claiming just over two-thirds of all Orthodox in Ukraine, some 35 million adherents in 12,895 parishes.6 Given a degree of autonomy by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexis II in 1990, it nevertheless is subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate. This Russian affiliation pleases many of its faithful in eastern and southern Ukraine and displeases many other of its faithful in central and western Ukraine. That is to say, the UOC MP is not monolithic: many of its parishioners and hierarchs support continuing close ties with Moscow, while many other of its parishioners favor autocephalous status under the aegis of Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.7 At the grassroots level such divided loyalties can translate into UOC MP parish celebrations of the Divine Liturgy that do and do not offer blessings for Moscow’s Patriarch Kyrill, depending upon the location.8 

On 24 February 2014 Metropolitan Onufry (Berezovsky), from southwestern Ukraine, replaced ailing Patriarch Volodymyr (Sabodan) as acting head of the UOC MP. A long-shot candidate to become Patriarch of Moscow following the death of Patriarch Alexis II in 2009, Metropolitan Onufry, back in the early 1990s, had opposed those Ukrainian hierarchs who had favored severing ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.9 However, in the wake of the Maidan overthrow of pro-Russian Yanukovich and with the fate of Crimea in the balance, Metropolitan Onufry on 2 March 2014 appealed directly to President Putin and to Patriarch Kyrill “to prevent the division of the Ukrainian state and not to permit an armed confrontation between our peoples.”10 In a 19 March video UOC MP Metropolitan Sofrony of Cherkassy was even more blunt, describing Putin as “a bandit who sent troops here upon our compatriots,” who, along with Patriarch Kyrill, “betrayed the Orthodox peoples of Ukraine.”11 

But, as noted, Onufry’s church is not of one accord. Disagreements within the UOC MP over the proper tack vis-à-vis Moscow may be illustrated by a text deleted from its official website. Just prior to Yanukovich’s ouster and flight, the UOC MP website declared, “We unequivocally condemn the criminal actions of the governing authorities [Yanukovich loyalists] that provoked bloodshed on the streets and squares of golden-domed Kyiv.” However, by 24 February this harsh assessment of pro-Russian Yanukovich disappeared, replaced by a more generic declaration: “We unequivocally condemn the sin of murder, especially when the innocent die.” Yet the original text, with its strident opposition to Moscowbacked Yanukovich, survived on a number of UOC MP diocesan websites, including that of Kherson, close to Crimea.12 On the one hand, on 29 March, the UOC MP website carried a report that “in accordance with the blessing of Metropolitan Onufry, the Kyiv, Borispol, and Kherson Dioceses have acted jointly to give spiritual support to the border troops of Ukraine.”13 UOC MP Chancellor Metropolitan Anthony, in supporting collections for the Ukrainian Army, declared, “This is not only our civic duty but also our Christian duty.”14 On the other hand, reports have surfaced of UOC MP priests allegedly offering support and blessings to Russian separatists in the east in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions.15 

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kyiv Patriarchate 

The second-largest Orthodox jurisdiction in Ukraine is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC KP), with close to six million adherents in 4,702 parishes.16 Following Ukrainian independence in 1991, this church emerged in 1992 with the support of Orthodox parishes embued with Ukrainian patriotic fervor and deep distrust of the UOC MP’s subordination to Moscow. Absent the canonical recognition enjoyed by the UOC MP, it labors under the added burden of leadership lacking popular respect. Patriarch Volodymyr (Romanyuk), the UOC KP’s first head, was a revered survivor of the Soviet Gulag, but he died in July 1995, just a few years after assuming leadership. He was succeeded by the present opportunistic and thoroughly compromised Patriarch Filaret (Denysenko). This former Soviet-era Ukrainian Exarch of the Russian Orthodox Church had previously worked closely with the KGB in the suppression of religious dissidents. Also, for decades he has violated the monastic vow of celibacy, keeping a mistress and family, and he is widely suspected of misappropriation of church funds.17 

When in 1991 Alexis II bested Filaret in the Moscow Patriarch election, the latter bolted ranks to the UOC KP, and in 1992 was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church. Since then, in the words of researcher Janice Broun, Filaret has “metamorphosed from an anti-Ukrainian, Soviet church bureaucrat into a militant [Ukrainian] nationalist.”18 

During Kyiv’s Maidan demonstrations Filaret opened his St. Michael’s Gold-Domed Monastery for use as a shelter and temporary hospital for antiYanukovich activists. He later condemned Russia’s takeover of Crimea, addressing a public appeal to Putin for the “immediate withdrawal of troops from Ukrainian territory.”19 He and other UOC KP hierarchs have repeatedly called for donations for support of the Ukrainian Army.20 Most recently, in his 2014 Easter address, Partiarch Filaret decried Russian “aggression” against “peace-loving” Ukraine, which “voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons.” Here he referenced the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which Russia, the United States, and Britain provided Ukraine “security assurances” in exchange for relinquishing its Sovietera nuclear stockpile.21 Undoubtedly, the Kyiv Patriarchate’s condemnation of Russian actions in Ukraine would carry more weight if they came from a less-compromised quarter. 

The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church 

The third Orthodox jurisdiction in Ukraine is the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), with an estimated 1.5 million adherents in 1,247 parishes.22 Like the UOC KP, unrecognized by other Orthodox jurisdictions, it emerged during Ukraine’s fleeting moment of independence during the Russian Civil War (1918-21), only to be suppressed by Stalin in 1930. It revived briefly during German military occupation (1941-44), was banned again with Soviet victory in World War II, and reemerged beginning in 1989 with Gorbachev’s glasnost and Ukrainian independence in 1991. Lacking continuity on Ukrainian soil, its dream of a united, truly autocephalous, canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine was kept alive through the 20th century by means of its parishes in immigration, primarily in the United States and Canada.23 The UAOC has been as vociferous as the UOC KP in its support for the Maidan Revolution and its opposition to Russian forays into Crimea and eastern and southern Ukraine. However, the UAOC’s smaller size has limited its visibility and its impact upon the ongoing Ukrainian crisis. 

Tensions Between Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox 

The relationship between Orthodoxy in Ukraine and Orthodoxy in Russia is at least as complex as that of the interplay among Ukraine’s three Orthodox jurisdictions. As noted, the Moscow Patriarchate manages strong ties to Ukraine through its semi-autonomous UOC MP, but rejects out of hand any association with Filaret’s non-canonical UOC KP or the equally non-canonical UAOC. 

