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This article has been tagged as the Eastern Orthodoxy Collaboration of the "Month" since at least August of 2006. As there is no evidence of any acitivity on that project, I propose that, unless someone from the EO-COTM objects, the tags be removed. Qe2 ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 08:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Not religious 37,2 36,5 34,4 30,2 32,6 31,3 30,7 UOC-KP 25,7 29,6 32,7 33,7 32,2 31,0 32,9 UOC-MP 3,3 8,2 7,3 7,8 9,2 9,8 9,8 UAOC 1,7 0,6 0,5 0,8 1,7 0,8 1,0 ROC - 7,2 - - - - - UGCC 6,1 6,5 7,1 7,0 5,5 8,0 6,4 Other 1,8 3,0 2,4 2,5 2,2 3,6 3,2 Not defined 16,0 15,2 14,7 17,9 15,9 15,0 16,0
UOC-KP (УПЦ-КП) - Українська Православна Церква (Київський Патрiархат)
Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy
UOC-MP (УПЦ-МП) - Українська Православна Церква (Московський Патрiархат)
Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the
Patriarch of Moscow
UAOC (УАПЦ) - Українська Автокефальна Православна Церква
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
ROC (РПЦ) - Росiйська Православна Церква,
Russian Orthodox Church
UGCC (УГКЦ) - Українська Греко-Католицька Церква,
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Institute of sociologies of National academy of the sciences 2000. Statistic data from | page Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy -- Yakudza 07:45, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Prase "Despite the rapid growth and agressive missionary activities, even today Protestants in Ukraine remain a small minority in a largely Orthodox Christian country." - there is not wholly exact
See reference to article article and *statistical data. Quotings with article:
Протестанты и греко-католики опередили УПЦ МП по числу верующих, еженедельно посещающих храмы и молитвенные дома.
Вторыми по числу в Украине являются протестантские церкви, в общем насчитывающие 8.500 организаций.
Активно-практикующие верующие, посещающие храм еженедельно... По количеству этих верующих примерно равными силами обладают греко-католики (1 млн. 200 тысяч человек), протестанты (820 тысяч), УПЦ (790 тысяч), УПЦ КП (720 тысяч). (Yuriy Chernomorets. "Social base of the ukrainian orthodoxy", March 2005 [1] -- Yakudza 01:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Mr. Yakudza, we can speculate about who is going to church more often, but I seriously doubt there is an actual academic study on the matter. Yes Baptists and other Protestants go to church services more often, while many Orthodox Christians visit church only occasionally. So what ? Does not change the fact majority of Ukrainians consider themselves Orthodox and were baptized in the Orthodox church. Fisenko 01:56, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Quotings with this article: Thereby, nor one of the Church possesses the liking even halfs defined 19 mln. religious!
Из числа 33 млн. верующих около 14 млн. заявляют, что не относят себя к какой-либо церкви, и 19 млн. являются симпатиками какой-то одной церкви. Таким образом, симпатики какой-либо конкретной церкви заведомо составляют меньшинство населения Украины. Если перечислить основные группы, то симпатики УПЦ МП – это 7,2 млн., УПЦ КП – 5,5 млн., УГКЦ – 3,8 млн. Таким образом, ни одна из церквей не обладает симпатиями даже половины определившихся 19 млн. верующих! Симпатики УПЦ МП – это только 37,8% определившихся верующих, УПЦ КП – 28,7%, УГКЦ – 18,6%.
Really many of Ukrainians consider themselves Orthodox and were baptized in the Orthodox church. But modern Ukraine largely non-religious and practically is policonfessial country. And Modern Protestants in Ukraine are not a small minority. -- Yakudza 23:45, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Mr. Yakudza your numbers are may be right, however, there is no rule as to how often one should attend religious service in order to consider Orthodox Christian. The fact is if you walk the streets of Ukrainian citises and villages and ask them a question "What is your religios church affiliation ? " , something like 60-70 % will say Orthodox Christian, may be 10 % will say Greko-Catholic, 10-20 % will say none/atheist, and may be 1-3 % will say they are Protestant (Baptist or Pentacstal) Fisenko 04:41, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
The thing that matters most is the self-identification of people in Ukraine, which is overwhelmingly Orthodox with GC beeing a significant but distant second. People may have no clue about canonical disputes within the Eastern Ortohodoxy, people may attend the Church 2-10 times in their lifetime (Baptism, wedding, funeral and those of someone else). Those who occasionally stop by for Easter in addition to those happy/tragic rare events are about as much reiligous as those that don't. So, we should make it clear in the article the fact that Ukrainians are overwhelmingly EO or GC.
Church attendance, OTOH, is also a factual info and may be included but only such that it won't mislead the reader into thinking that Ukraine is more Protestant than it actually is. -- Irpen 18:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Anyway I broke down the article into a structure, ommited the edits of the vandals that refuse to discuss them (they could have been kept had they explaind them...) Here is an article on the Pre-Muscovite West-Ruthenian Metropolia [3]. I propose this, you take the 20th century, I do the early history. 1400-1686, rest we leave for later. Unless some of the vandals can finally swallow their childish national pride and join in on the project. -- Kuban Cossack 23:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
This is what I think the article needs (feel free to add on): -- Kuban Cossack 23:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Part one and two more or less done, now need part three, should include a summary of all notable events in Novo and Malo Rossiayas in the 19th century. -- Kuban Cossack 19:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Last official data on 2006 - [4]-- Yakudza 15:45, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I've had trouble opening up your file with the map, which I would be very interested in seeing. What program should I use to open it? regards Faustian 17:15, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Per Mr. Kuban Cossack's request, I am posting here prior to suggesting edits, which the gentlemen finds overly 'POV' (In my honest opinion, my revisions were much more neutral than the text they replaced, but I am willing to attempt to cooperate). My apologies if this is the wrong place to post, as I see that discussion regarding the use of registered parish counts also takes place lower down.
Parish counts cannot be relied upon as an indicator of popular support because it is very easy for any group so motivated to register a number of "paper parishes", registered communities that do not actually exist. All that one requires to register a parish in Ukraine is the names of ten adult Ukrainian citizens. Possible motivation for doing so would include a desire for a particular group to appear to have more support than actually, a desire to influence local authorities responsible for granting use of church buildings, and a hope of obtaining a larger share of properties when permanent division does take place. Whether or not such has actually happened, the possibility decreases the value of parish counts as an indicator of popular or relative support.
Surveys of the population are, meanwhile, the most common measure of relative strength of religious groups. See, for example, adherants.com or the surveys conducted by the Pew charitable trust. I would therefore agree, as suggested below, that the article should reflect neutral surveys and estimates.
By that same token, it seems that the order of the UOC-KP and UOC(MP) should be reversed in the article, as it is standard practice in English language literature to list groups in size from largest to smallest based on number of adherants. Agains, see the many surveys and estimates provided in, or linked to by, adherants.com. Qe2 16:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
The current article makes reference to the Studist sect of the German Evangelical (Lutheran) movement in Ukraine. This group really played only a minor role among the Lutherans. I have therefore added a few sentences to expand on the Lutheran context. I have added an external link to an extraction of Lutheran records of the Ukraine region, which was served by the St. Petersburg Consistory. These extractions roughly cover the years 1835-1885. A second added link points to a more detailed discussion of the Lutheran presence in Ukraine.
Jerry Frank, Webmaster http://www.sggee.org 205.206.215.65 21:52, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
The first Adventists in Ukraine were German settlers.
Surveys are useless! Why because regardless of who publishes the survey, it will have a substantial skew towards the publisher's author. Moreover as surveys are not censuses and there are no actual authentic figures, just summations, it classes as WP:NOR. So its better we do not add them altogether. If anything I can give equal surveys that will make the UOC(MP) as the dominant church of the population of Ukraine.... What is true is that presently the UOC(MP) is the most dynamically growing of all of them by building thousands of churches in Ukraine.-- Kuban Cossack 17:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC) Also if one reads some of the comments to the surveys: [6] In particular, and I quote: "На третьому місці з показником в 20,4% - Українська Православна Церква (Московського Патрiархату). " В абсолютных цифрах - это около 10 млн. человек, разбирающихся в религиозной ситуации. Достаточно неплохой показатель. Ведь, чтобы в сложившейся ситуации признать себя верующим УПЦ МП - нужно понимать суть. А 30% сторонников КП - плод масс-медийной пропаганды, а не анализа ситуации. Большинство этих людей регулярно не посещают храмы УПЦ КП. Достаточно в воскресенье утром проити по филаретовским храмам, что-бы в этом убедиться., which I can say corresponds to my experience in Rivne. -- Kuban Cossack 17:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree about the usefulness and usability of the surveys in general, provided they are conducted by respected organizations. This particular case, however, has a caveat that KK has correctly pointed out. Most lay people have little interest in the church politics and, while it is hard to come up with estimates, a significant group of Ukrainians do not know much about Orthodox divisions within Ukraine. For many religious self-identification does not go beyond being able to self-identify as Orthodox, Greek-Catholic or a Jehova's witness. To know the details of UOC's rivarly one either needs to follow the issue in the news or be personally involved in the interchurch fights (like witnessing one's own church being commandeered by the paramilitary assistants of either faction or even take part in those series of captures). Certainly if one can self-identify with the national church and state that it is under a patriarch abroad (UOC(MP)), one is more likely to know exactly what one is saying. As such, I've seen dramatically opposite survey results for a relative membership between the major UOC churches. I will locate and find the quite different percentages, if necessary. At the same time, the the comparisons of the numbers of parishes, churches and communities are much more reliable. -- Irpen 20:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but your personal views on the value of surveys should not invalidate them. Surveys are generally recognized as legitimate ways of viewing public opinion, provided that they are conducted by professionals working for respected organization. They are certainly used as sources throughout wikipedia. As outlined earlier in the talk section, Ukrainian Sociological Service is a legitimate surveying organization whose data even appears on a Ukrainian government website. There is no legitimate reason to exclude the data from their survey.
As for number of parishes - this is not a completely accurate indicator, because it may reflect better financing and doesn't take into account the size of parishes. For example, the number of (western-financed) Protestant parishes seems to overrepresent the number of actual Protestant believers. The best approach is to use parish size plus survey data (and hopefully irpen will find other surveys) to provice the most objective picture possible.
Furthermore, it seems silly to wipe out estimates on topics such as US government estimates simply because of the fact that the US government got WMDs wrong (this is another and complicated matter - the public excuses for the Iraq war didn't match what analysts were saying). Thw demographic info in the CIA Worldfactbook is used throughout wikipedia, in newspaper articles, etc. It is also used as a basis for the NationMaster figures on Ukrainian religion [13]. Even if you disagree about the credibility, it is an important fact that this is the US government's estimate and that this estimate is considered credible by various sources. There is no legitimate reason to exclude those figures from this article.
With all respect, tt seems you are pushing a non-nuetral point of view regarding the UOC-MP's popularity in Ukraine. This is, unfortunately, a pattern with you. I remember you have earlier claimed that almost all of the churches in Transcarpathia reverted to Orthodoxy in the 1920's-1930's, before I found the reference that stated that only 1/3 of them did. Please, let's be objective. Faustian 14:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I like the map you placed, although it also illustrates the skewed perspective of number of parishes. Based on number of parishes, it would seem that in Donetsk for example protestants are as numerous as Orthodox!
Also, I've readded the estimate from the Worldfactbook that somebody (you?) removed. The Worldfactbook's legitimacy has already been documented. You have included another survey, which is fine, why remove the specific data of other estimates? Let's show all the information. Faustian 16:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Sir, you put forth an unsported statement, and actually wrote "3 to 1" last time. Each time you post, the advantage for Moscow gets bigger. If you have a reliable source for this, then please do add that data. However, none of this changes the facts regarding number of Faithful, which is, anywhere else on this or any other site, the statistic used to compare size of religious bodies. Qe2 14:15, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Dear Faustian, your hypothesis would indeed make sense, but the 2006 survey, which did not allow respondents to select "Orthodox of no particular jurisdiction" provided numbers of 30.1% UOC-KP, 20.4% UOC-MP, and 1.5% UAOC. Also, with apologies for being repitious, all that is required to register a parish in Ukraine is the names of 10 adult citizens. Hence, the number of registered parishes is not a reliable indicator of popular support. Qe2 19:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Have to dump this here for noe:
The article on Saint Titus states that he was Paul's disciple and not Andrew's. 132.69.232.98 14:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
These developments in the Roman Empire, Great Moravia, and Bulgaria set the stage for the conception of metat the Baptism of Kiev-Rus' ordered by the Saint Vladimir at the Dnieper River in 988. From the beginning, the Metropolitans of Kiev resided at Pereyaslav in Ukraine, then Kiev( 1037). The identity and further separate development of the Kievan Church was achieved by the election of Metropolitans, native and/or not confirmed by the Patriarch of Constantinople (Ilarion, 1051- 1054; Klym Smolyatich 1147- 1154; and, Gregory Tsamblak 1415- 1419).
Following the Mongol annihilation of Kiev in the 13th century, the Metropolitan of Kiev moved to Vladimir in 1299. By 1326, the Metropolitan had settled in Moscow, and by 1328 had changed the title of Metropolitan of Kiev for the title Metropolitan of Moscow. The separate legal tradition of the Russian Church, as differentiated from the Church in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was codified in the decision of the first properly Russian Church Council of the Hundred Chapters ('Stoglav') in 1448, followed by the formal separation of the Church of Rus' into separate Russian (Muscovite) and Ruthenian (Kievan) Metropoliae in 1453.
