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2002 BYU L. Rev. 453 (2002)
Religion, Church, and State in the Post-Communist Era: The Case of Ukraine (with Special References to Orthodoxy and Human Rights Issues)

handle is hein.journals/byulr2002 and id is 463 raw text is: Religion, Church, and State in the Post-Communist Era: The Case of Ukraine (with Special References to Orthodoxy and Human Rights Issues) Victor Yelensky* I. RELIGION, CHURCH, AND STATE IN UKRAINE ON THE EVE OF THE FALL OF COMMUNISM A. Communist Religious Policy Up to the beginning of Gorbachev's reforms in Ukraine,' there were over six thousand officially functioning religious communities (one-third of the religious organizations in the Soviet Union). This number included four thousand Orthodox parishes (65% of the reli- gious communities in Ukraine), more than eleven hundred commu- nities of Evangelical Christian-Baptists, about one hundred commu- nities of Roman Catholics, and eighty communities of the Church of Reformation of Trans-Carphathian's Hungarians and others. The Regulations Concerning the Religious Organizations in the Ukrainian SSR defined the legal basis for the activity of religious organizations in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.2 This law, which mainly reproduced the Stalinist legislation of 1929, was issued in 1976. In addition, a great number of special instructions existed that led to an even more severe attitude towards churches. The viola- tion of the minimal set of rights granted to believers was an ordinary phenomenon. The number of official church institutions in no way reflected the real religious needs of the Ukrainian population. The authorities arti- ficially restrained the increase of church institutions; the Communist party and state organizations concentrated their efforts on reducing Victor Yelensky, Ph.D., is a Senior Researcher at the Philosophy Institute of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and Editor of the Journal for Religious Studies, Lyudina i Svit (Individual and World). He is also President of the Ukrainian branch of the International Religious Liberty Association. 1. The Ukraine is a Soviet Republic with a population of fifty-tvo million. 2. Regulations Concerning the Religious Organizations in the Ukrainian SSR (1976). 453

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