Since his election as patriarch in 2009, Kyrill has supported Kremlin political positions more openly than did his predecessor Alexis II. For example, he publicly supported Putin’s reelection as president in 2012. In turn, the pro-democracy, anti-Putin demonstrations in Moscow in 2011-12 drove Russia’s president into closer collaboration with the conservatively oriented Russian Orthodox Church. On 21 February 2012 Pussy Riot punk rockers protested Orthodox support for Putin in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Subsequently on 17 August 2012, a Russian court convicted four of the group of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and sentenced them to two years’ imprisonment. The Orthodox Church’s acquiescence in what many considered an unjustifiably harsh punishment seemed to confirm the growing defensiveness of church and state, drawing Russia’s patriarch and president into an ever-tighter embrace.24 

This church-state tandem, however, is being sorely tried by the Ukraine crisis. Patriarch Kyrill finds himself in the painfully awkward position of trying to support Kremlin positions on Maidan, Crimea, and eastern and southern Ukraine without so alienating the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate that the latter chooses to sever its ties with Russian Orthodoxy.25 Alexei Malashenko, religion specialist at the Carnegie Moscow Center, lays out the Russian Patriarch’s predicament: “The Russian Orthodox Church risks gradually losing Ukraine if it just goes on repeating word for word the Kremlin line; it risks becoming only a national church of Russia. If Kirill loses out in Ukraine, he also becomes less attractive for the Kremlin.”26 

How has Kyrill attempted to simultaneously satisfy Putin and his coreligionists in Ukraine? Rendering unto Caesar, Kyrill, in Kyiv in 2010, blessed Yanukovich, Ukraine’s pro-Russian president.27 On 19 March 2014 in a session of the Russian Orthodox Holy Synod, with Russian forces in full control of Crimea, Kyrill opined that an “internal political crisis” was what was threatening Ukraine’s territorial integrity.28 On 7 April, following prayers near the relics of Patriarch Tikhon in Moscow’s Donskoy Monastery, Kyrill likened the Maidan violence to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 which “was accompanied by outrage and terrible injustice under slogans for achieving justice.”29 On Easter eve, 19 April, in a service in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, with President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev in attendance, Kyrill declared that God should put “an end to the designs of those who want to destroy holy Russia.” Ukraine, he said, stood in need of officials who are “legitimately elected,” parroting the Kremlin position that Kyiv’s post-Maidan government lacked legitimacy.30 At the same time, Patriarch Kyrill has sought to minimize tensions with the pro-Maidan UOC MP for fear of losing its loyalty. On 18 March the patriarch chose not to attend the signing ceremony incorporating Crimea into the Russian Federation.31 At the same 19 March Holy Synod meeting that Kyrill soft-pedaled Russia’s incursion into Crimea, he supported the appointment of UOC MP Metropolitan Onufry as a permanent member of the Russian Orthodox Holy Synod.32 In addition, at the same session Kyrill chose not to transfer UOC MP parishes in Crimea to the Russian Orthodox Church.33 

The Patriarch’s tightrope performance involves juggling the appearance of respect for Ukrainian sovereignty while championing a concept that frightens many Ukrainians – the idea that Russian-Ukrainian spiritual solidarity transcends political borders. In response to UOC MP Metropolitan Onufry’s appeal for the Patriarch’s help in staving off Russian moves against Crimea, Kyrill, on 2 March on the Moscow Patriarchate website, promised: “I will do everything possible in order to convince all those who have power in their hands that one must not permit the deaths of peaceful people in the Ukrainian land that is dear to my heart.” On the one hand, “The Ukrainian people must determine its own future by itself, without outside interference.” On the other hand, “The brotherhood of the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian peoples” should “determine our future.”34 

Since his accession in 2009, and emphatically since March 2014, Patriarch Kyrill has sought to enshrine the principle of “Russky mir,” the “Russian world,” which he understands to be a spiritual union of the Eastern Slavs.35 There are people in Ukraine who belong to different ethnic, language, and cultural communities and have different political views. Some of them look after maximum integration into political structures set up by western European countries. Others, on the contrary, strive for the development of relations with the peoples of historical Russia and for preservation of their original culture. Whatever happens in the relations among the states and whatever development the political confrontation takes, the unity in faith and brotherhood of people baptized in one and the same baptismal fount cannot be deleted from their common past.36 

The fact is that Kyrill cannot avoid contradictions in his awkward balancing act: either “the Church is above these differences and cannot identify itself with any particular point of view” or “we know that every time that enemies have attacked our fatherland, the chief thing that they have wanted to do is divide our people, and especially to rip the southern and western Russian lands from the single world.”37 In the end, for Kyrill, Ukraine’s sovereignty and its “wish to build independently its own national life” is trumped by a cherished “common spiritual space,” that is, “the brotherhood of the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarussian nations…hard won by history and many generations of our ancestors.”38 Kyrill seems to hopelessly intertwine spiritual and political considerations and caroms erratically between Great Russian patriotism and conciliatory gestures toward Ukrainian Orthodox whose fealty he hopes to retain.39 Ukrainian Churches Making Common Cause 

Putin, whose Ukrainian gambit has placed Patriarch Kyrill in such an awkward position, has also paradoxically accomplished the seemingly impossible task of giving Ukraine’s diverse churches common cause. Throughout the winter of 2013-14, Ukrainian Orthodox and Eastern-Rite Catholic priests and Protestant pastors played a central role in Kyiv’s Maidan demonstrations. Father Cyril Hovorun, former head of the UOC MP Department of External Church Relations, now studying at Yale Divinity School, considers the anti-Yanukovich protests not only a political phenomenon but “an important religious event” as well. Day in and day out, morning and night, priests and pastors said prayers on the Maidan. Evangelicals passed out Scriptures. Prayer tents provided counseling, food, and first aid. New York Times reporter Sophia Kishkovsky referenced “dramatic images of clergy with crosses standing between protestors and government forces that went viral as the standoff escalated in January and February.”40 

Orthodox, Eastern-Rite Catholics, and Protestants thus found common purpose in supporting the Maidan demonstrations. Christians of various churches first protested the corruption and the pro-Russian tilt of the Yanukovich presidency. Then Russia’s direct intervention further solidified ecumenical common cause, bringing together “many church leaders who had never really conversed publicly with each other.”41 As Father Hovorun put it, Christians of different confessions and denominations, in becoming “brothers in arms,” were becoming “brothers in Christ.”42 On 18 February Yanukovich forces tore down a Maidan ecumenical chapel, only to see a tent erected in its place to serve as a funeral chapel for demonstrators killed by snipers.43 On 30 March on the Maidan, in commemoration of those who died there, prayers were offered by bishops and clergy of UOC MP, UOC KP, UAOC, Roman Catholic, and Protestant churches.44 “When all is said and done, it is the Churches above all that are enabling Ukrainians to rediscover themselves as members of the same nation.”45 

Not only in street demonstrations, but in Orthodox and Catholic church chanceries and Protestant pastors’ conclaves, Maidan forged a multi-confessional spiritual camaraderie unknown in previous Ukrainian experience. The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, representing 18 religious bodies, became the focal point of the churches’ shared support for political change in Ukraine. 