Meanwhile, for the Church of Kiev, the loss of the Metropolitan of Kiev in 1299 was rapidly supplanted by the creation of the Metropolia of Halych for Southern Rus' in 1303. In 1352, the Metropolitan of Halych began to relocate back to Kiev; thereafter, the Kievan Church was headed by the Metropolitan of Kiev-Halych and All Rus. The Metropolitan of Moscow opposed the creation of this Metropolia at Halych/Kiev. This Church governed most of the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, often from the city of Navahrudak in today's Belarus. Between 1054 and 1448, this Ruthenian Church continued to send representatives to the ecumenical councils called by the Pope of Rome citation needed, but also succumbed to increasing pressure by her mother church among Greek in Constantinople to cease communion with the Bishop ( Pope) of Rome. Though Constantinople and Rome had their disputes, the Kievan hierarchy tried to work for Christian unity citation needed. Representatives from Rus participated in the Western Councils of Lyon (1245) and Constance (1418). Isidore, the Metropolitan of Kiev, was himself one of the creators of the Union of Florence (1439).
The memory of the Council of Florence on the Ruthenian lands of Ukraine and Belarus, which had passed under the control of the states of Lithuania and Poland after the decline of the Ukrainian-centered empire of Rus', bore concrete fruit in the Union of Brest (Berest') in 1596, which united the Ruthenian Church of the Ukrainian and Belarusyn lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the Pope of Rome. This union was not accepted by all the members of the Greek Church in these lands, and marked the beginning of the creation of separate Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches on the lands of Ukraine and Belarus. Due to violence, the Metropolitan of the Kievan Greek Catholic Church left Kiev early in the 1600s and settled in Navahrudak and Wilno in Belarus.
For Now... Kevlar67 05:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I know this is a recycled topic, but I think the time has come to recognize the official Ukrainian Romanization "Kyiv" and use that in articles. That spelling was officially recognized by the U.S. government last year, and is used by the Ukrainian government. A parallel would be the change from "Peking" (Cantonese pronunciation) to "Beijing" (Mandarin pronunciation) for the Chinese capitol city. Qe2 17:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, English practice is slowly changing to "Kyiv". While most major newspapers continue to use "Kiev", all major modern map publications use "Kyiv", which is also the spelling used by the United Nations, and the governements of the English-speaking nations of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and, since October 2006, the United States. In the New York Times and Times of London, the accepted style is "Kiev", not Kyiv when writing about the city, but to preserve "Kyiv" in the proper names of organizations who select that spelling, hence "Dynamo Kyiv". Qe2 05:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
A much more pertinent question for the purposes of this article, is the practice of translating the names of Ukrainian saints into non-Ukrainian variants. For example, St. Andrew, much like other legendary or mythological figures, has stories related to him from all over the world, but in Ukraine this figure is personified as St. Andriy. Is there any functional reason not to use the vocabulary of Ukrainian christians in this article? Otherwise, the article does not explain the Ukrainian christian mythology very well.-- tufkaa 01:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Point is, we're stating a history of legendary characters of Ukraine, and all the characters seem to be foreigners. The Saint Andrew who visited Scotland is a different mythological entity that St. Andriy. Both are based on the same person, but belong to different mythologies.-- tufkaa 02:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Interesting point. My suggestion might be to use the more common spelling for those, such as St. Andrew, who travelled from outside of Ukraine or who spent a great deal of their lives outside of Ukraine, but to use the Ukrainian spelling for those whose lives were spent within what is now Ukraine. Hence "St. Volodymyr" over "St. Vladimir". The Patriarch of Constantinople has used "St. Volodymyr" since at least 2004. Qe2 05:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Both the Kyivan Patrichate and the Ecumenical Patriarchate (Constantinople) stated that the Greek Catholic Church should have the right to locate wherever it so wanted. Hence, the statement that move was condemened by "all Eastern Orthodoxy" is not correct. The move was condemned, officially and on multiple occassions, by the UOC-MP. If anyone can find published condemnations from any other Eastern Orthodox hierachs, please do add them to the list. Qe2 05:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Do you have a source for this? I remember otherwise, and will look, but you must be able to support your statement. Qe2 15:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Ok Qe2 I excepect quite a few explanations from you so be ready to answer them:
1.You removed Religion in the new socialist state had little value, but particularly the Russian Orthodox Church who was actively supportive of the White Movement Why? This is very important to the article.
This statement may imply that the Russian Orthodox Church did not cooperate with the Soviet State, which, whether willingly or not, it did. Also, as this article deals with Ukrainian, not Russian, history, it seems distracting to introduce this topic. Qe2 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
2.You replaced:
I replaced "peasantry" with "population" because the word "peasant" echoes the "kh" word used by some Russians to describe Ukrainians, and generally found offensive by Ukrainians. The lay delegates at the 1921 UAOC Sobor in Kyiv included "some of the country's most prominent academicians, professors, writers, composers, and others" by Robert Conquest (1986). The harvest of sorrow: Soviet collectivization and the terror-famine. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. p. 210. ISBN 0-19-505180-7.. Qe2 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
The source is the article Ukraine in the most current Encyclopædia Britannica (2007). I gave a full sentence without ripping anything out of context. I am wary of lengthy pasting of the copyrighted material into Wikipedia. Reasonable quotes is OK, though. So, here is the passage with one sentence above and one below the quote I gave above:
HTH, -- Irpen 09:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps I am overly sensitive, but I still do like the idea of using "peasantry" here. The Brittanica article provides broader context. Qe2 13:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
3.You replaced the quite netural
For the remaining part of the article I shall qoute from
WP:VAND - Removing all or significant parts of pages or replacing entire established pages with one's own version without first gaining consensus both constitute vandalism. You a) remove the map, and b) replace your version of the text with NO consensus. PLEASE STOP!.
I do not need to tell you with what happened to User:Vernyhora or the like of other POV-pushers. There is no excuse for disruptive behaivour, and you will not get anywhere with reverting. I suggest you take a moment for this to sink in...
Anyway I shall continue:
4.Order of churches:
You are misquoting me. Please look at what I wrote above. Qe2 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
5.Although officially organized as an autonomous church under the Moscow Patriarchate, the UOC(MP) has much less autonomy than traditionally understood in Orthodoxy. For example, the charter of the UOC-MP requires the church to impliment all decisions of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the 2000 Synod of the ROC refused to affirm the autonomy of the UOC(MP).
{{
cite book}}
: Text "241" ignored (
help)
Qe2 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC) I should have noted page 241, especially.
Qe2 08:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)...are you aware of church workings? For your information Patriarch Alexey back in 1991 officially declared that the ROC fully has no property in Ukraine. Moreover you are telling me that for a priest to become a bishop this discision has to come from Moscow. Might I remind you that nearly all of UOC(MP) clergy are native Ukrainians. This is simply BS and also WP:POINT.
Before even arguing about Wilson, let's first find a citation where he says that the "charter of the UOC-MP requires the church to impliment all decisions of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the 2000 Synod of the ROC refused to affirm the autonomy of the UOC(MP)" Where does he say that? -- Irpen 09:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
"The 'One True Church'
The nominally independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow patriarchate still claims to be the largest Church in Ukraine, at least institutionally if not in terms of popular sympathy. Its head, also Volodymyr (Viktor Sabodan), has claimed in public to support the eventual creation of a national Ukrainian Orthodox Church, so long as it is through a process that is both canonical and evolutionary. On the other hand, the UOC(MP) statute still declares that it 'forms <sostavaliaet>...part of the Moscow patriarchate' <i.e. the parent church in Moscow itself> and that it is obliged to 'put into practice the decisions of local councils of the Russian Orthodox Church'. The August 2000 Synod of the ROC sharply narrowed Volodymyr's freedom of maneuvre by refusing to grant even autonomy, let alone autocephaly. Some have even sought its reregistration under the more 'honest' label of local branches of the Russian Orthodox Church."
Mr. Wilson continues, and I think my minor additions are actually more fair to the UOC(MP) than the text of Mr. Wilson or other scholars who write of Ukraine. However, I would be happy to rewrite this sentence along the lines of:
Although officially organized as an autonomous church under the Moscow Patriarchate, voices outside Ukraine, such as the historian Andrew Wilson, point out that the UOC(MP) has much less autonomy than traditionally understood in Orthodoxy, citing, for example, the charter of the UOC(MP) which requires the church to 'put into practice the decisions of local councils of the Russian Orthodox Church', and the August 2000 Synod of the ROC, which refused to grant autonomy to the UOC(MP).
Qe2 13:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
"Also interesting is the fact that for a long time now Moscow and the Muscovite church have not been using clumsy euphemisms in the name of the UOC-MP. This can be verified simply by looking at the headlines of the Orthodox media, which are close to the Moscow Patriarchate. They openly call it “the Muscovite Church in Ukraine” (even though Tolochko considers this “incorrect and not completely true”). All this is happening because the UOC-MP has a weird and absolutely non-canonical status. It is neither autocephalous nor autonomous, but has “independence in its administration.” [16] Qe2 20:22, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps this wording can be supported: "Although officially organized as an autonomous church under the Moscow Patriarchate, there are those who question whether the UOC(MP) is truly an autonomous as traditionally understood in Orthodoxy, citing, for example, the charter of the UOC(MP) which requires the church to 'put into practice the decisions of local councils of the Russian Orthodox Church', and the August 2000 Synod of the ROC, which refused to grant autonomy to the UOC(MP)." Qe2 20:29, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
6.Formed in 1992 when a large portion of Ukrainian Orthodox left the Moscow Patriarchate to unite with the UAOC headed by Patriarch Mstyslav.
7.the church has yet to be officially recognised by other Eastern Orthodox churches.
Faith and history, but I would be willing to replace "yet to be" with "as of 2007" or the like. 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
8.You removed:where it has agreed to incorporate some of the parishes that have been excommunicated by the ROC for various breaking of canonic laws.
First, "parishes" cannot be anathematized (excommunicated); only individuals. Second, this statement implies (i) that all were excommunicated (ii) prior to the fact. Qe2 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I think that is enough for you to answer for the time being...-- Kuban Cossack 13:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Suggestion: Guys, formal mediation is a mess and should be the last resort. Let's try resolve it ourselves first. QE and KK, please never ever unexplained reverts. QE, you should use edit summary. Please let's talk. I will try to give this article a go within a day or two. I have been busy lately and I did not want to get to this article in 15 minutes increments. Without setting aside two hours or so, I do not think it is right to work on the articles like this. I will try to give my best to reconsile the differences and add my own entries to the discussions above. -- Irpen 18:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I do not believe that I have ever made such a statement anywhere. 219.166.46.101 07:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC) (Sorry, I keep forgetting to log in.) Qe2 07:48, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Whatever the final version will look like, it really ought to include the data from the CIA Worldfactbook on religion in Ukraine. I'm inclined to consider scientific survey data to be at least as important as number of parishes; I wouldn't discount type of data.
Faustian 01:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I do not deny the general usability of the surveys for the Wikipedia articles as a source of info but this is an issue which should be judged case by case. Questions of who conducted the survey, how obvious are their results, whether they are self-contradictory or not are important.
Here is another related survey published on the very same web-site, RISU, and even taken by the same institution, the Ukrainian Sociology Service, as the survey used by Faustian. Let's take a look at these numbers:
So, 70% of population of Ukraine consider themselves religious, 16% are non-religious and 14% are "unsure". From those who claim being religious, just over a half consider themselves being part of a specific denomination, and the rest simply think that they "have faith in God" (40% vs 29%)
Reading further:
So, we have:
The numbers are rather surprizing compared to the results given in the survey linked by Faustian where we read:
What is substantial is not even that UOC has such a clear advantage over KP, but how significantly the numbers differ from survey to survey published by the same source. Those surveys being taken two years apart cannot explain such a huge difference as 10% switching from UOC to KP. Even more startling would be the supposed conversion of millions of Ukrainians from Greek Catholicism to the Eastern Orthodoxy within two years. The conversion between Greek Catholic and Orthodox faith is a serious matter and millions do not just switch between different branches of Christianity in the period of two years.
Now, there are CIA worldbook numbers which differ from both surveys. A simple common sense tells that CIA simply used some other survey as neither CIA nor even the Ukrainian authorities conduct the comprehensive censuses about the religious preferences of the Ukrainians. What we really see from those surveys is that people are confused. Besides, most of them do not even attend any church and give answers to the questions that not all of them even fully understand as only truly religious ones are able to give an informed answer to such questions.
As a result we get an arbitrary set of all confusing numbers that show dramatically different results from survey to survey. In view of this, we should either not use such survey data at all or, if we add it to the article, we should state that surveys produce contradictory results and are an unreliable indicator of anything. Additionally, some religious Ukrainians who are both nationally and religious conscious declare their allegiance to KP and even may attend their Church for the Easter service but when it comes to baptizing the newborn, they take the baby to the UOC as they are conscious about Baptism being the way to salvation and to be sure the later is guaranteed, they go to the church whose being "truly within the Orthodox Christianity" is beyond reproach (speaking strictly from the Eastern Orthodoxy POV the non-canonical churches are not "truly Orthodox" and the rites they perform are not valid). I read about this phenomenon somewhere and I can even look for a source, but since I am not about to add this to the article, I do not think is necessary. I am simply pointing out how meaningless all this statistics is and this is the reason of the numbers contradicting each other.
