Mark R. Elliott
Numerical Losses It is, of course, impossible to document fully the devastation and trauma suffered by the population of Ukraine following the Russian appropriation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Civilian casualties in the military confrontation in the Donbas (the Don River Basin of Donetsk and Luhansk Regions) total nearly 7,000 dead and 14,740 wounded. Military losses include 1,657 Ukrainian Army dead, an unknown number of east Ukrainian separatist fatalities, and at least 220 Russian Federation fighters killed. The conflict has also made refugees of nearly one-anda-quarter million people: 1,227,145 displaced, with 633,523 seeking safety in central and western Ukraine and 593,622 in Russia.1 For the remaining 3.25 million people of the prewar Donbas population of 4.5 million, suffering in the past year has been intense, even for those who were not direct casualties of the fighting. The destruction of housing, the loss of heat and hygiene because of disrupted utilities, the malnourishment and starvation resulting from unemployment, loss of pensions, and food shortages—all threaten the very survival of the civilian population of eastern Ukraine.
In addition, in Donbas and Russian-annexed Crimea, believers not belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (UOCMP) have suffered severe infringements upon their free exercise of religion. At the same time, considerable numbers of UOCMP parishes, primarily in postMaidan central and western Ukraine, have endured less-drastic, but nevertheless troubling, harassment. The accompanying charts do not encompass all forms of violations of freedom of conscience as a result of the Ukrainian conflict, a dramatic example being the ongoing difficulties with Russian re-registration of a thousand-plus non-UOCMP churches and mosques in Crimea.2 Nevertheless, documenting specific instances of troubles faced by individual churches, church-related institutions, pastors, priests, and parishioners, while admittedly incomplete, does graphically personalize the continuing affronts to religious liberty in war-torn Ukraine. A report prepared by a respected evangelical mission estimates that in 2014 some 100 non-UOCMP churches and church-related institutions were closed, 54 churches were seized or destroyed, and hundreds of clergy and church workers were abducted, with over 40 kidnapped persons unaccounted for.3
Representative of these infringements on freedom of conscience, the following charts provide a sampling of specific details: the seizure or closure of 30- plus Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kyiv Patriarchate (UOCKP), 24 Protestant, and two Ukrainian Greek Catholic (UGCC) churches, schools, orphanages, and rehab centers in eastern Ukraine and Crimea between April 2014 and March 2015. Available documentation also allows the following charts to provide specifics of the detention (typically including threats and/or beatings) and/or flight of individual pastors, priests, and church workers (39 Protestant, 17 Roman Catholic, nine UOCKP, and three UGCC) in eastern Ukraine and Crimea between February and December 2014. In addition, reliable sources permit the identification of 41 individual Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate parishes that have suffered harassment or violence, primarily at the hands of Kyiv Patriarchate Orthodox supporters, between March 2014 and April 2015.
Sources
Underscoring the difficulty of identifying all instances of infringements of freedom of worship, Donetsk Pentecostal Pastor Sergei Kosiak, himself arrested and tortured by separatists, kept a tally of Protestant kidnappings and church seizures until there were “so many I stopped counting.”4 And as of April 2015 one pastor alone, Peter Dudnik of the Slaviansk Good News Church of God, knew of the repression in eastern Ukraine of 40 Protestant communities.5 For its part, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate charges that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kyiv Patriarchate has of late seized some 30 of its parishes in western Ukraine,with an additional 54 UOCMP parishes in Ternopol Region said to be under UOCKP threat. 6
Four sources proved especially helpful in documenting specific instances of violations of religious rights. The 209-page report, Religious Persecution in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea 2014, was prepared by Mission Eurasia (formerly Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries, with offices in Irpen, Ukraine, and Wheaton, Illinois, USA). When God Becomes the Weapon; Persecution Based on Religious Beliefs in the Armed Conflict in Eastern Ukraine (April 2015; http://www.irs.in.ua/files/publications/2015.04_Report_ Religious_persecution_in_occupied_Donbas_eng. pdf) is a 21-page report prepared by the International Partnership for Human Rights (Brussels), the Center for Civil Liberties (Kyiv), and the Institute for Religious Freedom (Kyiv), with funding from the Open Society Foundation. Paul Steeves, retired professor of history, Stetson University, Deland, Florida, USA, translates and posts reportage on his Russia Religion News website (www2stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/). Finally, Norwegian-based Forum 18 News Service (www.forum18.org) monitors violations of religious rights in the former Soviet Union.
Caveats and Comments
In closing, regarding sources, a few caveats and comments are in order. As previously noted, the given tallies of infringements upon the free exercise of religion are admittedly incomplete. Moreover, with completely objective sources being rare commodities, weighing pro-Ukrainian against pro-Russian sources may afford some modicum of balance. Some accounts exaggerate while others minimize or deny church and clergy repression, with the facts of the matter presumably residing somewhere in between. Finally, individuals and locations in Ukraine identified in the following charts typically have both Ukrainian- and Russian-language variants. For reasons of space, only one is given in each instance. The editor requests readers’ indulgence in the designation of some persons and place names in Ukrainian and others in Russian. Estimates of most common usage, rather than political or national preferment, determined given designations.
Notes:
- Peter Leonard, “Ukraine President Says Almost 7,000 Civilians Killed in War,” Associated Press, 8 May 2015; U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights totals cited in Kateryna Smagliy, “What’s Next for Donbas?” Wilson Center Kennan Cable, No. 4 (January 2015); “Death Toll in Eastern Ukraine Crosses 6,000, Zeid Says, As UN Releases New Report,” United Nations in Ukraine, 2 March 2015; www.un.org/ua/ en/information─centre/news/1963; Howard Amos,“Slain Opposition Leader’s Report Counts Hundreds of Russian Dead in Ukraine,” Moscow Times, 12 May 2015.
- Felix Corley, “Crimea: Only One Percent of Religious Organizations Re-registered,” Forum 18 News Service, 26 March 2015.
- Mission Eurasia, Religious Persecution in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea 2014 (Wheaton, IL, and Irpen, Ukraine: 2014).
- “Pastor From Donetsk Composes List of Churches Seized by Terrorists, Specifically for Fans of Putin,” Religious Information Service of Ukraine, 2 January 2015.
- William Yoder, “Cutting the Power Chord in Two; Report on a Visit in Slaviansk and Kiev,” Russian Evangelical Alliance, 21 April 2015.
- “What Was the Metropolitan Sitting For?” UNIAN, 10 May 2015. Pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian sources claim and counter claim an additional 54 UOCMP parishes in the Ternopol Region do or do not desire to accept UOCKP jurisdiction: “54 UPTsMP Parishes in Ternopol Region Want to Transfer into UPTsKP,” RISU, 28 April 2015; “Women Drive Militants of Right Sector Out of Village in Ternopol Province,” Ukrainian Orthodox Church, 30 April 2015.
Mark R. Elliott is editor of the East-West Church and Ministry Report. Joy Ireland, a doctoral student at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky, was a major contributor in the compilation of the following charts.