On 22 February, the same day Yanukovich lost effective hold on power, the Council issued a statement opposing regional separatism signed by all its members including, notably, its presiding chair, UOC Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Anthony. Three days later the Council met with Ukraine’s new acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, following which it publicly affirmed its support for Ukraine’s new government. On 4 March U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met in Kyiv with the Council and complimented its members for their peacekeeping role in the demonstrations and their inter-confessional harmony.46 

Two knowledgeable Moscow academics have aptly sized up the seismic shift now altering Ukraine’s spiritual terrain. Andrei Zubov, historian and churchstate specialist, lost his post at the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations for publishing an editorial comparing Putin’s move against Crimea with Hitler’s seizure of Czechoslovakia’s Germanspeaking Sudetenland in 1938. Zubov expects that the longer the conflict between Ukraine and Russia persists, the greater likelihood of the formation of a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch: “One thing is certain: A united Ukrainian church could redraw the map of Orthodoxy.”47 According to Roman Lunkin, senior researcher on religion at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Science, the Maidan demonstrations “managed to achieve what was almost unthinkable and impossible earlier: the main Protestant churches and the Orthodox churches of different jurisdictions began acting together. Whereas in 2005 [during the Orange Revolution] the churches were divided among various political camps, now they – and this inspires great hope at least in the religious sphere – now they are acting in a united patriotic position… clearly recognizing the new government in Kiev.”48 

Ukrainian Orthodox Unification? 

Not surprisingly, discussions aimed at overcoming Ukrainian Orthodoxy’s decades-old divisions have taken place in tandem with inter-confessional cooperation. On 22 February the Synod of the UOC Kyiv Patriarchate proposed “a dialogue leading to reunification” of Ukraine’s Orthodox churches.49 To avoid being left out of negotiations, the UOC Moscow Patriarchate seems willing to discuss the possibility, but as long as Filaret (excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church on multiple counts decades ago) heads the UOC KP, the schism is likely to persist. In the interim a complete break between the UOC MP and the Russian Orthodox Church would seem to be much more likely. Later, at the point where Filaret passes from the scene, conditions for ending Ukrainian Orthodoxy’s multiple fractures would appear to be much more promising.50 

The Ukrainian Eastern-Rite Catholic Church 

Another complexity in the Ukrainian religious landscape is the Ukrainian Eastern-Rite Catholic Church, the product of an Orthodox schism that is centuries rather than decades old. Emerging in the late 16th Century in Ukrainian lands then part of Catholic Poland, this confession retains its Orthodox liturgy and a married priesthood, but submits to the authority of the pope in Rome. Often distrusted by Latin-Rite Catholics and always despised by Russian tsars and commissars, this Uniate church (referencing the Russian pejorative for it) suffered the most complete repression of any Christian community in the Soviet Union. Banned outright earlier under Tsar Nicholas I in 1839 and again in 1923 and 1946 under Lenin and Stalin, it was the largest underground church in the U.S.S.R. Vanquished not only by the KGB but by the Russian Orthodox Church, to whom in 1946 Stalin had bequeathed all Uniate parishes, Eastern-Rite Catholicism reemerged in 1989 in western Ukraine thanks to Gorbachev’s glasnost. 51 Today it numbers four to five million faithful in 3,919 parishes.52 

Needless to say, many Eastern-Rite Catholics remain bitter over the Moscow Patriarchate’s partnership with Stalin in perpetrating its post-World War II Golgotha. Russian Orthodox in western Ukraine likewise are embittered over the loss of many of their churches as a result of the legalization of EasternRite Catholicism.53 Ex-KGB agent Putin is perfectly aware of the fierce opposition to Soviet rule by the banned Eastern-Rite Catholics of western Ukraine. In a malevolent speech in Brussels on 28 January 2014 Russia’s president counted allegedly “racist and anti-Semitic Uniate priests” among the dark forces undermining Yanukovich, his man in Kyiv.54 Suffice it to say, with the centuries of bad blood between Orthodox and Eastern-Rite Catholics, it is striking that the latter, inspired by Maidan ecumenism, is entertaining the dream of a single Ukrainian church including both. 

A Ukrainian Protestant Overview 

A major consequence of Ukraine’s church divisions (three Orthodox jurisdictions and two Catholic confessions—Eastern Rite and Latin Rite) is that no one church can work its will as Russian Orthodoxy does in Russia. As a result, evangelicals have had much more freedom to exist and to evangelize than has been the case in Russia. 

The Ukrainian crisis has also deepened Ukrainian Protestant involvement in political life and has strained relations between Ukrainian and Russian evangelicals. However, before addressing these issues, a few observations are in order regarding Ukrainian evangelical history and demographics. Ukraine, along with St. Petersburg and the Caucasus, were the three earliest seedbeds of evangelicalism in tsarist Russia. Beginning in the 1860s and 1870s, continental pietism spread among German Mennonite colonists in Ukraine and from them to their Ukrainian peasant neighbors. Dramatic growth occurred in the resulting Baptist and Evangelical Christian denominations in the late nineteenth century, and even more so following Russia’s 1905 Edict of Toleration. In the 1920s these same evangelicals, plus newly emerging Pentecostals, grew rapidly. In the halcyon 1920s Protestants were relatively free of communist interference because the infant Soviet regime was then concentrated on eliminating the formerly privileged Orthodox Church. 

Following intense persecution of all religions in the 1930s, Stalin, during World War II, even accepted the help of believers in the fight against Nazi Germany. This new lease on church life was nowhere in greater evidence than in Ukraine which, as noted, was aptly designated as the Soviet Union’s Bible Belt. Churches that were disproportionately strong in Ukraine compared to Russia – and that remain so to this day – include Orthodox, Catholics, Evangelical Christians –Baptists, Pentecostals, and Adventists. To give but one example, Ukraine, with a population of 46 million, is home to 125,000 Evangelical Christians–Baptists (ECB), whereas Russia, with a population of 142 million, is home to 76,000 ECB faithful.55 

Protestant Separatism Versus Political Engagement 

In the course of 70-plus years of persecution and discrimination, Ukrainian and Russian evangelicals developed an isolationist, siege mentality, rejecting any involvement in Soviet political or social life. However, in Ukraine, following independence, evangelical  isolationism began to erode, first in the 2004-05 Orange Revolution, but especially in the Maidan demonstrations between November 2013 and February 2014. 