As the same time, the numbers of parishes is taken from the documents filed with the State Committee for the Religious Affairs. The leaders of the parishes cannot not know exactly what denomination they belong. This is reliable and encyclopedic info.
As for the surveys, when the question is clear, like "What language do you use primarily at home?", the results of such surveys are more valid than when the question is "Do you support the idea of the Russian language becoming the state language in Ukraine?", as the latter question understandably is much more confusing. By asking people confusing questions one can easily get contradictory results. For instance in the March 17, 1991 referendum 80.2% of Ukrainian population voted for Ukraine's joining the renovated USSR and on December 1 of the same year 92% of population voted for the Ukrainian full independence. Manipulation with these data by POV pushers may be used for all sorts of speculations in either direction.
The surveys with the more confusing questions are especially vulnerable to challenges if they produce wildly different results from survey to survey. -- Irpen 01:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Risu sources:
* 9049 communities * 122 monasteries * 3519 monks and nuns * 7509 priests * 7755 churches * 840 churches are being built
* 2781 communities * 22 monasteries * 113 monks and nuns * 2182 priests * 1825 churches * 217 churches are being built
You are clearly becoming too emotionally involved in this discussion. I doubt that Irpen suggested that the surveys were "100% forgeries", just that they contained inconsistencies and therefore that they are far from perfect as a source of information. Every source of info contains advantages and disadvantages. The number of new church buildings may reflect funding, not number of adherants, for instance. After all, does the building of the massive UGCC cathedral in Kiev signify that Kievans have turned to Catholicism? The number of old church buildings might reflect the fact that the UOC (MP) is the heir of the owner of all church buildings in Ukraine prior to the 1990's.
It is best to simply put in all the data - the survey data (both sides), the number of parishes, number of buildings, with brief explanations of what this means. You seem to want to "cherry pick" the pieces of data that magnify the importance of the UOC (MP) and to ignore everything else, no matter how legitimate, that supports a different conclusion. Your dismissal of Andrew Wilson's claim as the product of some sort of conspiracy is quite illustrative of that. Faustian 15:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
And of course from the same RISU website [20]:
Research on the denominational configuration of Ukraine today varies so much that it raises questions about validity. However, the problem is not researchers' lack of professionalism, but the lack of firm denominational identity among respondents. Actually, this is not a problem for the Eastern Rite Catholic Church because it consistently accounts for six to eight percent of the adult population of Ukraine in surveys. It is more complicated with Protestants because some surveys do not "catch" them at all. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses, some Pentecostals, and even some Baptists do not respond to the name Protestant. Yet, Protestant denominations that have a fixed membership are easy to count. The All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christian-Baptist Church has 130,000 members, the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christians (Pentecostal) has about 90,000 members, the Ukrainian Union of Seventh-day Adventists has about 40,000 members, and Jehovah's Witnesses have about 107,000 members. The above Protestants, plus members of charismatic and independent churches (excluding Reformed and Lutherans), cannot be more than 600,000 to 700,000. Without question, their influence on religious life is much higher than their numbers would suggest. But the figures shown also undermine the idea of "Protestant expansion" in Ukraine.
Results of Survey Research
1. Your attitude to religion. You are ...
Sixty-six percent of the people questioned consider themselves to be believers, almost a fourth are nonbelievers, and five percent say that they are atheists. This rather high level of declared believers does not correspond with actual participation in religious life.
2. How often are you coming to church services?
Calculating the results, we can assume that the number of believers who actually hold to church canons and live correspondingly is not higher than 15-20 percent of Ukraine's adult population today.
3. What is your denomination?
R*oman Catholic Church 1
There is a paradoxical situation in that the number of registered churches of the Moscow Patriarchate is much larger than the number of churches of the Kyivan Patriarchate, yet only 12 percent of the people identify themselves with the Moscow Patriarchate, whereas 22 percent identify with the Kyivan Patriarchate.
Sources: Viktor Yelens'kii, Oleksandr Stegnii, Andrii Yurash, and Il'ko Kucheriv, "Kruglii stil' Religiinii vibir naselennia Ukraini: za danimi opituvannia gromads'koi dumki' [Round Table Discussion 'Religious Choices of Ukraine's Population: According to the Data from Public Opinions Polls']." Kyiv: Fond "Demokratichni initsiativi," Mott Foundation, 2000.
Faustian 15:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
As I stated earlier, I strongly suggest that we include parish data, as well as various survey data, along with a brief statement concerning each measure's shortcomings, and to conclude that that relative popularity of each faith is ultimately not very clear. Faustian 16:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Andrew Wilson, Ukraine: Unexpected Nation, Yale University Press, page 236:
"It is not easy to determine which is the largest Church in Ukraine after the upheavals of the early 1990's. In part, this simply confirms the reality of religious pluralism in Ukraine. It is also reflective of the fact that official figures record the number of parishes, not the number of believers..."
"Opinion polls conducted since 1991 give a better idea of how widespread particular faiths are. According to the largest and most comprehensive poll undertaken in 1997, 65.7% of the sample considered themselves believers, and of these 62.5% expressed an allegiance to a particular Church. Of the latter, 12.3% declared themselves supporters of the UOC (MP) and a further 11.6% claimed to belong to the Russian Orthodox Church, although technically it no longer exists in Ukraine (its supporters can basically be grouped together with those of the Moscow patriarchate). An impressive 43% named the UOC (KP) and only 4% the Autocephalous Orthodox. Greek Catholics accounted for 14.3%, concentrated overwhelmingly in the western regions of Galicia and Transcarpathia."
"Considerable differences were apparent between Ukraine east and west of the Dnieper (the only regional breakdown available for the figures). Atheism and non-aligned belief were prominent in the east, where only 28% belonged to a particular Church, compared to 63% in the west..."
Wilson also cites a Sosis- Gallup poll conducted in February 1998 that showed 41% no religion, 20.4% UOC (KP), 7.3% UOC (MP), 1.8% UAOC, 6.3% Greek Catholic, 16% Orthodox but of no particular confession.
Basically, the polls cited by Wilson are consistent with modern polls in showing more adherents for the UOC (KP) than for the UOC (MP). Do any polls exist, not made by the UOC (MP) itself, that show more UOC (MP) adherents? Faustian 05:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I would, however, be more than happy to include the UGCC survey among other survey data. Again, and I hate to sound like a broken record, surveys of the population are the only means to compare the support of the people for a particular churches. This the tool used everywhere else, and I do not see why Ukraine should be different. That all of the independent surveys, of which several are quoted in this page, are consistent suggests that far from being useless, the surveys are indeed accurate.
Finally, I am glad that KK appears to have changed his mind about the acceptability of RISU as an information source. QE2 07:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Here are two surveys taken by the same institutions and published at the same site (RISU)
Are you saying these are not wildly different results? -- Irpen 09:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
From the US State Department 2006 International Report on Religious Freedom:
"In 2004 the national newspaper Den (The Day) published the results of a major poll on religious beliefs by the All-Ukraine Sociological Service. Of the respondents who identified themselves as believers, 50.44 percent said they belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)-Kiev Patriarchate; 26.13 percent to the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate; 8.02 percent to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (sometimes referred to as the Uniate, Byzantine, or Eastern Rite Church); 7.21 percent to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church; 2.19 percent belonged to the Roman Catholic Church; 2.19 percent identified themselves as Protestants; 0.63 percent responded that they observed Jewish religious practices; and 3.2 percent said they belonged to 'other denominations'." [23] Qe2 16:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I would like to put all the survey data together so we can see what the big picture is. For purposes of a less clumsy comparison, I have standardized the numbers by making them all a percentage of the general population rather than percentage of believers (as we have seen, some surveys give results in different formats). For example, survey one [24] stated that only 40% of the population belongs to a particular religion and the figures provided are for those 40% rather than for the general population. To get the general population total, I multiplied each of the numbers by .4. Anyways, in this discussion we have:
I did not include the data from the US State Department website preceding the page break because it didn't say what percentage were believers (so I couldn't standardize it). Feel free to add others. Five scientific, respected surveys have been listed above, along with data from the Worldfactbook which presumably is also based on a scientific survey. The conclusions so far:
With resepct to adherence to the UGCC and UAOC, the results are quite consistant. Across all six surveys, about 6-8% of the Ukrainian population identifes itself as Greek Catholic and 1-2% as belonging to the UAOC.
Now, let's look at the two largest Orthodox Churches.
Five of the surveys allow the choice "Orthodox of no particular jurisdiction." Of these, the numbers are remarkably consistant on four of the five surveys, with the UOC (MP) having the adherence of about 7-12% of the population and the KP of 19-22% of the population. On only one survey the UOC (MP) has the advantage, but even there it is a rather slight one (15.1% versus 11.5% of the general population). The Orthodox situation is somewhat muddled because in each survey a huge number of Orthodox adherents do not list a particular preference.
I see no reason to question the validity of the surveys based on "inconsistent results", as the results are indeed rather consistant across most surveys and any variance is logically explainable.
Therefore, the conclusions based on the survey data should stand. The write-up should summarize the results of all the scientific surveys. The number of adherents of the UGCC should be described as 6-8% of the general population and of the UAOC as 1-2% of the general population. The article should describe the limitation of specific numbers for Orthodox due to the large number of people who do not express loyalty to a particular Church. However, it should note that of those who do identify specifically, most surveys show greater allegience to the UOC-KP than the UOC (MP). This does not, of course, necessarily mean that the UOC (KP) has more adherents. It could mean that people who follow the UOC - KP are more likely to identify themselves as such while people who attend UOC (MP) Churches might be more likely to merely consider themselves "Orthodox". Or they might not be. We simply don't know what kind of churches those who consider themselves of no particular demonination actually attend based on the survey data. This should problem should also be explained in the article. In general, the survey evidence suggests that the UOC (MP) and UOC - KP are about evenly matched in terms of adherents.
What do you think, Irpen? regards Faustian 16:20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words. I wrong in stating that the evidence suggests that the UOC (MP) and KP are evenly matched. Rather, this was my educated guess based upon the presumption that most of the ones of no particular denomination are from southern and eastern Ukraine (and therefore, are actually UOC (MP) people because that Church is dominant in those regions). I made this assumption for a couple of reasons. Firstly, those regions of Ukraine are the least religious and therefore even the religious people there may be more casual about their faith. Secondly, because Orthodoxy is more homogenous in eastern and southern Ukraine, and there are fewer conflicts, it makes sense that the believers would be less likely to identify their particular faith. In a place in Volyn or Kiev in contrast, where battles have occurred between members of competing Churches, it is logical that people would be more likely to identify their particular Church. On the other hand, it is also possible that some UOC - KP people do not endorse their own Church because they oppose the splits within Orthodoxy.
I seriously doubt that 100% or even 90% of the unaffiliated are indeed UOC (MP). But 70-80% seems possible (or who knows, it could be 50% or 60%). If the higher figures are true, this would push the true number of adherents of the UOC (MP) close to the UOC (KP) in terms of numer of adherents, making the number of adherents approximately equal or, depending on the survey, possibly even surpassing the UOC - KP. One of the surveys listed, Survey 2, doesn't include the Orthodox (or other religious) of no particular denomination, and on that survey the number of adherents of the UOK (MP) is closer to the number of UOC - KP than on any of the surveys which do include unspecified religious people. This suggests that more "unaffiliated" actually belong to the UOC (MP) than UOC - KP.
All of this is merely my speculation and for this reason doesn't belong in the article of course. We don't really know which of the two main Orthodox Churches are larger because of the very high number of unspecified Orthodox. Faustian 23:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I largely agree with Faustian on that we have to do too much guessing to give an estimate and we are not qualified to do it on one hand, and surveys themseves do not show the true picture on the other hand. What I propose to do is as follows. We simply state in the article that surveys produce the unreliable results and are difficult to use to give any estimates within reasonable accuracy (I elaborated above why: divergence and confusion). We may further state that both churches are clearly leading all the rest by the number of adherents. We move all survey results, with explanations to the footnotes and may add in text that despite the divergence, some surveys suggest the advantage of KP (caveat, we do have to say that they are unreliable, see above). The number of parishes data is unquestionably reliable. It should be given as no one actually doubts these numbers. We may further add that there is a caveat here as well since small or large parish still counts as one and it is rather unreliable to infer the numbers of adherents from the numbers of the parishes.
We do not change the order of the churches for now since when sections are swapped differences are harder to trace. I will read the proper chapter by Wilson this weekend and will let you know what I think. -- Irpen 08:58, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The only survey that shows the UOC-MP outnumbering the UOC-KP is the one commissioned by the UGCC which is not directly comparable because it used the name UOC instead of UOC-MP. My understanding is also that it is normal practice in statistics not to allow a single outlying result to redifine the conclusion; the data should, of course, be noted, but a single survey should not be overly weighted, especially one that was commissioned by one the interested parties. (My impression is that, although the UGCC did entrust the surveying to a reputable indepedent agency, it was the UGCC itself which decided to use the registered name "UOC" for the the "UOC-MP". While their reasons may have been noble, this highlights one of the problems with surveys that are not entirely independent. Then again, thanks to that survey, we can see that there do exist a significant number of people who consider themselves members of the UOC, but not the UOC-MP, which is, in itself, useful information.)
