Ukraine 2007

KOINWNOUNTES Communicantes taiV creiaiV twn agiwn koinwnounteV Rom. XII 13 Protector: Zijne Emin. Adrianus Kard. Simonis BETWEEN ODESSA AND LVIV The Catholic Church in Ukraine Country Report 2007 Frans Hoppenbrouwers Foundation Communicantes Nijmegen 2007 TA bl E O F CO NTENT INTR O DUCTI O N 3 UKRAINIAN SO CIETY 4 Politics 5 Economic climate 7 Health Care and Social Life 7 CHURCH AND WO R L D 10 Church in Statistics 11 ...in Society 13 ...and State 14 Ecumenism 16 THE UKRAINIAN RO MAN AND GREEK CATH ol IC CHURCHES 19 Socially Active Churches 23 Lay Churches 26 PO STSCRI P T 29 WE B LINKS AND LITERATURE 31 Web Links 31 Literature 31 LIST O F Ill USTRATI O NS 32 INTR O DUCTI O N After the fall of communism the Founda- still abound. The all-encompassing and al- tion Communicantes decided to engage ready shaky Soviet welfare state collapsed itself in project funding. Initially, Com- and left the Ukrainian citizens to fend for municantes directed its attention to the themselves in quite a grim, unfriendly and Roman Catholic Church in the Central often selfish society. Public health deteri- European region and, therefore, Ukraine orated greatly and Aids/Hiv now affects was not among the first post-communist some 1.4 percent of the population. Lag- countries which needs were attended to. ging far behind the European Union, the In 1993 Communicantes started to ever increasing real Gross Domestic Prod- broaden its view and at the end of the uct did not yet reach its 1990 level. Pov- 1990s Ukraine had become one of its more erty reigns supreme in the public domain important partners. The Ukrainian Greek as much as in the private sphere. Accord- Catholic Church has always been the main ingly, religious life shares in the riches and beneficiary, while its Roman Catholic sis- poverty of the Ukrainian nation. Even if ter Church enjoyed some serious funding Ukraine underwent remarkable changes, also, especially in the domain of lay edu- aid to the Ukrainian Catholic Churches cation. Consequently, Communicantes’ remains as necessary as before. main regions are: western Ukraine for the The following country report is the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and result of a visit to Ukraine in June 2007. central Ukraine, including Kiev, for the One of its goals was to assess the involve- Roman Catholic Church. ment in social action and the lay partici- The fall of communism and the de- pation within the Ukrainian Greek Cath- mise of the Soviet Empire in 1991 were olic Church, but much attention was paid dramatic events which had an enormous to the Roman Catholic Church as well. impact. Next, the Orange Revolution in The following report presents some in- autumn 2004 became the most significant sights in this respect. Another objective event of the new era, creating a more open was to push the geographical boundaries 3 atmosphere in society. However, problems of the work of Communicantes a bit further. Therefore, the author of this report was very happy to set off for the unknown, rather merry Black Sea port of Odessa (10/16 June). Kiev was a next stop on his itinerary (16/21 June). His trip to Ukraine came to a conclusion in Lviv (22/29 June). Frans Hoppenbrouwers is greatly indebt- VIV ed to Mrs Natalya Karpova (Kiev), Sr Julia L Nagornyak Osbm (Lviv) and Mr Alexan- AND der Dobroyer (Odessa) for their help. DESSA Frans Hoppenbrouwers, O December 2007. ETWEEN B UKRAINIAN SO CIETY Major changes took place over the last 17 ence of the populace either to the former years, some for the better and some for the Russian Orthodox Church – since the worse. Gradually and rather deficiently, country’s independence in 1991: Ukrain- human and religious rights, political free- ian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Pa- dom, civil society and economical liber- triarchate – or to one of the ‘newcomers’ of alisation got a foothold in Ukraine. How- the Perestroika years (1986-1991): the revi- ever, developments in the aforementioned talised Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, domains stayed and will stay ambiguous. the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Violations of human and religious rights the Kiev Patriarchate and the pre-World frequently occur; more and true democ- War ii Ukrainian Autocephalous Ortho- racy as well as a viable civil society is still dox Church which returned from the emi- a thing of the future; and economical lib- gration. The former is a majority church in eralisation negatively affects the daily life eastern and southern Ukraine, the latter of ordinary workers, children, men and three in the central and western regions. women, the old and the poor. Ukraine remained a strongly divided country in more than one way: culturally, socially, politi- cally, economically and ecclesiasti- cally. Where the population of the eastern and southern parts of the country tends to favour the former pro-Russian Prime Minister Vic- tor Yanukovich, the central and western regions by and