Kyiv-based evangelical scholar Sergiy Tymchenko finds three political orientations among Ukrainian Protestants today. Some, as in Soviet times, still eschew any involvement in political life. They “want to stay away from politics altogether and view themselves as citizens only of the ‘heavenly fatherland’.” Others, especially in Ukraine’s east and south, Tymchenko notes, “approve the Kremlin’s actions.” A third stance – and this is new in post-Soviet experience – is the view that active participation in politics is a Christian duty, in this case supporting the Maidan demonstrations in a “struggle…for an independent and just society.”56 

Ukrainian-Russian Evangelical Strained Relations 

Another of the consequences of the Ukrainian crisis has been increasingly strained relations between Ukrainian and Russian evangelicals, which run counter to longstanding, intimate ties that previously had united them. As with the general population, many Ukrainian evangelicals have family relations in Russia. Not a few Russian Evangelical Christian–Baptist (ECB) leaders are of Ukrainian origin.57 For example, before the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian Hrihorii Komendant served in Moscow as general secretary of the All-Union Council of the ECB; and prominent Moscow ECB layman and academic, Alexander Zaichenko, was born in Sevastopol, is Ukrainian by nationality, but is Russian by working language and education. In addition, after the fall of the Soviet Union many hundreds of Ukrainian Pentecostal and Baptist missionaries moved to Russia, especially to Siberia and the Russian Far East, serving as church planters.58 

Given the Ukrainian contribution to the spread of the Gospel in Russia, many Ukrainian evangelicals have been disappointed by the attitudes of their northern brethren in the current political crisis. They sense correctly that, as a rule, many Russians, including many evangelicals, cannot understand why Ukrainians want to be independent: “Many Russians think that Ukraine is and should remain a province of Russia,”59 and they reject the idea that the two peoples “truly represent two distinct and different cultures.”60 As a pastor in Kharkiv put it, “Russians see even Ukrainian independence as an unfortunate misunderstanding.”61 

As noted earlier, some Russian evangelicals hold to the traditional, isolationist position of non-involvement in worldly politics, blended with passive submission to authority, in this case Putin, as defined in Romans 13.62 Russian evangelicals of this persuasion were taken aback by the active participation of many Ukrainian evangelicals in the anti-Yanukovich Maidan demonstrations.63 The gulf between the two sides causes some to yearn for days of old when evangelicals had in common their opposition to an atheist state. Journalist William Yoder sensed “sadness and nostalgia” in the prayer of a Russian Baptist layman in a 2 March service: “Remind us of how it was when we were still brothers!”64 

Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries, and later Mission Network News, posted an anonymous but particularly insightful evangelical critique of Russian Christian perceptions of the Ukraine crisis that bears repeating. Boris Holowka (a pseudonym) notes that many Russian evangelicals hold positions on the Ukrainian crisis that parallel those of the Kremlin. 

1. The European Union [EU] is considered to represent “dissolute western culture with its promotion of the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] agenda, so by opting for the EU, Ukraine will sink into immorality.”
2.  “The West is being hypocritical in condemning Russia, while it has violated many international laws, e.g. regarding Kosovo, Iraq, Vietnam, etc.” 
3.  “Scripture tells us to respect our rulers and laws; those supporting the coup in Ukraine are violating God’s law. And Putin must be obeyed because his authority comes from God.”
4. “Justice (a Biblical virtue) is served by returning Crimea to Russia, because it was unjustly severed in 1954.” And in contradiction of the above,
5.  “Christians should be concerned with heavenly matters and not be involved in politics.” 

A Belarus pastor points out that Russia has never repudiated its communist past. Russia never had a Nuremberg trial, or sent KGB operatives to jail. In fact, all of its sordid past was covered up and the archives closed. Russians excuse themselves by laying all the blame on the USSR. Yet the USSR is still strong in the hearts of the Russian people, a significant number of whomwould call themselves “atheist Orthodox.” Putin called the fall of the Soviet Union a great tragedy and the recent toppling of the statue of Lenin in Kyiv a violation. Pro-Russian protestors in Ukraine and Russia wave the old, hammer-and-sickle Soviet flag with religious fervor. Popular Russian newspapers are still entitled Soviet Sport and Moscow Komsomol. While it persists in living in the past, Russia continually imagines external threats: Jews, The U.S. military, fascists, West European liberalism and immorality, etc. 

The predominantly Orthodox majority in Russia has always viewed evangelicals as subversive. Today this is compounded by official Russian propaganda which plays up the fact that the interim, “illegal” president of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov was a Baptist, that is, “not one of us”….So Russian Evangelicals’ new nationalist spirit also appears to include an effort to prove that they are not “foreign agents.” the new pejorative.65 

In contrast to Boris Holowka, Mennonite journalist William Yoder, affiliated with the Russian Evangelical Alliance and the Russian Evangelical ChristianBaptist Union Department of External Relations, has interpreted events surrounding the Ukrainian crisis in ways that run counter to prevailing Western and Ukrainian perspectives: 

1.  Russia isjustifiably nervous over the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO; 
2. “Ukrainian Protestant leadership has toed the line of the country’s pro-Western and pro-EU parties;” 
3. In July 2013 Ukrainian Evangelical ChristiansBaptists opposed Ukrainian President Yanukovich’s introduction of Russian as asecondary official language in parts of Ukraine. Yet attempts in February 2014 by Kyiv’s Parliament to repeal the Russian language’s official status naturally alarmed Ukraine’s Russian minority; and 
4.  As regards Maidan casualties, Christian ministries should consider support for the families of slain policemen as well as the families of slain protesters in order to “underline the non-partisan peacemaking character of the Gospel.66 

In sharp response one ministry reacted as follows: The commentary of Dr. William Yoder is a mix of naïve faith in the authority of Russia, loyalty to his employers, and lack of understanding…. You cannot talk about peacemaking while avoiding the truth and failing to distinguish between the aggressor and the victim….Yoder should have begun with an acknowledgement of the obvious fact of Russian intervention…. What is even more noticeable and sad is his lack of empathy and sympathy for the tragic events in Ukraine.67 

For the most part, Russian evangelicals have not aired their political preferences, choosing instead to maintain a low profile in the Ukraine conflict. Russian evangelical leaders in particular were slow to comment on the Ukrainian crisis in public, and many of their pronouncements demonstrated pained discomfort as they attempted not to take sides. Vitaly Vlasenko, head of the ECB Department of External Relations, for example, on 13 March, wrote “God is not for one side at the expense of the other….We want to demonstrate our love – and God’s love – for those on all sides.”68 Undoubtedly, the reticence of some Russian evangelical leaders stems from a fear of the consequences, should they take exception to Kremlin policies on Ukraine.69 As Tetiana Mukhomorova observed, Putin has “such vertical control in spiritual circles” that any church pronouncement not in conformity with government policy “is going to be very expensive.”70 

Exceptions to the Russian Evangelical Low Profile 

Two exceptions to the Russian evangelical low profile are Yuri Tsipko and Sergey Ryakhovsky. The former, previously president of the ECB, but now taking independent positions with no official imprimatur, wrote on 3 March, “Russia can never wash away the shame for such brazen lies and aggression against the brotherly people of Ukraine. There is never any excuse for violence. There is no justification for an armed intervention in Ukraine.”71 Bishop Ryakhovsky, head of the Charismatic and Pentecostal “Associated Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith,” is the sole Protestant representative on the Russian presidential Council for Cooperation with Religious Organizations. Known for his frequent support for Kremlin policies, he has already visited Russian-occupied Crimea to facilitate ties between the peninsula’s Pentecostal churches and those in Russia proper.72 Thus lending indirect legitimacy to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, he has taken a political step that not even Patriarch Kyrill has seen fit to indulge. 