First of all, your claim that this survey that shows that UOC has more adherents than KP because UOC was called misleadingly is incorrect. In that survey, the respondents picked from the choices given to them as UOC-MP and UOC-KP. This is done despite UOC-MP is an incorrect name, strictly speaking, as the name of the church is just UOC, but this is a side question. Media use both names and survey questioners always use "MP" in the end for the sake of clarity. Trouble with survey is not that they are falsified or taken unscientifically (although the fact that one shows more for UOC(MP) and the other shows more for UOC-KP is alarming). The point is that the question is confusing and this is why people give different answers from survey to survey. I suggest we avoid stating which church has more adherents because bot number of parishes statistics and Survey statistics is unreliable in this case to infer the answer. Why number of Parishes cannot serve the base of number of adherents is obvious. The large parish can have more adherents than three small ones. The surveys also do not allow to draw any reliable conclusion as otherwise, we would not have different denominations leading from survey to survey. They do allow to estimate the number of Greek Catholics, because unlike the other numbers, their percentage is consistent. I tend to agree with Faustian that the reason is both lack of firm identification between different Orthodox branches (unlike between non-Orthodox and Orthodox), weak religiousity of a large number of people (still not weak enough to call themseves atheist) and that the questions are confusing for many. Remember my analogy above that inferring anything from a survey when the questions are simple and clear for everyone (What language do you use at home?) is much more meaningful than to infer anything from a much more politically charged and confusing question (Do you support Russian to become a second state language?) Same here, Greek Catholics and Orthodox can more or less firmly self-identify within branch. When it comes to which of the UOC's (remember there are more, like so called "UAOC (canonical)", the so called "True Orthodox Church" and whatever others) is much more confusing. Irpen 08:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
So, I suggest stating that both UOC's are clearly leading by the number of followers but as far as going any further, I support the approach suggested by Faustian above. --
Irpen 08:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I am now reading Section 11 (Angels and Pins: Ukrainian Religion), from Wilson's "The Ukrainians" (
ISBN
0300093098) and will be able to comment once I finish. --
Irpen 08:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I apologise I kept people waiting, now I have read the above discussion and here are my vies on the topic. At present we need to decide what goes in the modern section and what does not. In my opinion things like church attendance and present rivalry as well as geographical support (down to the Oblast) should go into a new article called Religion in Ukraine, with a see also from here and from Demographics in Ukraine this article instead should quickly summarise that data along the lines of, different surveys show different results... and so on... The new article should also include things like Islam and Judaism in Ukraine and other religions should IMO go there, as this article primarily deals with religions that Ukrainians adhere to, not the different minorities that live there. So where its written majority of practicing Roman Catholics in Ukraine are the Polish minority does this belong here or there?
WRT geographica distribution I have pulled an excellent source [29], now the link does not always work, but it does give the distribution among individual oblasts not in terms of parish numbers, but also in terms of clergy and church buildings (and categorises them like - those rented, those built in 1990-2005, those that are architectural heritage etc.) That can be used to make a good series of maps for the four major Ukrainian churches - UOC, UOC-KP, UAOC, UGCC, each with two one for numbers, the second for percentages. This is official state data!
Last but not least, the order of the churches should follow the order in which the state lists them and that is MP, KP, AP, GC and then others...That is how most encyclopedias list them...Why should we change that?-- Kuban Cossack 17:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Risu lists Orthodox first - MP, KP, AO then the Catholics GC, RC and then others check for yourself. Many public pages about Ukraine follow this - Ukrainian Orthodox - Moscow Patriarchate, or Russian Orthodox is the dominant church composing about 70% of all Orthodox believers in Ukraine. Pass my regards to Wilson, and the people who forged the surveys... -- Kuban Cossack 18:32, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, actually a survey taking is a rather developed applied science and well-conducted survey with a set of reasonably constructed questions can produce rather representative results with much less than 1% participation. Conducting such survey requires the domain knowledge on behalf of the takers, mainly to have a sufficiently representative group. I believe that Ukrainian Sociological Services is indeed a respectable institution but even they failed to produce any kind of convincing consistency. This is partly because they have likely failed to account for regional and other demographic differences (no matter how they tried) and partly because the question is much more difficult for an average Joe (or Taras) to answer than, say, "Do you believe in god (yes, no, unsure)?" -- Irpen 21:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Dear KK, you may choose to ignore the survey data if you wish, but the information should be clearly presented in the article so that people reading the article will have the same opportunity. Qe2 23:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
One more thing worth mentioning. From what I have read in different analysis of churches that coexist in the certain terriotry, not only in UA, it is the number of parishes that's the most frequently mentioned factor in estimating their relative strength. Yes, there are US survey numbers for the number of baptists, episcopalians, etc, but much literature uses the naumbers of parishes. The reason probably is that the latter number is, while not always precisely, related to the number of adherents, and is much better known. It also may be that there are some sensitivities in conducting such surveys even in much more religiously stable areas than Ukraine. -- Irpen 03:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for this observation and for taking the time to write in detail about the UAOC. I truly appreciate it. Your experience probably is an excellent indicator of why the survey results are what they are. They demonstrate that the surveys are indeed accurate - and in this accuracy they capture the Orthodox Ukrainian population's confusion or ignorance. Faustian 13:41, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Between the
[
Revision of 19:33 on 10 February 2007] and today's block, only one citation has remained from the material added before the mass revert. I don't understand the justification for the removal of cited information. Can someone please cite the major issues preventing the improvement of this article? As it stands, the article is inaccurate in my view, and the sooner it gets fixed, the better.--
tufkaa 17:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
The discussion above resulted in the protection of the article, after all of the recent additions had been removed. Each point above has been presented with a counterpoint. Since there is little progress being made, perhaps the editors could cite the major issues which resulted in the lock? Are their accusations of bias? If so, where? Does the dispute involve more than the order of the churches listed in the article?-- tufkaa 21:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
My understanding is that, as of today, the article remains locked, although it still includes the map added after discussion began. It appears that a collaborative consensus has been reached by the participating parties, but that we are now awaiting comments from Irpen and Kuban Cossack, the latter, who last posted on 18 February, being the party who objected and requested protection of the article. Although I do sincerely hope that KK is welll, it seems that at some point the article should be unlocked. Qe2 02:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The article has been unlocked. Qe2 20:09, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I suggest putting in this one instead of general Christianity in Europe template.
Sideshow Bob 20:27, 28 February 2007
(UTC)
I've copied and moved this part of the conversation into its own section for the sake of clarity:
What you wrote about the vast majority of the ROC/UOC (MP) priests refusing to abandon their Church highlights the inherent institutional advantage enjoyed by the UOC (MP) and why the number of priests, like the amount of real estate, is far from an ideal indicator of religious adherence. In terms of being canonical, is the UAOC canonical or not? My understanding is that it is analogous to the ROCOR, except that unlike the ROCOR it has reentered the "home country" in opposition to the established Church. Faustian 19:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
We should try to use better sources than the wiki itself. But anyway, here is what I know (or I think I know). The canonical status and recognition are two different (while related) things while the universal recognition usually signifies the full canonical status. Ecumenical Patriarch may choose to recognize someone or something but this by itself does not solve the whole host of problems. First of all, if Constantinope indeed "granted" Autocephaly to UAOC in 1924, this would have been very strange. Autocephaly may only be "granted" by the mother church and even this is not a instant solution of all the problems. Example: Constantinople tends to not recognize any Autocephaly or Autonomy of any church unless it is granted by Constantinople itself. The OCA status is an example of this strange state of affairs. Its status of the canonical body in the N.A. is not disputed but some patriarchates including the Constantinople do not recognize its self-governing status. See this for more. Does it mean that they consider it part of ROC? The clear answer to this question is very difficult to find.
So, we would really have to find out what was there in that Tomos and whether the statement mentioned there was an official statement by Constantinople or the opinion of one of its Bishops. It is easy to confuse the two. For example there is frequently cited in press confusion that Constantinople "does not recognize" UOC under the MP or other similar unclear nonsense. They are all based on a whimsical interview given at one point of time by one Bishop under the Constantinople, the Archbishop Vsevolod (Maydansky) who is actually with the UOC of the USA (a spin-off from UAOC accepted by Constantinople). As for the official position of the EP, there is nothing more clear than the statement of the Patriarch Bartholomew I where he says that Filaret is not consider a church hierarch by anyone in the Orthodoxy. Also note that even Vsevolod, as well as any other supreme bishops, accept the clerics of the KP into the Orthodox church only through a "repentance" procedure. Bear in mind that schism in Eastern Orthodoxy is considered a crime.
Now, the reality is of course affected by politics. As decades or sometimes centuries pass the facts on the ground affect the actions of the hierarchs of the established churches as well as the status of the "relatively new" churches. This has not happened here yet and is nowhere in sight either for KP or for UAOC whose position is better in some respects and worse in some others. An established historic tradition (UAOC is almost 100 years old), the de-facto legacy in some territories and partial recognition of its spin-offs helps UAOC somewhat. The mess it is currently in hurts it about as much. Firm state support and nationalist rhetoric helps KP in some respect but the total lack of recognition hurts it, perhaps, more or at least as much.
The keys from this mess is of course in Moscow right now. The day MP decides to grant a full autocephaly to UOC from its current autonomous status would effectively end any meaningful position of Filaret, his KP and UAOC. From the canonical standpoint Ukraine already has a "local church" (pomestnaya tserkov') which is nothing else but the Volodymyr's UOC and no one can seriously dispute that. Its lack of full autocephaly, its involvement in politics being comparable to that of KP's involvement as well as many other political struggles allow to politicize the religious debate and boost the claims of other churches. However, Moscow is understandably not eager to do such step as after this there would be no return and the centuries old churches have to think from the perspective of longer than a decade or two. It may seem to them that the current set of events with Ukraine's becoming more and more independent from Russia is not assured to be an eternal change. Some hundreds years ago this already has happened and yet reversed. Position of myself, Faustian, QE2, KK and even Jimbo Wales in respect to this is irrelevant. Certainly the last parliamentary election has likely raised some hopes in Moscow, not necessarily about the "re-unification" but about the overall trends. So, Moscow would be in no rush to grant autocephaly and this disarray will continue, at least for some time, unless it is solved by an unexpected and miraculous change. But, hey, this is religion! So miracles may happen, you know. Isn't miracle a synonym of the "act of God"? -- Irpen 22:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I removed the POV tag as the discussion seems to have subsided. If we are to readd the survey numbers, we should give the whole variety and the explanation on why they do not reflect more of the confusion rather that the relative church' strength, similar to what was discussed above. -- Irpen 05:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Although the Liturgy in Russian orthodox churches was in the Russian version of Church Slavonic, the Sermon or Homily was in Russian (not in Church Slavonic).
In the Byzantine Catholic churches, up until 1963 the liturgy was in Church Slavonic (with Ukrainian pronounciation) and the Sermon was in Ukrainian. Bandurist ( talk) 12:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
The Ukrainian Orthodox church and Ukrainian Catholic church maintain their own specific ritual forms in celebrating the Divine Liturgy. These are particularly evident when compared to the liturgical norms of the Russian Orthodox church. The priest in a Ukrainian church traditionally reads the Gospel facing the congregation, while in the Russian church he is turned away from them; moreover, the Ukrainian priest keeps the Royal Gates of the iconostasis open considerably longer than does the Russian. After the subjugation of the Ukrainian Orthodox to the Russian Orthodox church in the 18th century, numerous Russian elements were introduced into the liturgy in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church that emerged after 1917 reformed the liturgy (including abbreviations) and revived many old Ukrainian traditions. These traditions are now observed by Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdictions in the West, but the Orthodox church under the Moscow patriarch retains the Russian elements.
In the 17th century, sermons were delivered in bookish Belarusian-Ukrainian combined with vernacular elements. Both the Orthodox and Uniate churches placed much emphasis on the clarity of sermons. Sermons were usually preached after the reading of the Gospel in Uniate churches, while Orthodox priests as a rule delivered their sermons at the end of the Divine Liturgy.
When in the late 17th century the Ukrainian Orthodox church came under the control of Moscow, the hitherto common homiletical practices of the Orthodox and Uniate churches began to diverge.
As a result of systematic Russification, homiletics in the Ukrainian language progressively declined in the 19th century.
In the Ukrainian Catholic church, the 18th century saw the continuation of developments of the previous century, and the Ukrainian bookish, and later the vernacular, language replaced Church Slavonic in homiletics. The Russian authorities persecuted, and by 1830 abolished, the Ukrainian Catholic church in the territory under their control. That church continued its legal existence only in Austrian-ruled Western Ukraine.
At the turn of the 19th century the clergy in Western Ukraine began using the vernacular in their sermons and publications. Sermons were published in the vernacular by Mykhailo Luchkai (2 vols, 1831), T. Vytvytsky (2 vols, 1847), and Antin Dobriansky (1850) and in supplements to such newspapers as Zoria halytska (1853–4).
The Ukrainian Orthodox church was restored under the Ukrainian National Republic in 1917 and survived in Soviet Ukraine until the early 1930s. During this time homiletics was fostered by the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church (UAOC). From the 1930s sermons in Soviet Ukraine were delivered mostly in Russian (except in the Western Ukrainian regions annexed in 1944).
Homiletics has developed normally outside the Soviet bloc within all the Ukrainian churches.
