In November 2022, the Razumkov Center conducted annual large-scale survey in the field of religion, which was published a few months later in their brochure “War and the Church. Church and religious situation in Ukraine in 2022”. It is of significant importance, because on the one hand, it took place after a sufficiently long time after the start of a full-scale war, and on the other hand, before the beginning of systematic information campaign against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. That is why it reflects the real beliefs of Ukrainians rather than the corrected one through aggressive attitudes towards religion imposed by Ukrainian mass media.
It is quite predictable that the total number of Ukrainians who refer to themselves as “believers” has increased significantly due to the war. This was the case in 2014 (then believers increased by 9%), and in 2022 – their number increased by 6.3% and amounted to 74.1%. It is interesting that the most significant jump occurred in the central Ukraine (by 12.4% – from 63.5% to 75.9%), while in the west of Ukraine the number of “believers” even decreased (from 87,1% to 84,3 %). According to the age criterion, a particularly noticeable increase in the number of “believers” took place among young people (+12.4% among respondents aged 18-24, +9.0% among 25-29).
The number of those who suppose that a “believer” must practice one or another religion has also been gradually growing for the past few years (the period of Covid and war) (11.8% increase in last two years). However, the number of those who suppose that a “believer” can be not affiliated to a particular religion, although decreasing, still remains significantly predominant (65.2% in 2020 and 56.9% in 2022). It is expected that young people agree more with the image of such abstract “believers”, and with age the awareness of the need for religious practice gradually increases (from 27% for people aged 18-24 to 44.2% for people over 60).
Differences regarding such binding of believers to religious practice in the denominational section are also worth noting: the faithful of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) are relatively liberal; they gravitate towards “just Orthodox”, mostly allowing “believers” not to practice a specific religion (52.2% and 69.7%, respectively), while the faithful of the UOC are closer to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), supposing that the practice of a particular religion is necessary (“liberal” among them, respectively, 40.9% and 34.6%).
In recent years, membership in a certain religious community (parish) has been growing in all regions of Ukraine. At the same time, regional differences remain very significant: if the average for Ukraine is 26.5%, they are divided into 45.8% in the west of Ukraine and only 14.8% in the south. Confessional differences regarding membership in a certain community are also significant: from 8.4% among “just Orthodox”, 30.2% among supporters of the OCU, up to 41.2% among UOC faithful and 58.5% among UGCC faithful. This trend is also confirmed by the question about “attending a church service last week” – supporters of the OCU do this significantly less often (22.9%) than faithful of UOC (35.9%) and of UGCC (55,1%).
Opinion regarding the need for changes in community worships is practically identical among different denominations. More than half of the faithful suppose that “nothing needs to be changed” (between 58% and 62%), although due to the war, the number of those who suppose that it is necessary to help members of the community in various ways more, in particular psychologically, has slightly increased.
In the fall of 2022, before the start of an active information campaign against the UOC, the level of trust to the church in general remained quite high – over 60%, although the number of those who hesitated increased significantly. “Difficult to answer” was for 10.3% in 2021 and for 19.9% in 2022. Traditionally, the church is most trusted in the west of Ukraine – 73.9%, while in other regions this indicator varies between 55 and 58%.
In general, the attitude towards the church as a moral authority prevails in Ukraine. But this advantage was due to the west of Ukraine (71,6% of respondents there accepted the authority of the church), while in all other regions of Ukraine there was a relative balance between those who considered the church to be a moral authority and those who denied it (numbers from 38 to 43%).
An important question is what role the church plays in the modern Ukrainian society. Her role is positively evaluated by 58.7% of respondents, and this was the highest indicator for the entire period of the survey. At the same time, there is a significant part of those who suppose that “the church does not play a significant role”: although it decreased during the war, it still makes up 26.1%.
The part of those convinced of the negative role of the church is significantly small and amounted to only 3.3% in 2022. Although these numbers are relatively small, there is an interesting significant regional difference: the church’s role was negatively assessed by 7.1% of those surveyed in the east (that is, where the largest hostilities took place) and from 1.9 to 2.8% in other regions of Ukraine.
Here we should mention also the goals the people set before the churches. These are spiritual support of people and honoring God through worship – they are preferred by between 50 and 60% among the faithful of the UOC and the OCU. Greek Catholics and Protestants consider religious worships somewhat more important – about 70%.
The answers to the question about the social help of the churches, which “concerned you personally”, were also interesting – they testify not so much to the abstract ideas of the interviewees, but to the real work of the churches. Here the Ukrainian Orthodox Church significantly surpassed other major denominations in various issues – psychological assistance (35.6%), religious education (17.6%), and material assistance (16%). Although all these data during the year of the war also increased in OCU, here they remained at a lower level.
Regarding the need to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the position of the OCU and the UOC faithful remained approximately the same – 47-48%. The difference was that the image activity of the church (“attracting international attention and help to Ukraine” was more important for the faithful of the OCU (28.7% versus 16.7% in the UOC), and the faithful of the UOC placed greater emphasis on practical assistance to internally displaced persons (32.6% against 21.4% in OCU).
At the end of 2022, the awareness of the faithful of various denominations regarding the support of the Russian invasion by some churches in one or another way remained minimal: both in terms of expressing support for Russia’s aggression, and in terms of practical assistance to the occupiers – from 2 to 6%. And socially important activities of churches were known significantly more: 35-36% knew about the distribution of humanitarian aid from abroad, and 20% knew about the maintenance by churches of social and medical institutions.
If we compare the UOC and the OCU in terms of personal involvement in receiving humanitarian aid, both jurisdictions remained at a fairly high level, and the degree of involvement of the UOC faithful usually even prevailed. So, to the question “Did you receive help from your religious organization during the war?” (This concerns moral and psychological help), more than half (50-65%) gave a positive answer. At the same time, the answers “I did not receive, although I needed it” remained at the level of 2-5%. Separately, we can note about material assistance: about 40% of the faithful needed it, of which 24.3% received it in the OCU, and 29.6% in the UOC.
During the year of the war, there was a noticeable shift in the issue of the national orientation of the churches. But traditionally, in this sphere there were significant regional and confessional differences: in favor of a nationally oriented church were 63% in the west and only 29% in the south of the country; 60.1% of the OCU faithful and only 35.1% of the UOC faithful.
The part of those who support the establishing a state church in Ukraine also increased slightly, but the share of opponents of this idea still significantly prevails: 28.2% “for” and 46.6% “against”. Priority to one of the churches is explained predominantly by the fact that it will cause additional tension in inter-church and church-state relations (45.4%), as well as will lead to discrimination of believers of other churches (40.4%).
Thus, we can see some important trends:
- in time of the war, the sphere of religion becomes for Ukrainians more relevant, while the level of involvement in religious practice also increases;
- The Church is able to maintain a high level of trust from Ukrainians, although this concerns less its moral authority;
- The issue of national orientation of churches and the need to establish a state church in Ukraine divides the country along geographical and confessional lines;
- The UOC faithful help the Armed forces of the country not less than the OCU faithful, and in terms of social help and the provision of various kinds of support, the UOC is significantly ahead of the currently privileged OCU.