The nationalistic, patriotic fervor that is sweeping Russia is another reason few of the country’s evangelicals are likely to object to Kremlin moves against Ukraine. Increasingly xenophobic Russia equates dissent of any kind with support for the enemy, and the enemy of convenience today is the West in general and the U.S. in particular. Many Russian evangelicals believe it prudent to stress their native roots, their Russian patriotism, and to downplay their historic ties with Western churches and missionaries. 

Two Ukrainian-Russian Evangelical Meetings 

Two meetings of Ukrainian and Russian evangelicals in April 2014 sought to reconcile growing differences. In Kyiv on 8 April Evangelical Christian–Baptist presidents Vyacheslav Nesteruk of Ukraine and Alexey Smirnov of Russia met to seek common ground. In reference to the Maidan demonstrations, their joint communique managed to “mourn those killed in mass clashes on both sides of the conflict….We call on our brothers and sisters in the churches of Russia and Ukraine to pray for a peaceful resolution of the political confrontation between our two countries.”73 In contrast to Ryakhovsky’s Crimean foray, Vitaly Vlasenko, a Russian ECB participant in the Kyiv meeting, assured Ukrainian Baptists that the 68 ECB congregations in Crimea are free to remain a part of Nesteruk’s Ukrainian union, notwithstanding Russian annexation.74 

The second, larger meeting on 9-11 April lacked the harmony of the first and ended with no joint declaration. Even agreeing upon participants and venue proved difficult. Ukrainian evangelicals found it discomforting dealing with a Russian delegation headed by so pro-Kremlin a figure as Sergey Ryakhovsky, while Russian evangelicals would not agree to Maidan activist Mikhailo Cherenkov serving as a mediator for such a meeting.75 For this second conclave Ukrainians would not concede to any venue in Russia, Belarus, or Turkey, and Russians declined to meet again in Ukraine. For their deliberations the two sides finally settled upon Jerusalem, a city sadly steeped in its own religious discord. Bishop Konstantin Bendas of the Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostal) sought to steer discussions away from Ukrainian-Russian conflict, favoring instead to focus on “our spiritual responsibility for the unity of the church, that is, about things that are above politics.” For their part, Ukrainians in Jerusalem could not move Russian evangelicals to condemn Russia’s takeover of Crimea. Bishop Myhailo Panochka of the Ukrainian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostal) recalled, “One got the impression that they were simply afraid of the word aggression, and they did not admit that Russia had robbed Ukraine by seizing territory.” 76 Siberian Bishop Edward Grabovenko of the same Pentecostal union as Panochka later wrote that the Jerusalem meetings brought him “pain, grief, and resentment. I returned home with a heavy heart.”77 

The Impact of the Ukrainian Crisis on Missionaries The impact of the Ukrainian crisis on missionary efforts in the former Soviet Union varies dramatically depending upon location. Missionaries serving in western and central Ukraine, including the capital of Kyiv, have not been affected negatively – to the extent that their work is centered in Ukraine. However, missionaries based in Ukraine with significant involvement in ministry in other post-Soviet republics, particularly Russia, have experienced major disruption. Since independence Ukraine has frequently served as a venue for church and ministry meetings involving participants from many former Soviet republics, and those gatherings are now being scaled back, postponed, or cancelled. Likewise, Ukrainian-based missionaries working throughout the former Soviet Union cannot expect to travel as freely as they have previously.78 Western Christian missions headquartered in Ukraine, such as Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries and the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), do not have the easy relationship with Russian evangelicals that they enjoyed even a year ago. Thus, Ukrainian evangelicals and missionaries based in Ukraine have a much harder time speaking or carrying out ministry projects in Russia. Russians even consider “a Christian Russian-language website for children…suspect because it originates in Ukraine.”79 

Of course, most directly and immediately affected is ministry in Crimea, now annexed by Russia. An evangelical journalist in Kyiv and an evangelical educator in Odesa report efforts to provide aid and housing to Tatar refugees leaving Crimea in the wake of the Russian takeover.80 A missionary survey respondent in Russia wrote, “We have a mobile medical clinic ministry in Ukraine, and every summer we go to Crimea. That trip will not be possible and the crisis may prevent other outreaches.”81 A Kyiv-based missionary assisting private Christian elementary education relates that a school in Sevastopol, Crimea, has offered to donate its Ukrainian-language textbooks to a school in Ukraine because they will be shifting to a Russian curriculum.82 Meanwhile, Evangelical ChristiansBaptists, Pentecostals, and Orthodox in Crimea are all facing tensions over whether to continue affiliation with headquarters in Kyiv or Moscow.83 

As the U.S. increases support to Ukraine, American and other Western missionaries are likely to continue to be welcome, especially in western and central Ukraine, but less so in eastern and southern Ukraine and Crimea.84 Missionaries across Ukraine report rising levels of anxiety as the crisis drags on. One missionary in Kyiv writes, As we drove past the entrance to the city zoo with its ever-present balloon vendors…[we] both experienced almost a sense of confusion at the surreal scene before us. Is Ukraine really on the brink of war with Russia? For the most part, life on the surface in Kyiv has returned to normal after a long winter of violent demonstrations. Still, there are those “dull headaches, frequent insomnia, and constant fatigue.”85 A missionary counselor reports increased stress, depression, and anxiety.86 Some missionaries have moved from eastern to western Ukraine, and others have departed the country. However, from survey responses it appears most missionaries hope, short of war, to stay the course. Suitcases may be packed and evacuation plans may be in place,87 but missionary respondents stated that they hoped to remain in Ukraine. “Embedded missionaries with good relationships with nationals should be able to weather any storm.”88 “I know people in my team would stay here as long as we can.”89 “Of course the level of anxiety is high,” but we “will stay except in the event of war.”90 A particularly nuanced reflection comes from Sue Fuller, an American missionary serving in the Russian Far East: 

Please be praying for the situation with Ukraine and Russia. I, of course, have my opinions, but as far as everyone else is concerned I try and be as neutral as possible. There is so much culture, history, politics, money, nationalism, pride, etc. tied up in this situation, it would be hard for anyone to make sense of it. So let’s focus on praying for the families who have lost loved ones in the uprisings in Ukraine. Pray for the people of Crimea who are in a time of transition. Pray for wisdom, cool heads, and diplomacy. No matter what decisions are made by our countries the Russians who I have contact with are very kind and good to me and can separate people from their governments and what they do. Let’s do the same and continue to love and pray for good things for the Russian people.91 

Not surprisingly, most of all, missionaries call for prayer. Back in Kyiv, “We cannot even imagine how this current conflict will play out. Please join us in prayer.”92 

Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries: A Case Study93 

A case study of the impact of the Ukraine crisis on one Christian mission may prove instructive. Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries, known as the Association for Spiritual Renewal in the former Soviet Union, was founded in 1991 by its namesake and his wife, Peter and Anita Deyneka. This mission is a spinoff of Slavic Gospel Association, founded in 1933 by Byelorussian immigrant to Chicago, Peter Deyneka, Sr. 