Bandurist ( talk) 17:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
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This article has been tagged as the Eastern Orthodoxy Collaboration of the "Month" since at least August of 2006. As there is no evidence of any acitivity on that project, I propose that, unless someone from the EO-COTM objects, the tags be removed. Qe2 ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 08:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Not religious 37,2 36,5 34,4 30,2 32,6 31,3 30,7 UOC-KP 25,7 29,6 32,7 33,7 32,2 31,0 32,9 UOC-MP 3,3 8,2 7,3 7,8 9,2 9,8 9,8 UAOC 1,7 0,6 0,5 0,8 1,7 0,8 1,0 ROC - 7,2 - - - - - UGCC 6,1 6,5 7,1 7,0 5,5 8,0 6,4 Other 1,8 3,0 2,4 2,5 2,2 3,6 3,2 Not defined 16,0 15,2 14,7 17,9 15,9 15,0 16,0
UOC-KP (УПЦ-КП) - Українська Православна Церква (Київський Патрiархат)
Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy
UOC-MP (УПЦ-МП) - Українська Православна Церква (Московський Патрiархат)
Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the
Patriarch of Moscow
UAOC (УАПЦ) - Українська Автокефальна Православна Церква
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
ROC (РПЦ) - Росiйська Православна Церква,
Russian Orthodox Church
UGCC (УГКЦ) - Українська Греко-Католицька Церква,
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Institute of sociologies of National academy of the sciences 2000. Statistic data from | page Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy -- Yakudza 07:45, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Prase "Despite the rapid growth and agressive missionary activities, even today Protestants in Ukraine remain a small minority in a largely Orthodox Christian country." - there is not wholly exact
See reference to article article and *statistical data. Quotings with article:
Протестанты и греко-католики опередили УПЦ МП по числу верующих, еженедельно посещающих храмы и молитвенные дома.
Вторыми по числу в Украине являются протестантские церкви, в общем насчитывающие 8.500 организаций.
Активно-практикующие верующие, посещающие храм еженедельно... По количеству этих верующих примерно равными силами обладают греко-католики (1 млн. 200 тысяч человек), протестанты (820 тысяч), УПЦ (790 тысяч), УПЦ КП (720 тысяч). (Yuriy Chernomorets. "Social base of the ukrainian orthodoxy", March 2005 [1] -- Yakudza 01:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Mr. Yakudza, we can speculate about who is going to church more often, but I seriously doubt there is an actual academic study on the matter. Yes Baptists and other Protestants go to church services more often, while many Orthodox Christians visit church only occasionally. So what ? Does not change the fact majority of Ukrainians consider themselves Orthodox and were baptized in the Orthodox church. Fisenko 01:56, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Quotings with this article: Thereby, nor one of the Church possesses the liking even halfs defined 19 mln. religious!
Из числа 33 млн. верующих около 14 млн. заявляют, что не относят себя к какой-либо церкви, и 19 млн. являются симпатиками какой-то одной церкви. Таким образом, симпатики какой-либо конкретной церкви заведомо составляют меньшинство населения Украины. Если перечислить основные группы, то симпатики УПЦ МП – это 7,2 млн., УПЦ КП – 5,5 млн., УГКЦ – 3,8 млн. Таким образом, ни одна из церквей не обладает симпатиями даже половины определившихся 19 млн. верующих! Симпатики УПЦ МП – это только 37,8% определившихся верующих, УПЦ КП – 28,7%, УГКЦ – 18,6%.
Really many of Ukrainians consider themselves Orthodox and were baptized in the Orthodox church. But modern Ukraine largely non-religious and practically is policonfessial country. And Modern Protestants in Ukraine are not a small minority. -- Yakudza 23:45, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Mr. Yakudza your numbers are may be right, however, there is no rule as to how often one should attend religious service in order to consider Orthodox Christian. The fact is if you walk the streets of Ukrainian citises and villages and ask them a question "What is your religios church affiliation ? " , something like 60-70 % will say Orthodox Christian, may be 10 % will say Greko-Catholic, 10-20 % will say none/atheist, and may be 1-3 % will say they are Protestant (Baptist or Pentacstal) Fisenko 04:41, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
The thing that matters most is the self-identification of people in Ukraine, which is overwhelmingly Orthodox with GC beeing a significant but distant second. People may have no clue about canonical disputes within the Eastern Ortohodoxy, people may attend the Church 2-10 times in their lifetime (Baptism, wedding, funeral and those of someone else). Those who occasionally stop by for Easter in addition to those happy/tragic rare events are about as much reiligous as those that don't. So, we should make it clear in the article the fact that Ukrainians are overwhelmingly EO or GC.
Church attendance, OTOH, is also a factual info and may be included but only such that it won't mislead the reader into thinking that Ukraine is more Protestant than it actually is. -- Irpen 18:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Anyway I broke down the article into a structure, ommited the edits of the vandals that refuse to discuss them (they could have been kept had they explaind them...) Here is an article on the Pre-Muscovite West-Ruthenian Metropolia [3]. I propose this, you take the 20th century, I do the early history. 1400-1686, rest we leave for later. Unless some of the vandals can finally swallow their childish national pride and join in on the project. -- Kuban Cossack 23:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
This is what I think the article needs (feel free to add on): -- Kuban Cossack 23:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Part one and two more or less done, now need part three, should include a summary of all notable events in Novo and Malo Rossiayas in the 19th century. -- Kuban Cossack 19:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Last official data on 2006 - [4]-- Yakudza 15:45, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I've had trouble opening up your file with the map, which I would be very interested in seeing. What program should I use to open it? regards Faustian 17:15, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Per Mr. Kuban Cossack's request, I am posting here prior to suggesting edits, which the gentlemen finds overly 'POV' (In my honest opinion, my revisions were much more neutral than the text they replaced, but I am willing to attempt to cooperate). My apologies if this is the wrong place to post, as I see that discussion regarding the use of registered parish counts also takes place lower down.
Parish counts cannot be relied upon as an indicator of popular support because it is very easy for any group so motivated to register a number of "paper parishes", registered communities that do not actually exist. All that one requires to register a parish in Ukraine is the names of ten adult Ukrainian citizens. Possible motivation for doing so would include a desire for a particular group to appear to have more support than actually, a desire to influence local authorities responsible for granting use of church buildings, and a hope of obtaining a larger share of properties when permanent division does take place. Whether or not such has actually happened, the possibility decreases the value of parish counts as an indicator of popular or relative support.
Surveys of the population are, meanwhile, the most common measure of relative strength of religious groups. See, for example, adherants.com or the surveys conducted by the Pew charitable trust. I would therefore agree, as suggested below, that the article should reflect neutral surveys and estimates.
By that same token, it seems that the order of the UOC-KP and UOC(MP) should be reversed in the article, as it is standard practice in English language literature to list groups in size from largest to smallest based on number of adherants. Agains, see the many surveys and estimates provided in, or linked to by, adherants.com. Qe2 16:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
The current article makes reference to the Studist sect of the German Evangelical (Lutheran) movement in Ukraine. This group really played only a minor role among the Lutherans. I have therefore added a few sentences to expand on the Lutheran context. I have added an external link to an extraction of Lutheran records of the Ukraine region, which was served by the St. Petersburg Consistory. These extractions roughly cover the years 1835-1885. A second added link points to a more detailed discussion of the Lutheran presence in Ukraine.
Jerry Frank, Webmaster http://www.sggee.org 205.206.215.65 21:52, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
The first Adventists in Ukraine were German settlers.
Surveys are useless! Why because regardless of who publishes the survey, it will have a substantial skew towards the publisher's author. Moreover as surveys are not censuses and there are no actual authentic figures, just summations, it classes as WP:NOR. So its better we do not add them altogether. If anything I can give equal surveys that will make the UOC(MP) as the dominant church of the population of Ukraine.... What is true is that presently the UOC(MP) is the most dynamically growing of all of them by building thousands of churches in Ukraine.-- Kuban Cossack 17:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC) Also if one reads some of the comments to the surveys: [6] In particular, and I quote: "На третьому місці з показником в 20,4% - Українська Православна Церква (Московського Патрiархату). " В абсолютных цифрах - это около 10 млн. человек, разбирающихся в религиозной ситуации. Достаточно неплохой показатель. Ведь, чтобы в сложившейся ситуации признать себя верующим УПЦ МП - нужно понимать суть. А 30% сторонников КП - плод масс-медийной пропаганды, а не анализа ситуации. Большинство этих людей регулярно не посещают храмы УПЦ КП. Достаточно в воскресенье утром проити по филаретовским храмам, что-бы в этом убедиться., which I can say corresponds to my experience in Rivne. -- Kuban Cossack 17:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree about the usefulness and usability of the surveys in general, provided they are conducted by respected organizations. This particular case, however, has a caveat that KK has correctly pointed out. Most lay people have little interest in the church politics and, while it is hard to come up with estimates, a significant group of Ukrainians do not know much about Orthodox divisions within Ukraine. For many religious self-identification does not go beyond being able to self-identify as Orthodox, Greek-Catholic or a Jehova's witness. To know the details of UOC's rivarly one either needs to follow the issue in the news or be personally involved in the interchurch fights (like witnessing one's own church being commandeered by the paramilitary assistants of either faction or even take part in those series of captures). Certainly if one can self-identify with the national church and state that it is under a patriarch abroad (UOC(MP)), one is more likely to know exactly what one is saying. As such, I've seen dramatically opposite survey results for a relative membership between the major UOC churches. I will locate and find the quite different percentages, if necessary. At the same time, the the comparisons of the numbers of parishes, churches and communities are much more reliable. -- Irpen 20:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but your personal views on the value of surveys should not invalidate them. Surveys are generally recognized as legitimate ways of viewing public opinion, provided that they are conducted by professionals working for respected organization. They are certainly used as sources throughout wikipedia. As outlined earlier in the talk section, Ukrainian Sociological Service is a legitimate surveying organization whose data even appears on a Ukrainian government website. There is no legitimate reason to exclude the data from their survey.
As for number of parishes - this is not a completely accurate indicator, because it may reflect better financing and doesn't take into account the size of parishes. For example, the number of (western-financed) Protestant parishes seems to overrepresent the number of actual Protestant believers. The best approach is to use parish size plus survey data (and hopefully irpen will find other surveys) to provice the most objective picture possible.
Furthermore, it seems silly to wipe out estimates on topics such as US government estimates simply because of the fact that the US government got WMDs wrong (this is another and complicated matter - the public excuses for the Iraq war didn't match what analysts were saying). Thw demographic info in the CIA Worldfactbook is used throughout wikipedia, in newspaper articles, etc. It is also used as a basis for the NationMaster figures on Ukrainian religion [13]. Even if you disagree about the credibility, it is an important fact that this is the US government's estimate and that this estimate is considered credible by various sources. There is no legitimate reason to exclude those figures from this article.
With all respect, tt seems you are pushing a non-nuetral point of view regarding the UOC-MP's popularity in Ukraine. This is, unfortunately, a pattern with you. I remember you have earlier claimed that almost all of the churches in Transcarpathia reverted to Orthodoxy in the 1920's-1930's, before I found the reference that stated that only 1/3 of them did. Please, let's be objective. Faustian 14:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I like the map you placed, although it also illustrates the skewed perspective of number of parishes. Based on number of parishes, it would seem that in Donetsk for example protestants are as numerous as Orthodox!
Also, I've readded the estimate from the Worldfactbook that somebody (you?) removed. The Worldfactbook's legitimacy has already been documented. You have included another survey, which is fine, why remove the specific data of other estimates? Let's show all the information. Faustian 16:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Sir, you put forth an unsported statement, and actually wrote "3 to 1" last time. Each time you post, the advantage for Moscow gets bigger. If you have a reliable source for this, then please do add that data. However, none of this changes the facts regarding number of Faithful, which is, anywhere else on this or any other site, the statistic used to compare size of religious bodies. Qe2 14:15, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Dear Faustian, your hypothesis would indeed make sense, but the 2006 survey, which did not allow respondents to select "Orthodox of no particular jurisdiction" provided numbers of 30.1% UOC-KP, 20.4% UOC-MP, and 1.5% UAOC. Also, with apologies for being repitious, all that is required to register a parish in Ukraine is the names of 10 adult citizens. Hence, the number of registered parishes is not a reliable indicator of popular support. Qe2 19:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Have to dump this here for noe:
The article on Saint Titus states that he was Paul's disciple and not Andrew's. 132.69.232.98 14:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
These developments in the Roman Empire, Great Moravia, and Bulgaria set the stage for the conception of metat the Baptism of Kiev-Rus' ordered by the Saint Vladimir at the Dnieper River in 988. From the beginning, the Metropolitans of Kiev resided at Pereyaslav in Ukraine, then Kiev( 1037). The identity and further separate development of the Kievan Church was achieved by the election of Metropolitans, native and/or not confirmed by the Patriarch of Constantinople (Ilarion, 1051- 1054; Klym Smolyatich 1147- 1154; and, Gregory Tsamblak 1415- 1419).
Following the Mongol annihilation of Kiev in the 13th century, the Metropolitan of Kiev moved to Vladimir in 1299. By 1326, the Metropolitan had settled in Moscow, and by 1328 had changed the title of Metropolitan of Kiev for the title Metropolitan of Moscow. The separate legal tradition of the Russian Church, as differentiated from the Church in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was codified in the decision of the first properly Russian Church Council of the Hundred Chapters ('Stoglav') in 1448, followed by the formal separation of the Church of Rus' into separate Russian (Muscovite) and Ruthenian (Kievan) Metropoliae in 1453.
