Ukraine and Russia
This chapter describes the intertwined religious and political histories of Russia and Ukraine, focusing on church–state relations and religion’s role in relations between the two nations. It analyzes the common origins of these countries in medieval Kyivan Rus’, and the ongoing debate about the significance of the decision to accept Orthodox Christianity in 988 to both the relationship between church and state and the cultural orientation of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. It traces the legacy of separate religious development in the medieval era; changing church–state relations in Russia; the use of religion as a mode of governance; the civilizational debate about Orthodoxy and European identity; the experience under the Soviet regime; religious revival amid the collapse of communism; and post-communist tensions about the role of religion in a pluralist society, and about competing visions of a ‘Russian World’ on one hand and autocephaly for Ukrainian Orthodoxy on the other.