Russian Ministries is widely respected in mission circles for its diverse, good work in radio broadcast programming, Scripture and Christian literature distribution, promotion of networking among postSoviet Protestant churches and Western missions, support for theological education, especially through the Bible Pulpit Series which has published dozens of texts for use in Protestant seminaries, the promotion of evangelism and church planting, and training for the next generation of Christian leaders in the former Soviet Union. In 2007-08 Wheaton-based Russian Ministries moved its overseas headquarters from Moscow to Irpen, a suburb of Kyiv, because conditions were freer for Protestant ministry in Ukraine than in Russia.

Following the death of Peter Deyneka, Jr. in 2000, his wife Anita served as a worthy successor from 2002 until 2010 when the presidential mantle was passed to Sergey Rakhuba. A Russian from Ukraine who immigrated to the U.S., he attended Moody Bible Institute and began working with the Deynekas in 1991. Today this mission continues its tradition of multi-faceted outreach by assisting Slavic refugees, by hosting conferences, workshops, and training sessions for Slavic Christian workers, and through Christian literature distribution. Currently Russian Ministries is having 200,000 copies of the Gospel of Luke printed in Russian for eastern Ukraine and 200,000 copies in Ukrainian for western parts of the country. This publication of the Gospel of Luke includes “prayers for repentance, peacemaking, and healing for the nation.”94

On 21 March 2014, Russian Ministries hosted a conference at its Irpen headquarters for young Christian doctors, lawyers, educators, and entrepreneurs entitled “Missions in the Professional Sphere: Christian Responsibility for Transforming Society.” Over 100 attended the event, but “escalating violence and the Russian annexation of Crimea” led to a decision to scale back a gathering originally planned to include over 1,000 participants.95 Even before the beginning of the Maidan demonstrations in November 2013, Russian Ministries was finding work in Russia less rewarding than in Ukraine. Arguably its most ambitious outreach for years has been its School Without Walls, a decentralized, non-formal training program for Christian leaders. In the 2012-13 school year, out of a total of 2,972 students across 11 former Soviet republics and Mongolia, sessions in Ukraine accounted for 1,017 students (34 percent), compared to Russia accounting for 465 students (16 percent).96 

A Turning to God

While Western missions such as Rakhuba’s face new challenges in adapting to political instability, a silver lining in Ukraine’s present ordeal deserves note. Increasing numbers of people are looking to God for solace and peace of mind. Over and over again, the author’s email survey conducted in late March and early April 2014 confirmed this spiritual dimension. An assistant pastor and journalist from Odesa wrote, “In the period of anger people remember God.”97 A Protestant believer in Kyiv wrote, “During the tension…many are more open to thinking about deep questions of value and purpose in life.” Ukraine’s best hope is “that the pressure will help people… recognize that we all have sin and selfishness,” that “we need to repent…and submit…totally to God’s authority.”98 A Protestant missionary in Moscow desires that “people will watch how Christians handle this crisis and hopefully begin to ask questions and feel the need to draw closer to God.”99 A Protestant missionary in Kyiv wrote, “My hope is that…many will have a greater hunger for God and His Word.”100 Another missionary in Kyiv hopes the crisis “will lead unbelievers to see their need for something beyond themselves and turn to God.”101 

Worst Fears 

In contrast to the above positive answers to a survey question soliciting best outcomes for the crisis, when asked for their worst fear, over half of respondents cited the prospect of war and a Russian takeover of Ukraine.102 In such a case, many anticipate trying times for evangelical believers and missionaries in Ukraine. An American Protestant human rights lawyer fears the prospect in Crimea of “discrimination and bad feelings toward Protestants and other nonOrthodox groups, particularly Tatar Muslims.”103 The possibility of Russia expelling missionaries from Ukraine is a frequently noted concern.104 A Protestant missionary in Dnepropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine also fears Russian “suppression of evangelicals.”105 An evangelical pastor in Kharkiv, also in eastern Ukraine, believes a Russian invasion of Ukraine would mean a “cancellation of Ukrainian independence,…civil war, devastation of the country, a Putin dictatorship” and “the Russian Orthodox Church as the only recognized confession.”106

 A less apocalyptic scenario for possible consequences of a Russian occupation of Ukraine given by a Protestant missionary in Kyiv would appear to be closer to the mark: I fear that people will not have the freedoms they desire if they come under the control of Russia. I fear that the minority faith groups will be placed in a role of second class faiths and that those who serve as missionaries alongside the minority faith groups will find access to Ukraine more difficult.107 

The reason this prediction seems perfectly plausible is because what the respondent describes is exactly what has been happening in Russia over the past decade, but especially in the past few years. Human rights lawyer Lauren Homer, with expertise in religious rights infringements in Russia and China, has documented this regrettable trend under Putin in painful particularity.108 

Religious Trajectories: Seven Projections 

Whether or not Russia ends up seizing more of Ukraine than Crimea, several current religious trajectories will likely continue. 

1. Western missionaries will likely continue to face growing impediments in Russia, Crimea, and possibly eastern and southern Ukraine.
2. Western missionaries in Ukraine free of Russian interference will likely continue to be welcome and active.
3.  In the midst of ever-mounting violence across eastern and southern Ukraine, it will likely become ever more difficult for missions based in Ukraine to function in Russia. 
4.  Evangelical churches in Russia will likely continue to face increasing restrictions to their freedom of worship, with the same consequence for any part of Ukraine that Russia might occupy.
5.  Relations between Ukrainian and Russian evangelicals will likely continue to remain strained.
6. In an independent Ukraine, the Ukrainian Eastern-Rite Catholic Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kyiv Patriarchate, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church will all strongly support the country’s European orientation.
7.  Finally, short of Russian occupation of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate will likely succeed in resisting Patriarch Kyrill’s “wide-scale plans for consolidation of the ‘Russian world,’” and may, in time, achieve autocephalous status with the support of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.109 

In Conclusion

 From the perspective of those who favor a stable, independent Ukraine, whether the worst- or the bestcase political scenario is realized, the experience of the church in communist China suggests that even a dreaded political outcome need not spell decline for people of faith. The encouraging fact is that Christianity in China has grown dramatically since 1949 despite concerted government attempts to suppress it. Christians in Ukraine and Russia will hopefully take heart in the biblical promise that, in the end, “the gates of hell will not prevail.” 