Meanwhile, for the Church of Kiev, the loss of the Metropolitan of Kiev in 1299 was rapidly supplanted by the creation of the Metropolia of Halych for Southern Rus' in 1303. In 1352, the Metropolitan of Halych began to relocate back to Kiev; thereafter, the Kievan Church was headed by the Metropolitan of Kiev-Halych and All Rus. The Metropolitan of Moscow opposed the creation of this Metropolia at Halych/Kiev. This Church governed most of the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, often from the city of Navahrudak in today's Belarus. Between 1054 and 1448, this Ruthenian Church continued to send representatives to the ecumenical councils called by the Pope of Rome citation needed, but also succumbed to increasing pressure by her mother church among Greek in Constantinople to cease communion with the Bishop ( Pope) of Rome. Though Constantinople and Rome had their disputes, the Kievan hierarchy tried to work for Christian unity citation needed. Representatives from Rus participated in the Western Councils of Lyon (1245) and Constance (1418). Isidore, the Metropolitan of Kiev, was himself one of the creators of the Union of Florence (1439).
The memory of the Council of Florence on the Ruthenian lands of Ukraine and Belarus, which had passed under the control of the states of Lithuania and Poland after the decline of the Ukrainian-centered empire of Rus', bore concrete fruit in the Union of Brest (Berest') in 1596, which united the Ruthenian Church of the Ukrainian and Belarusyn lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the Pope of Rome. This union was not accepted by all the members of the Greek Church in these lands, and marked the beginning of the creation of separate Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches on the lands of Ukraine and Belarus. Due to violence, the Metropolitan of the Kievan Greek Catholic Church left Kiev early in the 1600s and settled in Navahrudak and Wilno in Belarus.
For Now... Kevlar67 05:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I know this is a recycled topic, but I think the time has come to recognize the official Ukrainian Romanization "Kyiv" and use that in articles. That spelling was officially recognized by the U.S. government last year, and is used by the Ukrainian government. A parallel would be the change from "Peking" (Cantonese pronunciation) to "Beijing" (Mandarin pronunciation) for the Chinese capitol city. Qe2 17:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, English practice is slowly changing to "Kyiv". While most major newspapers continue to use "Kiev", all major modern map publications use "Kyiv", which is also the spelling used by the United Nations, and the governements of the English-speaking nations of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and, since October 2006, the United States. In the New York Times and Times of London, the accepted style is "Kiev", not Kyiv when writing about the city, but to preserve "Kyiv" in the proper names of organizations who select that spelling, hence "Dynamo Kyiv". Qe2 05:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
A much more pertinent question for the purposes of this article, is the practice of translating the names of Ukrainian saints into non-Ukrainian variants. For example, St. Andrew, much like other legendary or mythological figures, has stories related to him from all over the world, but in Ukraine this figure is personified as St. Andriy. Is there any functional reason not to use the vocabulary of Ukrainian christians in this article? Otherwise, the article does not explain the Ukrainian christian mythology very well.-- tufkaa 01:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Point is, we're stating a history of legendary characters of Ukraine, and all the characters seem to be foreigners. The Saint Andrew who visited Scotland is a different mythological entity that St. Andriy. Both are based on the same person, but belong to different mythologies.-- tufkaa 02:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Interesting point. My suggestion might be to use the more common spelling for those, such as St. Andrew, who travelled from outside of Ukraine or who spent a great deal of their lives outside of Ukraine, but to use the Ukrainian spelling for those whose lives were spent within what is now Ukraine. Hence "St. Volodymyr" over "St. Vladimir". The Patriarch of Constantinople has used "St. Volodymyr" since at least 2004. Qe2 05:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Both the Kyivan Patrichate and the Ecumenical Patriarchate (Constantinople) stated that the Greek Catholic Church should have the right to locate wherever it so wanted. Hence, the statement that move was condemened by "all Eastern Orthodoxy" is not correct. The move was condemned, officially and on multiple occassions, by the UOC-MP. If anyone can find published condemnations from any other Eastern Orthodox hierachs, please do add them to the list. Qe2 05:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Do you have a source for this? I remember otherwise, and will look, but you must be able to support your statement. Qe2 15:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Ok Qe2 I excepect quite a few explanations from you so be ready to answer them:
1.You removed Religion in the new socialist state had little value, but particularly the Russian Orthodox Church who was actively supportive of the White Movement Why? This is very important to the article.
This statement may imply that the Russian Orthodox Church did not cooperate with the Soviet State, which, whether willingly or not, it did. Also, as this article deals with Ukrainian, not Russian, history, it seems distracting to introduce this topic. Qe2 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
2.You replaced:
I replaced "peasantry" with "population" because the word "peasant" echoes the "kh" word used by some Russians to describe Ukrainians, and generally found offensive by Ukrainians. The lay delegates at the 1921 UAOC Sobor in Kyiv included "some of the country's most prominent academicians, professors, writers, composers, and others" by Robert Conquest (1986). The harvest of sorrow: Soviet collectivization and the terror-famine. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. p. 210. ISBN 0-19-505180-7.. Qe2 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
The source is the article Ukraine in the most current Encyclopædia Britannica (2007). I gave a full sentence without ripping anything out of context. I am wary of lengthy pasting of the copyrighted material into Wikipedia. Reasonable quotes is OK, though. So, here is the passage with one sentence above and one below the quote I gave above:
HTH, -- Irpen 09:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps I am overly sensitive, but I still do like the idea of using "peasantry" here. The Brittanica article provides broader context. Qe2 13:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
3.You replaced the quite netural
For the remaining part of the article I shall qoute from
WP:VAND - Removing all or significant parts of pages or replacing entire established pages with one's own version without first gaining consensus both constitute vandalism. You a) remove the map, and b) replace your version of the text with NO consensus. PLEASE STOP!.
I do not need to tell you with what happened to User:Vernyhora or the like of other POV-pushers. There is no excuse for disruptive behaivour, and you will not get anywhere with reverting. I suggest you take a moment for this to sink in...
Anyway I shall continue:
4.Order of churches:
You are misquoting me. Please look at what I wrote above. Qe2 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
5.Although officially organized as an autonomous church under the Moscow Patriarchate, the UOC(MP) has much less autonomy than traditionally understood in Orthodoxy. For example, the charter of the UOC-MP requires the church to impliment all decisions of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the 2000 Synod of the ROC refused to affirm the autonomy of the UOC(MP).
{{
cite book}}
: Text "241" ignored (
help)
Qe2 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC) I should have noted page 241, especially.
Qe2 08:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)...are you aware of church workings? For your information Patriarch Alexey back in 1991 officially declared that the ROC fully has no property in Ukraine. Moreover you are telling me that for a priest to become a bishop this discision has to come from Moscow. Might I remind you that nearly all of UOC(MP) clergy are native Ukrainians. This is simply BS and also WP:POINT.
Before even arguing about Wilson, let's first find a citation where he says that the "charter of the UOC-MP requires the church to impliment all decisions of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the 2000 Synod of the ROC refused to affirm the autonomy of the UOC(MP)" Where does he say that? -- Irpen 09:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
"The 'One True Church'
The nominally independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow patriarchate still claims to be the largest Church in Ukraine, at least institutionally if not in terms of popular sympathy. Its head, also Volodymyr (Viktor Sabodan), has claimed in public to support the eventual creation of a national Ukrainian Orthodox Church, so long as it is through a process that is both canonical and evolutionary. On the other hand, the UOC(MP) statute still declares that it 'forms <sostavaliaet>...part of the Moscow patriarchate' <i.e. the parent church in Moscow itself> and that it is obliged to 'put into practice the decisions of local councils of the Russian Orthodox Church'. The August 2000 Synod of the ROC sharply narrowed Volodymyr's freedom of maneuvre by refusing to grant even autonomy, let alone autocephaly. Some have even sought its reregistration under the more 'honest' label of local branches of the Russian Orthodox Church."
Mr. Wilson continues, and I think my minor additions are actually more fair to the UOC(MP) than the text of Mr. Wilson or other scholars who write of Ukraine. However, I would be happy to rewrite this sentence along the lines of:
Although officially organized as an autonomous church under the Moscow Patriarchate, voices outside Ukraine, such as the historian Andrew Wilson, point out that the UOC(MP) has much less autonomy than traditionally understood in Orthodoxy, citing, for example, the charter of the UOC(MP) which requires the church to 'put into practice the decisions of local councils of the Russian Orthodox Church', and the August 2000 Synod of the ROC, which refused to grant autonomy to the UOC(MP).
Qe2 13:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
"Also interesting is the fact that for a long time now Moscow and the Muscovite church have not been using clumsy euphemisms in the name of the UOC-MP. This can be verified simply by looking at the headlines of the Orthodox media, which are close to the Moscow Patriarchate. They openly call it “the Muscovite Church in Ukraine” (even though Tolochko considers this “incorrect and not completely true”). All this is happening because the UOC-MP has a weird and absolutely non-canonical status. It is neither autocephalous nor autonomous, but has “independence in its administration.” [16] Qe2 20:22, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps this wording can be supported: "Although officially organized as an autonomous church under the Moscow Patriarchate, there are those who question whether the UOC(MP) is truly an autonomous as traditionally understood in Orthodoxy, citing, for example, the charter of the UOC(MP) which requires the church to 'put into practice the decisions of local councils of the Russian Orthodox Church', and the August 2000 Synod of the ROC, which refused to grant autonomy to the UOC(MP)." Qe2 20:29, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
6.Formed in 1992 when a large portion of Ukrainian Orthodox left the Moscow Patriarchate to unite with the UAOC headed by Patriarch Mstyslav.
7.the church has yet to be officially recognised by other Eastern Orthodox churches.
Faith and history, but I would be willing to replace "yet to be" with "as of 2007" or the like. 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
8.You removed:where it has agreed to incorporate some of the parishes that have been excommunicated by the ROC for various breaking of canonic laws.
First, "parishes" cannot be anathematized (excommunicated); only individuals. Second, this statement implies (i) that all were excommunicated (ii) prior to the fact. Qe2 16:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I think that is enough for you to answer for the time being...-- Kuban Cossack 13:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Suggestion: Guys, formal mediation is a mess and should be the last resort. Let's try resolve it ourselves first. QE and KK, please never ever unexplained reverts. QE, you should use edit summary. Please let's talk. I will try to give this article a go within a day or two. I have been busy lately and I did not want to get to this article in 15 minutes increments. Without setting aside two hours or so, I do not think it is right to work on the articles like this. I will try to give my best to reconsile the differences and add my own entries to the discussions above. -- Irpen 18:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I do not believe that I have ever made such a statement anywhere. 219.166.46.101 07:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC) (Sorry, I keep forgetting to log in.) Qe2 07:48, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Whatever the final version will look like, it really ought to include the data from the CIA Worldfactbook on religion in Ukraine. I'm inclined to consider scientific survey data to be at least as important as number of parishes; I wouldn't discount type of data.
Faustian 01:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I do not deny the general usability of the surveys for the Wikipedia articles as a source of info but this is an issue which should be judged case by case. Questions of who conducted the survey, how obvious are their results, whether they are self-contradictory or not are important.
Here is another related survey published on the very same web-site, RISU, and even taken by the same institution, the Ukrainian Sociology Service, as the survey used by Faustian. Let's take a look at these numbers:
So, 70% of population of Ukraine consider themselves religious, 16% are non-religious and 14% are "unsure". From those who claim being religious, just over a half consider themselves being part of a specific denomination, and the rest simply think that they "have faith in God" (40% vs 29%)
Reading further:
So, we have:
The numbers are rather surprizing compared to the results given in the survey linked by Faustian where we read:
What is substantial is not even that UOC has such a clear advantage over KP, but how significantly the numbers differ from survey to survey published by the same source. Those surveys being taken two years apart cannot explain such a huge difference as 10% switching from UOC to KP. Even more startling would be the supposed conversion of millions of Ukrainians from Greek Catholicism to the Eastern Orthodoxy within two years. The conversion between Greek Catholic and Orthodox faith is a serious matter and millions do not just switch between different branches of Christianity in the period of two years.
Now, there are CIA worldbook numbers which differ from both surveys. A simple common sense tells that CIA simply used some other survey as neither CIA nor even the Ukrainian authorities conduct the comprehensive censuses about the religious preferences of the Ukrainians. What we really see from those surveys is that people are confused. Besides, most of them do not even attend any church and give answers to the questions that not all of them even fully understand as only truly religious ones are able to give an informed answer to such questions.
As a result we get an arbitrary set of all confusing numbers that show dramatically different results from survey to survey. In view of this, we should either not use such survey data at all or, if we add it to the article, we should state that surveys produce contradictory results and are an unreliable indicator of anything. Additionally, some religious Ukrainians who are both nationally and religious conscious declare their allegiance to KP and even may attend their Church for the Easter service but when it comes to baptizing the newborn, they take the baby to the UOC as they are conscious about Baptism being the way to salvation and to be sure the later is guaranteed, they go to the church whose being "truly within the Orthodox Christianity" is beyond reproach (speaking strictly from the Eastern Orthodoxy POV the non-canonical churches are not "truly Orthodox" and the rites they perform are not valid). I read about this phenomenon somewhere and I can even look for a source, but since I am not about to add this to the article, I do not think is necessary. I am simply pointing out how meaningless all this statistics is and this is the reason of the numbers contradicting each other.
