ABSTRACT
The traditional dependence of Orthodox churches on the state had contributed in the context of nearly three centuries of Russian rule over Ukraine to the Russification of the church and the denationalization of its faithful, the legacy of Moscow's domination that could not be overcome either during the short-lived Ukrainian statehood or under German occupation. The most important factor in shaping Ukrainian religious and ethnic identity has been Ukraine's location on the historical fault line between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and for several centuries on the boundary between Orthodoxy and Islam as well. Theoretically, the Uniate Church would have best protected the religious and ethnic distinctiveness of Ukrainians and Belarusians against both Orthodox Russia and Roman Catholic Poland. With the Mongol conquest in 1240 and the subsequent transfer of the Kievan metropolitan see to the north, the political and ecclesiastical continuity in Ukrainian history was interrupted, facilitating the appropriation by Moscow of the ethno religious myth of Holy Rus.
