ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates novel data on religious communities registered in Ukraine between the Euromaidan in 2013–2014 and the emergence of the new independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine at the end of 2018. We employ a top-down approach to analyze how national-level policies influence patterns of religious registrations and have found evidence that the number of registered communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate increased after the Euromaidan while the number of communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate remained stable. We interpret this finding as a potential sign of state or local favoritism towards the Kyiv Patriarchate. This shift in the religious landscape, as the gap that existed between these two rival Orthodox churches has narrowed, is likely to have a wide range of social consequences. We argue that the absence of state repression of the Moscow Patriarchate communities may pave the way for a gradual transition to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine for those communities that choose to join it.