As the same time, the numbers of parishes is taken from the documents filed with the State Committee for the Religious Affairs. The leaders of the parishes cannot not know exactly what denomination they belong. This is reliable and encyclopedic info.
As for the surveys, when the question is clear, like "What language do you use primarily at home?", the results of such surveys are more valid than when the question is "Do you support the idea of the Russian language becoming the state language in Ukraine?", as the latter question understandably is much more confusing. By asking people confusing questions one can easily get contradictory results. For instance in the March 17, 1991 referendum 80.2% of Ukrainian population voted for Ukraine's joining the renovated USSR and on December 1 of the same year 92% of population voted for the Ukrainian full independence. Manipulation with these data by POV pushers may be used for all sorts of speculations in either direction.
The surveys with the more confusing questions are especially vulnerable to challenges if they produce wildly different results from survey to survey. -- Irpen 01:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Risu sources:
* 9049 communities * 122 monasteries * 3519 monks and nuns * 7509 priests * 7755 churches * 840 churches are being built
* 2781 communities * 22 monasteries * 113 monks and nuns * 2182 priests * 1825 churches * 217 churches are being built
You are clearly becoming too emotionally involved in this discussion. I doubt that Irpen suggested that the surveys were "100% forgeries", just that they contained inconsistencies and therefore that they are far from perfect as a source of information. Every source of info contains advantages and disadvantages. The number of new church buildings may reflect funding, not number of adherants, for instance. After all, does the building of the massive UGCC cathedral in Kiev signify that Kievans have turned to Catholicism? The number of old church buildings might reflect the fact that the UOC (MP) is the heir of the owner of all church buildings in Ukraine prior to the 1990's.
It is best to simply put in all the data - the survey data (both sides), the number of parishes, number of buildings, with brief explanations of what this means. You seem to want to "cherry pick" the pieces of data that magnify the importance of the UOC (MP) and to ignore everything else, no matter how legitimate, that supports a different conclusion. Your dismissal of Andrew Wilson's claim as the product of some sort of conspiracy is quite illustrative of that. Faustian 15:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
And of course from the same RISU website [20]:
Research on the denominational configuration of Ukraine today varies so much that it raises questions about validity. However, the problem is not researchers' lack of professionalism, but the lack of firm denominational identity among respondents. Actually, this is not a problem for the Eastern Rite Catholic Church because it consistently accounts for six to eight percent of the adult population of Ukraine in surveys. It is more complicated with Protestants because some surveys do not "catch" them at all. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses, some Pentecostals, and even some Baptists do not respond to the name Protestant. Yet, Protestant denominations that have a fixed membership are easy to count. The All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christian-Baptist Church has 130,000 members, the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christians (Pentecostal) has about 90,000 members, the Ukrainian Union of Seventh-day Adventists has about 40,000 members, and Jehovah's Witnesses have about 107,000 members. The above Protestants, plus members of charismatic and independent churches (excluding Reformed and Lutherans), cannot be more than 600,000 to 700,000. Without question, their influence on religious life is much higher than their numbers would suggest. But the figures shown also undermine the idea of "Protestant expansion" in Ukraine.
Results of Survey Research
1. Your attitude to religion. You are ...
Sixty-six percent of the people questioned consider themselves to be believers, almost a fourth are nonbelievers, and five percent say that they are atheists. This rather high level of declared believers does not correspond with actual participation in religious life.
2. How often are you coming to church services?
Calculating the results, we can assume that the number of believers who actually hold to church canons and live correspondingly is not higher than 15-20 percent of Ukraine's adult population today.
3. What is your denomination?
R*oman Catholic Church 1
There is a paradoxical situation in that the number of registered churches of the Moscow Patriarchate is much larger than the number of churches of the Kyivan Patriarchate, yet only 12 percent of the people identify themselves with the Moscow Patriarchate, whereas 22 percent identify with the Kyivan Patriarchate.
Sources: Viktor Yelens'kii, Oleksandr Stegnii, Andrii Yurash, and Il'ko Kucheriv, "Kruglii stil' Religiinii vibir naselennia Ukraini: za danimi opituvannia gromads'koi dumki' [Round Table Discussion 'Religious Choices of Ukraine's Population: According to the Data from Public Opinions Polls']." Kyiv: Fond "Demokratichni initsiativi," Mott Foundation, 2000.
Faustian 15:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
As I stated earlier, I strongly suggest that we include parish data, as well as various survey data, along with a brief statement concerning each measure's shortcomings, and to conclude that that relative popularity of each faith is ultimately not very clear. Faustian 16:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Andrew Wilson, Ukraine: Unexpected Nation, Yale University Press, page 236:
"It is not easy to determine which is the largest Church in Ukraine after the upheavals of the early 1990's. In part, this simply confirms the reality of religious pluralism in Ukraine. It is also reflective of the fact that official figures record the number of parishes, not the number of believers..."
"Opinion polls conducted since 1991 give a better idea of how widespread particular faiths are. According to the largest and most comprehensive poll undertaken in 1997, 65.7% of the sample considered themselves believers, and of these 62.5% expressed an allegiance to a particular Church. Of the latter, 12.3% declared themselves supporters of the UOC (MP) and a further 11.6% claimed to belong to the Russian Orthodox Church, although technically it no longer exists in Ukraine (its supporters can basically be grouped together with those of the Moscow patriarchate). An impressive 43% named the UOC (KP) and only 4% the Autocephalous Orthodox. Greek Catholics accounted for 14.3%, concentrated overwhelmingly in the western regions of Galicia and Transcarpathia."
"Considerable differences were apparent between Ukraine east and west of the Dnieper (the only regional breakdown available for the figures). Atheism and non-aligned belief were prominent in the east, where only 28% belonged to a particular Church, compared to 63% in the west..."
Wilson also cites a Sosis- Gallup poll conducted in February 1998 that showed 41% no religion, 20.4% UOC (KP), 7.3% UOC (MP), 1.8% UAOC, 6.3% Greek Catholic, 16% Orthodox but of no particular confession.
Basically, the polls cited by Wilson are consistent with modern polls in showing more adherents for the UOC (KP) than for the UOC (MP). Do any polls exist, not made by the UOC (MP) itself, that show more UOC (MP) adherents? Faustian 05:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I would, however, be more than happy to include the UGCC survey among other survey data. Again, and I hate to sound like a broken record, surveys of the population are the only means to compare the support of the people for a particular churches. This the tool used everywhere else, and I do not see why Ukraine should be different. That all of the independent surveys, of which several are quoted in this page, are consistent suggests that far from being useless, the surveys are indeed accurate.
Finally, I am glad that KK appears to have changed his mind about the acceptability of RISU as an information source. QE2 07:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Here are two surveys taken by the same institutions and published at the same site (RISU)
Are you saying these are not wildly different results? -- Irpen 09:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
From the US State Department 2006 International Report on Religious Freedom:
"In 2004 the national newspaper Den (The Day) published the results of a major poll on religious beliefs by the All-Ukraine Sociological Service. Of the respondents who identified themselves as believers, 50.44 percent said they belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)-Kiev Patriarchate; 26.13 percent to the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate; 8.02 percent to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (sometimes referred to as the Uniate, Byzantine, or Eastern Rite Church); 7.21 percent to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church; 2.19 percent belonged to the Roman Catholic Church; 2.19 percent identified themselves as Protestants; 0.63 percent responded that they observed Jewish religious practices; and 3.2 percent said they belonged to 'other denominations'." [23] Qe2 16:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I would like to put all the survey data together so we can see what the big picture is. For purposes of a less clumsy comparison, I have standardized the numbers by making them all a percentage of the general population rather than percentage of believers (as we have seen, some surveys give results in different formats). For example, survey one [24] stated that only 40% of the population belongs to a particular religion and the figures provided are for those 40% rather than for the general population. To get the general population total, I multiplied each of the numbers by .4. Anyways, in this discussion we have:
I did not include the data from the US State Department website preceding the page break because it didn't say what percentage were believers (so I couldn't standardize it). Feel free to add others. Five scientific, respected surveys have been listed above, along with data from the Worldfactbook which presumably is also based on a scientific survey. The conclusions so far:
With resepct to adherence to the UGCC and UAOC, the results are quite consistant. Across all six surveys, about 6-8% of the Ukrainian population identifes itself as Greek Catholic and 1-2% as belonging to the UAOC.
Now, let's look at the two largest Orthodox Churches.
Five of the surveys allow the choice "Orthodox of no particular jurisdiction." Of these, the numbers are remarkably consistant on four of the five surveys, with the UOC (MP) having the adherence of about 7-12% of the population and the KP of 19-22% of the population. On only one survey the UOC (MP) has the advantage, but even there it is a rather slight one (15.1% versus 11.5% of the general population). The Orthodox situation is somewhat muddled because in each survey a huge number of Orthodox adherents do not list a particular preference.
I see no reason to question the validity of the surveys based on "inconsistent results", as the results are indeed rather consistant across most surveys and any variance is logically explainable.
Therefore, the conclusions based on the survey data should stand. The write-up should summarize the results of all the scientific surveys. The number of adherents of the UGCC should be described as 6-8% of the general population and of the UAOC as 1-2% of the general population. The article should describe the limitation of specific numbers for Orthodox due to the large number of people who do not express loyalty to a particular Church. However, it should note that of those who do identify specifically, most surveys show greater allegience to the UOC-KP than the UOC (MP). This does not, of course, necessarily mean that the UOC (KP) has more adherents. It could mean that people who follow the UOC - KP are more likely to identify themselves as such while people who attend UOC (MP) Churches might be more likely to merely consider themselves "Orthodox". Or they might not be. We simply don't know what kind of churches those who consider themselves of no particular demonination actually attend based on the survey data. This should problem should also be explained in the article. In general, the survey evidence suggests that the UOC (MP) and UOC - KP are about evenly matched in terms of adherents.
What do you think, Irpen? regards Faustian 16:20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words. I wrong in stating that the evidence suggests that the UOC (MP) and KP are evenly matched. Rather, this was my educated guess based upon the presumption that most of the ones of no particular denomination are from southern and eastern Ukraine (and therefore, are actually UOC (MP) people because that Church is dominant in those regions). I made this assumption for a couple of reasons. Firstly, those regions of Ukraine are the least religious and therefore even the religious people there may be more casual about their faith. Secondly, because Orthodoxy is more homogenous in eastern and southern Ukraine, and there are fewer conflicts, it makes sense that the believers would be less likely to identify their particular faith. In a place in Volyn or Kiev in contrast, where battles have occurred between members of competing Churches, it is logical that people would be more likely to identify their particular Church. On the other hand, it is also possible that some UOC - KP people do not endorse their own Church because they oppose the splits within Orthodoxy.
I seriously doubt that 100% or even 90% of the unaffiliated are indeed UOC (MP). But 70-80% seems possible (or who knows, it could be 50% or 60%). If the higher figures are true, this would push the true number of adherents of the UOC (MP) close to the UOC (KP) in terms of numer of adherents, making the number of adherents approximately equal or, depending on the survey, possibly even surpassing the UOC - KP. One of the surveys listed, Survey 2, doesn't include the Orthodox (or other religious) of no particular denomination, and on that survey the number of adherents of the UOK (MP) is closer to the number of UOC - KP than on any of the surveys which do include unspecified religious people. This suggests that more "unaffiliated" actually belong to the UOC (MP) than UOC - KP.
All of this is merely my speculation and for this reason doesn't belong in the article of course. We don't really know which of the two main Orthodox Churches are larger because of the very high number of unspecified Orthodox. Faustian 23:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I largely agree with Faustian on that we have to do too much guessing to give an estimate and we are not qualified to do it on one hand, and surveys themseves do not show the true picture on the other hand. What I propose to do is as follows. We simply state in the article that surveys produce the unreliable results and are difficult to use to give any estimates within reasonable accuracy (I elaborated above why: divergence and confusion). We may further state that both churches are clearly leading all the rest by the number of adherents. We move all survey results, with explanations to the footnotes and may add in text that despite the divergence, some surveys suggest the advantage of KP (caveat, we do have to say that they are unreliable, see above). The number of parishes data is unquestionably reliable. It should be given as no one actually doubts these numbers. We may further add that there is a caveat here as well since small or large parish still counts as one and it is rather unreliable to infer the numbers of adherents from the numbers of the parishes.
We do not change the order of the churches for now since when sections are swapped differences are harder to trace. I will read the proper chapter by Wilson this weekend and will let you know what I think. -- Irpen 08:58, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The only survey that shows the UOC-MP outnumbering the UOC-KP is the one commissioned by the UGCC which is not directly comparable because it used the name UOC instead of UOC-MP. My understanding is also that it is normal practice in statistics not to allow a single outlying result to redifine the conclusion; the data should, of course, be noted, but a single survey should not be overly weighted, especially one that was commissioned by one the interested parties. (My impression is that, although the UGCC did entrust the surveying to a reputable indepedent agency, it was the UGCC itself which decided to use the registered name "UOC" for the the "UOC-MP". While their reasons may have been noble, this highlights one of the problems with surveys that are not entirely independent. Then again, thanks to that survey, we can see that there do exist a significant number of people who consider themselves members of the UOC, but not the UOC-MP, which is, in itself, useful information.)