Notes:

1. “A Home for Every Orphan: An Interview with Anita Deyneka”, East-West Church and Ministry Report 19 (Winter 2011), 3. 
2.  Alliance for Ukraine Without Orphans; http:// en.ukrainabezsyrit.org; email from Anita Deyneka to author, 12 May 2014. 
3. Anonymous, email to author, 24 April 2014; Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries email circular, 16 May 2014. 
4. Paul Goble, “Russians Leaving Orthodox Church for Other Christian Denominations, Moscow Experts Say,” Window on Eurasia, 16 April 2013; http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot. com/2013/04/window-on-eurasia-…; Ministry of Culture of Ukraine; http://mincult.kmu.gov.ua/.
5.  Patricia Herlihy, “Crisis in Society and Religion in Ukraine, Religion in Eastern Europe 14 (April 1994). 
6. Ministry of Culture of Ukraine; http://minicult.kmu.gov. ua/; Michael Bourdeaux, “Challenge to Patriarch Kyrill, The London Times, 15 March 2014. 
7. Antoine Arjakovsky, “The Role of the Churches in the Ukrainian Revolution,” ABC Religion and Ethics, 7 March 2014; http://www.abc.net.au/religion/ articles/2014/03/06/3958163.htm. 
8.  Vladislav Maltsev, “Brother Slavs and Mother Church; Conflict of Russia and Ukraine Places Moscow Patriarchate at Brink of Schism,” NG-Religiia, 5 March 2014; Nikolai Mitrokhin, “Aspects of the Religious Situation in Ukraine,” Religion, State, and Society 29 (September 2001), 186-87. 
9. “Metropolitan Onufry of Chernovtsy and Bukovina Becomes a Permanent Member of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church,” website of the Russian Orthodox Church Department of External Church Relations, 21 March 2014; http://mospat.ru/en/2014/03/19/news99770/; Erasmus, “Ukraine’s Changing Churches; Moscow’s (Religious) Reply to Kiev,” 26 February 2014; http://www.economist.com/blogs/ erasmus/2014/02/ukraines-changing-churches. 
10. “Guardian of Kiev See Metropolitan Onufry Urges Vladimir Putin to Prevent Division of Ukraine,” portal-credo. ru, 7 April 2014; Cyril Hovorun, “Christians in Ukraine: Ecumenism in the Trenches,” The Catholic World Report, 4 March 2014. 
11. Vladislav Maltsev, “Ecclesiastical Fruits of Crimean Spring,” NG-Religii, 2 April 2014. 12“A Declaration’s Mutation,” ReligioPolis, 
12. March 2014. 
13. Maltsev, “Ecclesiastical Fruit.”
14. “Guardian.” 
15. “Priests of UPTsMP and UPTsKP Find Themselves on Opposite Sides of Barricades in Lugansk,” Religiia v Ukraine, 23 April 2014; “UPT Bishops React Angrily to Slaviansk Mayor’s Statement about Local Clergy’s Participation in Armed Actions,” Religiia v Ukraine, 16 April 2014. 
16. Ministry of Culture of Ukraine; http://mincult.kmu.gov.ua/. 
17. Janice Broun, “Jurisdictional Conflicts Annoy Orthodox and Eastern-Rite Catholics in Russia and Ukraine,” EastWest Church and Ministry Report 5 (Summer 1997), 8-9; Bourdeaux, “Challenge.” 
18. Broun, “Jurisdictional Conflicts,” 8; Herlihy, “Crisis.” 
19. “UPTsMP Metropolitan Calls Vladimir Putin ‘Bandit,’” RISU, 21 March 2014. 
20. “Yatseniuk and Patriarch Filaret Discuss Problems of Church-State Relations,” RISU, 4 April 2014; “Ukrainian Metropolitan Avgustian Collects Funds for the Murder of His Flock – Political Scholar,” Interfax – Religiia, 18 April 2014; “Head of UPTsKP Calls Authorities to Be Decisive in Defense of Ukraine from Foreign Aggressor,” Religiia v Ukraine, 23 April 2014; “UPTsKP Blessed Believers to Raise Funds for the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” portal – credo.ru, 31 March 2014. 
21. “Ukrainian, Russian Church Leaders Trade Accusations on Easter,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 20 April 2014; “Head,” Religiia v Ukraine, 23 April 2014. 22Ministry of Culture of Ukraine; http://mincult.kmu.gov.ua/. 
22. Bourdeaux, “Challenge;” Herlihy, “Crisis;” Broun, “Jurisdictional Conflicts,” 9; Hovorun, “Christians in Ukraine.”
23. Eliot Borenstein, “The Cathedral of Christ the Savior as Scandal and Haunted House,” East-West Church and Ministry Report 22 (Spring 2014), 7-8; Mara Kozelsky, “Don’t Underestimate Importance of Religion for Understanding Russia’s Actions in Crimea,” Washington Post, 13 March 2014;http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/13/d...; Gabriela Baczynska, “Russian Orthodox Church Sings from Putin Hymn Sheet on Ukraine,” Reuters, 7 March 2014. 
24. Maltsev, “Brother Slavs;” Baczynska, “Russian Orthodox;” Sophia Kishkovsky, “Ukrainian Crisis May Split Russian Orthodox Church,” Religion News Service, 14 March 2014; William Yoder, “Weeping with Those Who Weep; Hot and Cold Showers in Ukraine and Russia,” press release, 21 April 2014; rea-moskva.org; Vladimir Oivin, “Interview with Roman Lunkin, President of the Guild of Experts on Religion and Law,” portal-credo.ru, 20 March 2014. 
25. Baczynska, “Russian Orthodox.” 
26. Bourdeaux, “Challenge.”
27. Baczynska, “Russian Orthodox.” 
28. “Patriarch Kyrill Compares Events in Ukraine to 1917 Revolution,” Interfax, 7 April 2014. 
29. “Ukraine, Russian Church.” 
30. Maltsev, “Brother Slavs;” Yoder, “Weeping;”
31. Maltsev, “Brother Slavs.” 
32. Maltsev, “Brother Slavs;” “Vladimir Legoida Opposes Equal Dialogue with UPTsMP; Emphasizes That Crimean Dioceses Remain in Ukrainian Church,” portal-credo.ru, 24 March 2014. 
33. Maltsev, “Brother Slavs.” 
34. Kishkovsky, “Ukrainian Crisis.” 
35. “Statement of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church,” 20 March 2014; http://risu.org.ua/en/index/all_ news/orthox/moscow_patriarchy/55802. 
36. “Patriarch Kyrill Thinks Those Who Wish ‘To Rip Southern and Western Russian Lands from Single World’ Enemies,” RISU, 14 March 2014; “Holy Synod.” 
37. “Patriarch Kirill: Ukraine’s Sovereignty Should Not Destroy ‘Russian World,’” Religiia v Ukraine, 14 March 2014; Baczynska, “Russian Orthodox.” 
38. Maltsev, “Brother Slavs.” 
39. Kishkovsky, “Ukrainian Crisis.” See also Arjakovsky, “The Role;” and John Rees, “Religion and the Ukrainian Crisis: Four Key Questions,” Religionfactor, 6 March 2014; http:// religionfactor.net/2014/03/06/religion-and-the-ukrainecrisis-four...,” 
40. Kishkovsky, “Ukrainian Crisis.” 
41. Hovorun, “Christians in Ukraine.” 
