Among all Orthodox Ukrainians, 39.8% belong to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, while 21.9% say they remain affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine (the so-called UOC-MP). Another 36.2% consider themselves Orthodox, without elaborating on institutional affiliations.
That is according to the results of the all-Ukrainian survey run by the Razumkov Center sociological firm on January 28, 2022.
Compared to 2019, the number of faithful with the OCU has significantly increased (from 13% to 24% among the adult population), mainly due to the decrease (from 30% to 20%) of “simply Orthodox” respondents. Also, compared to 2020, the share of residents of the country’s eastern regions who identify as OCU faithful has increased.
In general, among all respondents, 24.1% identified as members of the ROCinU, while the overall percentage of ROC believers was down from 13.6% to 13.3%. Against 2020, the share of those with the OCU increased by more than 4%: from 20.2% to 24.1%.
In addition, taking into account the liquidated UOC-KP (Kyiv Patriarchate) and if only Orthodox believers are interviewed, the preferences of all respondents will be divided as follows: 24% relate to the OCU, 12.1% – to the ROCinU, 2.7% – to the UOC-KP, and 19.8% refer to themselves as “simply Orthodox.” Another 1.1% could not define for sure, to which Orthodox Church they belong.
The growing share of believers with the OCU is being observed as it grew from 13.2% in 2019 to 24.4% in 2021.
The ROCinU, on the other hand, is seeing the share of its believers declining: from 13.6% in 2020 to 12.1% in 2021.
Also, in the last three years, the share of “simply Orthodox” believers with no affiliations has decreased by almost 10%.
