Weekend Economists Silent Night Christmas Eve 2014

[MattSh]

82. Why not? OK... If you insist...

First some current background.

First thing to note is although many Ukrainians associate themselves with a religion, they are not a particularly religious lot. The Soviet anti-religion campaigns had a lot to do with that. This is particularly true in the cities; more rural areas are more religious.

Though there are numerous religions in Ukraine, the ones to watch are the Catholics, mainly the Greek Catholics, and the Orthodox religions. The Catholics are mostly in the west; the Orthodox are mostly in the East. So, Ukrainians lean more Catholic; Russians lean more Orthodox. A number of churches in the war zone have gone up in flames, and it's not an accident. And the Orthodox are split into further sub-groups.

From Wikipedia:

The 2006 Razumkov Centre survey indicates:[8]

14.9 percent of believers identify themselves with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchate;
10.9 percent are adherents of Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) (which has the largest number of churches in Ukraine and claims up to 75% of the Ukrainian population[9]);
5.3 percent belonged to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (sometimes referred to as the Uniate, Byzantine, or Eastern Rite Church);
1.0 percent belonged to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church;
0.6 percent belonged to the Roman Catholic Church;
0.9 percent identified themselves as Protestants (Pentecostal, Baptist, Lutheran, Mennonites, Adventists);
0.1 percent follow Jewish religious practices;
3.2 percent said they belonged to "other denominations".
62.5 percent stated they are not religious or did not clearly identified their church allegiance (many Orthodox Ukrainians do not clearly self-identify with a particular denomination and, sometimes, are even unaware of the affiliation of the church they attend as well as of the controversy itself, which indicates the impossibility to use the survey numbers as an indicator of a relative strength of the church).

Notice the Kiev Patriarchate and the Moscow Patriarchate. The Moscow group are the most frequent target of ire of the west Ukrainians, but a recent proposal before the Rada (parliament) is claiming there is no difference. Orthodox is Orthodox and Orthodox is under the control of Moscow. See where we're going here?

Some more historical background, by he who should not be mentioned here at DU:


PART ONE: a preliminary excursion in ancient history

Innocent III
1204 - The Eastern Crusade of Pope Innocent III:

Most people mistakenly believe that the Crusades only happened in the Middle-East and that they were only directed at Islam. This is false. In fact, while the official excuse for western imperialism at that time was to free the city of Jerusalem from the "Muslim infidels" the crusades also were aimed at either exterminating or converting the "Greek schismatics" i.e. the Orthodox Christians. The most notorious episode of this anti-Orthodox crusade is the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, during the 4th Crusade, in which the city was subjected to three days of absolutely grotesque pillaging, looting and massacres by the western "Christians" who even looted and burned down Orthodox churches, monasteries and convents, raped nuns on church altars and even placed a prostitute on the Patriarchal throne. This outpouring of genocidal hatred was hardly a fluke, but it was one of the earliest manifestation of something which would become a central feature of the mindset and ideology of the Latin Church.

There is, however, another no less important episode in the history of the Latin hatred for the Orthodox Church which is far less known.

Gregory IX
1242 - The Northern Crusades of Pope Gregory IX:

Unlike his predecessor who directed his soldiers towards the Holy Land, Pope Gregory IX had a very different idea: he wanted to convert the "pagans" of the North and East of Europe to the "true faith". In his mind, Orthodox Russia was part of these "pagan lands" and Orthodox Christians were pagans too. His order to the Teutonic Knights (the spiritual successors of the Franks who had pillaged and destroyed Rome) was to either convert or kill all the pagans they would meet (this genocidal order was very similar to the one given by Ante Pavelic to his own forces against the Serbs during WWII: convert, kill or expel). In most history books Pope Gregory IX has earned himself a name by instituting the Papal Inquisition (which has never been abolished, by the way), so it is of no surprise that this gentleman was in no mood to show any mercy to the "Greek schismatics". This time, however, the Pope's hordes were met by a formidable defender: Prince Alexander Nevsky.

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/ukrainian-nationalism-its-roots-and.html