First of all, your claim that this survey that shows that UOC has more adherents than KP because UOC was called misleadingly is incorrect. In that survey, the respondents picked from the choices given to them as UOC-MP and UOC-KP. This is done despite UOC-MP is an incorrect name, strictly speaking, as the name of the church is just UOC, but this is a side question. Media use both names and survey questioners always use "MP" in the end for the sake of clarity. Trouble with survey is not that they are falsified or taken unscientifically (although the fact that one shows more for UOC(MP) and the other shows more for UOC-KP is alarming). The point is that the question is confusing and this is why people give different answers from survey to survey. I suggest we avoid stating which church has more adherents because bot number of parishes statistics and Survey statistics is unreliable in this case to infer the answer. Why number of Parishes cannot serve the base of number of adherents is obvious. The large parish can have more adherents than three small ones. The surveys also do not allow to draw any reliable conclusion as otherwise, we would not have different denominations leading from survey to survey. They do allow to estimate the number of Greek Catholics, because unlike the other numbers, their percentage is consistent. I tend to agree with Faustian that the reason is both lack of firm identification between different Orthodox branches (unlike between non-Orthodox and Orthodox), weak religiousity of a large number of people (still not weak enough to call themseves atheist) and that the questions are confusing for many. Remember my analogy above that inferring anything from a survey when the questions are simple and clear for everyone (What language do you use at home?) is much more meaningful than to infer anything from a much more politically charged and confusing question (Do you support Russian to become a second state language?) Same here, Greek Catholics and Orthodox can more or less firmly self-identify within branch. When it comes to which of the UOC's (remember there are more, like so called "UAOC (canonical)", the so called "True Orthodox Church" and whatever others) is much more confusing. Irpen 08:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
So, I suggest stating that both UOC's are clearly leading by the number of followers but as far as going any further, I support the approach suggested by Faustian above. --
Irpen 08:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I am now reading Section 11 (Angels and Pins: Ukrainian Religion), from Wilson's "The Ukrainians" (
ISBN
0300093098) and will be able to comment once I finish. --
Irpen 08:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I apologise I kept people waiting, now I have read the above discussion and here are my vies on the topic. At present we need to decide what goes in the modern section and what does not. In my opinion things like church attendance and present rivalry as well as geographical support (down to the Oblast) should go into a new article called Religion in Ukraine, with a see also from here and from Demographics in Ukraine this article instead should quickly summarise that data along the lines of, different surveys show different results... and so on... The new article should also include things like Islam and Judaism in Ukraine and other religions should IMO go there, as this article primarily deals with religions that Ukrainians adhere to, not the different minorities that live there. So where its written majority of practicing Roman Catholics in Ukraine are the Polish minority does this belong here or there?
WRT geographica distribution I have pulled an excellent source [29], now the link does not always work, but it does give the distribution among individual oblasts not in terms of parish numbers, but also in terms of clergy and church buildings (and categorises them like - those rented, those built in 1990-2005, those that are architectural heritage etc.) That can be used to make a good series of maps for the four major Ukrainian churches - UOC, UOC-KP, UAOC, UGCC, each with two one for numbers, the second for percentages. This is official state data!
Last but not least, the order of the churches should follow the order in which the state lists them and that is MP, KP, AP, GC and then others...That is how most encyclopedias list them...Why should we change that?-- Kuban Cossack 17:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Risu lists Orthodox first - MP, KP, AO then the Catholics GC, RC and then others check for yourself. Many public pages about Ukraine follow this - Ukrainian Orthodox - Moscow Patriarchate, or Russian Orthodox is the dominant church composing about 70% of all Orthodox believers in Ukraine. Pass my regards to Wilson, and the people who forged the surveys... -- Kuban Cossack 18:32, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, actually a survey taking is a rather developed applied science and well-conducted survey with a set of reasonably constructed questions can produce rather representative results with much less than 1% participation. Conducting such survey requires the domain knowledge on behalf of the takers, mainly to have a sufficiently representative group. I believe that Ukrainian Sociological Services is indeed a respectable institution but even they failed to produce any kind of convincing consistency. This is partly because they have likely failed to account for regional and other demographic differences (no matter how they tried) and partly because the question is much more difficult for an average Joe (or Taras) to answer than, say, "Do you believe in god (yes, no, unsure)?" -- Irpen 21:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Dear KK, you may choose to ignore the survey data if you wish, but the information should be clearly presented in the article so that people reading the article will have the same opportunity. Qe2 23:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
One more thing worth mentioning. From what I have read in different analysis of churches that coexist in the certain terriotry, not only in UA, it is the number of parishes that's the most frequently mentioned factor in estimating their relative strength. Yes, there are US survey numbers for the number of baptists, episcopalians, etc, but much literature uses the naumbers of parishes. The reason probably is that the latter number is, while not always precisely, related to the number of adherents, and is much better known. It also may be that there are some sensitivities in conducting such surveys even in much more religiously stable areas than Ukraine. -- Irpen 03:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for this observation and for taking the time to write in detail about the UAOC. I truly appreciate it. Your experience probably is an excellent indicator of why the survey results are what they are. They demonstrate that the surveys are indeed accurate - and in this accuracy they capture the Orthodox Ukrainian population's confusion or ignorance. Faustian 13:41, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Between the
[
Revision of 19:33 on 10 February 2007] and today's block, only one citation has remained from the material added before the mass revert. I don't understand the justification for the removal of cited information. Can someone please cite the major issues preventing the improvement of this article? As it stands, the article is inaccurate in my view, and the sooner it gets fixed, the better.--
tufkaa 17:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
The discussion above resulted in the protection of the article, after all of the recent additions had been removed. Each point above has been presented with a counterpoint. Since there is little progress being made, perhaps the editors could cite the major issues which resulted in the lock? Are their accusations of bias? If so, where? Does the dispute involve more than the order of the churches listed in the article?-- tufkaa 21:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
My understanding is that, as of today, the article remains locked, although it still includes the map added after discussion began. It appears that a collaborative consensus has been reached by the participating parties, but that we are now awaiting comments from Irpen and Kuban Cossack, the latter, who last posted on 18 February, being the party who objected and requested protection of the article. Although I do sincerely hope that KK is welll, it seems that at some point the article should be unlocked. Qe2 02:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The article has been unlocked. Qe2 20:09, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I suggest putting in this one instead of general Christianity in Europe template.
Sideshow Bob 20:27, 28 February 2007
(UTC)
I've copied and moved this part of the conversation into its own section for the sake of clarity:
What you wrote about the vast majority of the ROC/UOC (MP) priests refusing to abandon their Church highlights the inherent institutional advantage enjoyed by the UOC (MP) and why the number of priests, like the amount of real estate, is far from an ideal indicator of religious adherence. In terms of being canonical, is the UAOC canonical or not? My understanding is that it is analogous to the ROCOR, except that unlike the ROCOR it has reentered the "home country" in opposition to the established Church. Faustian 19:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
We should try to use better sources than the wiki itself. But anyway, here is what I know (or I think I know). The canonical status and recognition are two different (while related) things while the universal recognition usually signifies the full canonical status. Ecumenical Patriarch may choose to recognize someone or something but this by itself does not solve the whole host of problems. First of all, if Constantinope indeed "granted" Autocephaly to UAOC in 1924, this would have been very strange. Autocephaly may only be "granted" by the mother church and even this is not a instant solution of all the problems. Example: Constantinople tends to not recognize any Autocephaly or Autonomy of any church unless it is granted by Constantinople itself. The OCA status is an example of this strange state of affairs. Its status of the canonical body in the N.A. is not disputed but some patriarchates including the Constantinople do not recognize its self-governing status. See this for more. Does it mean that they consider it part of ROC? The clear answer to this question is very difficult to find.
So, we would really have to find out what was there in that Tomos and whether the statement mentioned there was an official statement by Constantinople or the opinion of one of its Bishops. It is easy to confuse the two. For example there is frequently cited in press confusion that Constantinople "does not recognize" UOC under the MP or other similar unclear nonsense. They are all based on a whimsical interview given at one point of time by one Bishop under the Constantinople, the Archbishop Vsevolod (Maydansky) who is actually with the UOC of the USA (a spin-off from UAOC accepted by Constantinople). As for the official position of the EP, there is nothing more clear than the statement of the Patriarch Bartholomew I where he says that Filaret is not consider a church hierarch by anyone in the Orthodoxy. Also note that even Vsevolod, as well as any other supreme bishops, accept the clerics of the KP into the Orthodox church only through a "repentance" procedure. Bear in mind that schism in Eastern Orthodoxy is considered a crime.
Now, the reality is of course affected by politics. As decades or sometimes centuries pass the facts on the ground affect the actions of the hierarchs of the established churches as well as the status of the "relatively new" churches. This has not happened here yet and is nowhere in sight either for KP or for UAOC whose position is better in some respects and worse in some others. An established historic tradition (UAOC is almost 100 years old), the de-facto legacy in some territories and partial recognition of its spin-offs helps UAOC somewhat. The mess it is currently in hurts it about as much. Firm state support and nationalist rhetoric helps KP in some respect but the total lack of recognition hurts it, perhaps, more or at least as much.
The keys from this mess is of course in Moscow right now. The day MP decides to grant a full autocephaly to UOC from its current autonomous status would effectively end any meaningful position of Filaret, his KP and UAOC. From the canonical standpoint Ukraine already has a "local church" (pomestnaya tserkov') which is nothing else but the Volodymyr's UOC and no one can seriously dispute that. Its lack of full autocephaly, its involvement in politics being comparable to that of KP's involvement as well as many other political struggles allow to politicize the religious debate and boost the claims of other churches. However, Moscow is understandably not eager to do such step as after this there would be no return and the centuries old churches have to think from the perspective of longer than a decade or two. It may seem to them that the current set of events with Ukraine's becoming more and more independent from Russia is not assured to be an eternal change. Some hundreds years ago this already has happened and yet reversed. Position of myself, Faustian, QE2, KK and even Jimbo Wales in respect to this is irrelevant. Certainly the last parliamentary election has likely raised some hopes in Moscow, not necessarily about the "re-unification" but about the overall trends. So, Moscow would be in no rush to grant autocephaly and this disarray will continue, at least for some time, unless it is solved by an unexpected and miraculous change. But, hey, this is religion! So miracles may happen, you know. Isn't miracle a synonym of the "act of God"? -- Irpen 22:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I removed the POV tag as the discussion seems to have subsided. If we are to readd the survey numbers, we should give the whole variety and the explanation on why they do not reflect more of the confusion rather that the relative church' strength, similar to what was discussed above. -- Irpen 05:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Although the Liturgy in Russian orthodox churches was in the Russian version of Church Slavonic, the Sermon or Homily was in Russian (not in Church Slavonic).
In the Byzantine Catholic churches, up until 1963 the liturgy was in Church Slavonic (with Ukrainian pronounciation) and the Sermon was in Ukrainian. Bandurist ( talk) 12:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
The Ukrainian Orthodox church and Ukrainian Catholic church maintain their own specific ritual forms in celebrating the Divine Liturgy. These are particularly evident when compared to the liturgical norms of the Russian Orthodox church. The priest in a Ukrainian church traditionally reads the Gospel facing the congregation, while in the Russian church he is turned away from them; moreover, the Ukrainian priest keeps the Royal Gates of the iconostasis open considerably longer than does the Russian. After the subjugation of the Ukrainian Orthodox to the Russian Orthodox church in the 18th century, numerous Russian elements were introduced into the liturgy in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church that emerged after 1917 reformed the liturgy (including abbreviations) and revived many old Ukrainian traditions. These traditions are now observed by Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdictions in the West, but the Orthodox church under the Moscow patriarch retains the Russian elements.
In the 17th century, sermons were delivered in bookish Belarusian-Ukrainian combined with vernacular elements. Both the Orthodox and Uniate churches placed much emphasis on the clarity of sermons. Sermons were usually preached after the reading of the Gospel in Uniate churches, while Orthodox priests as a rule delivered their sermons at the end of the Divine Liturgy.
When in the late 17th century the Ukrainian Orthodox church came under the control of Moscow, the hitherto common homiletical practices of the Orthodox and Uniate churches began to diverge.
As a result of systematic Russification, homiletics in the Ukrainian language progressively declined in the 19th century.
In the Ukrainian Catholic church, the 18th century saw the continuation of developments of the previous century, and the Ukrainian bookish, and later the vernacular, language replaced Church Slavonic in homiletics. The Russian authorities persecuted, and by 1830 abolished, the Ukrainian Catholic church in the territory under their control. That church continued its legal existence only in Austrian-ruled Western Ukraine.
At the turn of the 19th century the clergy in Western Ukraine began using the vernacular in their sermons and publications. Sermons were published in the vernacular by Mykhailo Luchkai (2 vols, 1831), T. Vytvytsky (2 vols, 1847), and Antin Dobriansky (1850) and in supplements to such newspapers as Zoria halytska (1853–4).
The Ukrainian Orthodox church was restored under the Ukrainian National Republic in 1917 and survived in Soviet Ukraine until the early 1930s. During this time homiletics was fostered by the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church (UAOC). From the 1930s sermons in Soviet Ukraine were delivered mostly in Russian (except in the Western Ukrainian regions annexed in 1944).
Homiletics has developed normally outside the Soviet bloc within all the Ukrainian churches.
Bandurist ( talk) 17:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)