The Clash of Churches
Politics and Religion in Ukraine
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Ukraine is an ecclesiastical-political mosaic. Since independence, three Orthodox churches as well as the Greek Catholic Church have been competing for the status of a national church. Furthermore, interdenominational conflicts have repeatedly flared over questions of ownership. All of this makes the churches susceptible to political instrumentalisation and alienates them from the faithful. What is positive about this is that this plurality of churches prevents the establishment of an Orthodox state church along the lines of the Russian model.
(Osteuropa 6/2009, pp. 161–170)