In one of Europe’s poorest countries, one thing is still doing well: Christianity
Arguably no European country is in a worse economic and political situation than Ukraine. Since 2014, Russia’s war against its neighbour has claimed 10,000 lives. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund estimates that in terms of GDP per capita, Ukraine is Europe’s poorest nation. Fewer Ukrainians are having children while growing numbers of them are emigrating, causing the population to plummet.
There is, however, one aspect of Ukrainian life that is flourishing: the Christian faith. According to the Pew Research Centre, 78 per cent of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, a figure that has doubled since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. (Spectacular increases in the number of Orthodox Christians have also occurred in Russia and Bulgaria.) Ukrainians themselves note this change. In the same poll, 59 per cent said their country is “very or somewhat religious” today, while just 15 per cent believed this was so in the 1970s and 1980s.