42. Antoine Arjakovsky, “Ukraine’s Churches: Inspiring and Confusing,” Moscow Times, 21 February 2014. 
43. “Memorial Prayers for Heroes of Heavenly Century,” Religiia v Ukraine, 1 April 2014.
44. Arjakovsky, “The Role.” See also “Ukrainian Churchmen Side with the People Amid Anti-Russian Riots,” Fox News, 18 February 2014; http://www.examiner.com/article/ukrainianchurchmen-side-with-the-people-amid-anti-russian-riots. 
45. Hovorun, “Christians in Ukraine;” “Head of UGKTs Calls Metropolitan ‘To Look Truth in the Eye’ and Not Consider Greek Catholics ‘Root of All Evils’,” Religiia v Ukraine, 23 April 2014; “USA Secretary of State Notes Peacemaking Role of Ukrainian Churches,”Religiia v Ukraine, 5 March 2014. 
46.  Kishkovsky, “Ukrainian Crisis.” 
47. Oivin, “Interview with Roman Lunkin.” 
48. Arjakovsky, “Ukraine’s Churches.” 
49. Maltsev, “Brother Slavs;” Kishkovsky, “Ukrainian Crisis;” Erasmus, “Ukrainian’s Changing Churches;” “Patriarch Kyrill,” Interfax; “Guardian.” 
50.  Mark Elliott, “Uniates (Eastern-Rite Catholics),” Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, Vol.
51.  (1985), 210-19; Bourdeaux, “Challenge;” Herlihy, “Crisis.” 
52. Ministry of Culture of Ukraine; http://mincult.kmu.gov.ua/. 
53. Herlihy, “Crisis.” 
54. Arjakovsky, “The Role.” 
55.  Mark Elliott and Caleb Connor, compilers, “Christian Confessions and Denominations in Post-Soviet States: By the Numbers,” East-West Church and Ministry Report 21 (Spring 2013): 9-10. 
56. “The Current and Possible Impact of the Ukrainian Crisis on Ukrainian Protestants,” East-West Church and Ministry Report 22 (Summer 2014): 22-23. 
57. William Yoder, “Remembering How It Was When We Were Still Brothers; How Russian Evangelicals Are Responding to the Crisis in Ukraine,” press release, 8 March 2014; reamoskva.org. 
58. Tetiana Mukhomorova, “When a Brother Doesn’t Hear His Brother: Post-Maidan Problems in Relations between Ukrainian and Russian Protestants,” 25 March 2014; http:// risu.org.ua/en/index/expert_thought/open_theme/55861/; John White to author, 24 April 2014; Alexander Popov, “In Ukraine There Is a Radical Popular Revolution;” Megapolis, 19 April 2014; christianmegapolis.com. 
59. Popov, “In Ukraine.”
60. Yoder, “Remembering.” 
61. Survey response to author, 28 March 2014. 
62. Popov, “In Ukraine;” survey response to author, 28 March 2014. 
63. Survey response to author from Moscow evangelical academic, 18 March 2014. 
64. Yoder, “Remembering.”
65. Boris Holowka, “Our Struggle is Against the Spiritual Forces of Wickedness in Heavenly Places,” 15 April 2014, Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries email circular; Greg Yoder, “Ukraine-Russia Conflict Broken Down,” Mission Network News, 24 April 2014; www.mnnonline.org/news/ukrainerussia-conflict-broken/. 
66. Yoder, “Weeping.” 
67. M. Kuznetsov, “No Empathy, No Truth Regarding William Yoder’s ‘Commentary’,” Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries email circular, 19 March 2014. 
68. “Official Statement about Ukraine from Russian Baptist Union,” 13 March 2014; http://www.field2force. com/2014/03/official-statement-about-ukraine-fromrussian-baptist-union/. 
69. Ivan Vladimirov, “Events in Ukraine. Reaction [of] Protestant Community.” Analytics, 19 March 2014. 
70. Mukhomorova, “When a Brother Doesn’t Hear.” 
71. Yoder, “Remembering.” See also Mukhomorova, “When Brother Does Not Hear.” 
72.  “Polnomochnyi predstavitel’ episkopa Sergeya Ryakhovskogo posetit Ukrainu,” Novosti ROSKHVE RSS, 30 April 2014; http://www.cef.ru/news/roshve/?id=8452. 
73. Associated Baptist Press, “Russian.” 
74. Yoder, “Weeping.” 
75. Yoder, “Weeping.”
76. “Senior Bishop Mikhail Panochkla: Russian Pastors Avoid Word Aggression for Russia’s Relations with Ukraine,” Religiia v Ukraine, 23 April 2014; Sergey Kireev, interview with K.Bendas, Living Faith Media, 23 April 2014, afmedia. ru; Mukhomorova, “When Brother Does Not Hear.”
77. Yoder, “Weeping.” 
78. 8“Report on the Ministry of Raymond and Cindy LeClair,” 25 April 2014. 
79. Holowka, “Our Struggle.”
80. Survey responses to author, 19 March and 28 March 2014. 
81. Survey response to author, 8 April 2014. 
82. “Report…LeClair.” 
83. Holowka, “Our Struggle.” 
84. Survey response to author, 15 March 2014. 
85. “Report…LeClair.” 
86. Email from Oleg Turlac to author, 7 April 2014. 
87. Email of Cindy LeClair to author, 27 March 2014. 
88.  Survey response to author, 19 March 2014. 
89. Survey response to author, March 2014. 
90. Email from Dennis Bowen to author, 25 March 2014. 
91. Sue Fuller to author, 28 March 2014. 
92. “Report…LeClair.” 
93. Richard D. Scheuerman, Telling, Sharing, Doing; Deyneka Russian Ministries and Eastern European Education Initiativves, 1990-2010 (Seattle, WA: Center for Global Curricular Studies, Seattle Pacific University, 2011); rdscheuerman.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/telling-sharingdoing-deyneka-ministry-story.pdf; Mark R. Elliott, ed., Vospriyatie velikoi strany/ Perceptions of a Great Country (Moscow: Association for Spiritual Renewal, 2002): 8-21; 38-50. 
94. Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries email circular, 4 May 2014. 
95. Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries email circular, 26 April 2014. 
96. Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries Annual Report, 2013. 
97. Survey response to author, 1 April 2014. 
98. Survey response to author, 4 April 2014. 
99. Survey response to author, March 2014. 
100. Survey response to author, 15 March 2014.
101. Survey response to author, 14 March 2014. 
102. Multiple survey responses to author dated between 18 March and 8 April 2014. 
103. Survey response to author, March 2014. 
104. Survey responses to author, 14 March 2014 and 15 March 2014. 
105. Survey response to author, 14 March 2014. 
106. Survey response to author, 28 March 2014. 
107. Survey response to author, 14 March 2014. 
108. Lauren Homer, “Growing Russian Restrictions on Religious Activities,” East-West Church and Ministry Report 22 (Summer 2014). 
109. Survey response to author, 1 April 2014. Mark R. Elliott is editor of the East-West Church and Ministry Report.

Mark R. Elliott is editor of the East-West Church and Ministry Report