large pre- fer the incumbent President Victor Yushchenko and the current PM 4 Julia Timoshenko, who are more oriented towards Europe. Most inhabit- In the meantime, economic wealth ants of the eastern and southern provinces increased. The enormous quantity of not are Russian speaking and their mental and so cheap fast-food restaurants indeed cultural framework is thoroughly orient- seems to indicate a more prosperous na- ed towards Russia. Probably due to long- tion, which will enjoy a happy meal not lasting communist rule (1920-1991), their just at the ubiquitous McDonalds but outlook on life is different from central and equally at one of the many indigenous VIV L western Ukraine. It resulted, e.g., in lower Puzata khata’s or Shaurma’s. Further in- birth rates, higher numbers of divorce and dications provide the innumerable cars AND abortion, and a greater occurrence of so- which have flooded the Ukrainian high- DESSAcial problems. Important agricultural and ways and byways, and the present over- O industrial activities are mainly located in haul of the Ukrainian car park. Second the eastern part of Ukraine. Next, religious hand western cars begin replacing the ETWEEN B division is clearly illustrated by the adher- many Ladas and Zhigulis, of which more than plenty remain to catch the eye of the nostalgic observer. Still, almost 75 percent of the Ukrainian families do not own a private means of transport at all. The organisa- tion of the 2012 Uefa European Football Championship will be a serious test case for the resilience of the somewhat inconspicuous Ukrainian economy. Preparation entails the upgrading of the over aged national road, train, sporting and tourist infrastructures in and between the host cities Lviv, Kiev and Odessa. This will require some 20 billion euros – money that the state cannot supply. Recently, serious railway accidents clearly demonstrated the poor state of the public transport system in particular and the extreme low amount of government spending in general. Furthermore, economic growth and slightly increasing private wealth are being out- flanked by a more or less absent welfare state and the precarious financial situation of non-governmental organisations (Ngos) – churches included. State pensions (411 hryvnas or 61 euros) and other monthly social benefits merely suffice to keep the people from starvation. Minimum wages are now at 460 hryvnas or 66 euros, while Ukrainians spend on average a staggering 50 to 60 percent of their income on food. Only 45 percent of them hold a bank account. Subsidies for Ngos are more often symbolic, or attempts at manipulation. Health care and schooling ought to be free of costs, but, in practice, noth- ing will work unless patients, students or their family members contribute considerable sums of money. The state budget for public health, for example, is just high enough to pay the mediocre salaries of doctors, nurses and other personal. It is being said that first aid patients who were unable to bribe doctors into action were simply left to die. Accord- ing to the 2006 report of the United Nations Development Programme, Ukraine ranks on the scale of ‘human development’ (schooling opportunities, gender equality, political and media freedom, access to fresh drinking water and so forth) well below South America and at about the same height as East-Asia. The country finds itself on77 th place of the human development index, in between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Ukraine enjoyed a large amount of Politics international interest over the last 5 few years. This was especially the case, when in the autumn of 2004 a soft Orange Revolu- tion took hold of the country. It all started with the poisoning of presidential candidate Victor Yushchenko, who had been Prime Minister under President Leonid Kuchma but later became his opponent. The elections were fraught with deceit and the ensuing victory by Kuch- VIV ma’s designated successor Victor Yanukovich L did the rest. Subsequently, millions of protest- AND ers took to the street. Dissent was brought to the very centre of Kiev, to the Maidan Nezal- DESSA ezhnosti (Independence square) and the col- O our orange – trade mark of the demonstrators ETWEEN – engulfed the Ukrainian capital. This nation- B wide revolt against self-serving legislators, all too greedy entrepreneurs, corruption and lawlessness turned out to be a great success. Especially in western and central Ukraine voters rewarded Yushchenko for his pro-Western stance, his pledge to clean politics, an end to the plundering of the already not so well-filled state coffers, and punishment for who had gotten away with political murder and corruption. Sentiments have cooled down considerably since. Due to party infighting in 2006 Yushchenko’s orange coalition lost its majority in the Rada – the Ukrainian parliament – to the oppositional Party of the Regions of Yanukovich, who succeeded to the post of PM.

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