Traditional Faiths in Ukraine and Missionary Activity by Anatoly Kolodniy Anatoly Kolodniy, who was one of the organizers of the Ukrainian section of the Emory University proselytism study project, is head of the Ukrainian Association of Researchers of Religion. He recently established the Center for Religious Information and Freedom (CERIF)and teaches at Mohyla University in Kyiv. Religious tradition, traditional religion, traditional church: these concepts engage not only denominational theologians in Ukraine, but also activists in the democratic movement who strive to capitalize on certain traditional religious entities as spiritual foundations for the process of national rebirth. Let us begin by defining the phenomenon of tradition itself. Tradition serves as one form of socio-cultural transmission, which lends to the preservation of culture and its reproduction and development. The functional nature of tradition is evident in its socializing of new generations. Tradition guarantees the stabilization of social relations and cohesion. The following properties characterize tradition: formation of a collective character; a high level of constancy; and a codification of the life experience of human groups. Tradition consolidates the peoples of a nation. Tradition reproduces the thoughts of the past in the actual experience of the present. Understanding the role of tradition in religious organizations and movements is complex. Some approach the concept of religious tradition from a chronological perspective. This approach views as traditional those groups who have been around a long time. A strict chronological approach would recognize the tradition of paganism, for example. Correspondingly, numerous Christian denominations would necessarily qualify as ‘secondary’ traditions. However, no one has fixed the number of years or centuries a denomination needs to exist to call itself ‘traditional.’ The Baptist movement in Ukraine dates from 1854. That is almost eight centuries less than Orthodoxy, yet it too is a traditional denomination of Ukraine. Ukraine has experienced over a thousand years of Islam, yet it would not be considered a ‘traditional’ religion of our people. The fact thatevery religious system is a historical event militates against attempting to understand traditions merely as a reflection of chronology or geography. Each religious system has sequential stages: a period of youth, when it emerged and grew; a period when extant denominations opposed it; a period of establishment; and a period of development where it blossoms on territories it did not originate. Such was the case with Christianity. Since the day of its birth it experienced persecution from Jewish synagogues and from the authorities of the Roman Empire. To a certain extent, Orthodoxy was fortunate in Ukraine-Rus in that it was Rus’ princes who supported its establishment in the tenth through the twelfth centuries. Because Christianity did not provide Ukraine’s ancestors with an understanding of contemporary life, the surrounding natural environment, and agriculture, they continued to comprehend these phenomena through pagan traditions. Christianity and ancient beliefs together coalesced in the consciousness of Ukraine. Ancestral cults were preserved, as were belief in house-gnomes, forest-gnomes, and water-gnomes. The cult of traditional deities was only reluctantly supplanted by Christian patron saints that functioned similarly. This history shaped the traits of Ukrainian religiosity: openness, syncretism, and tolerance. The religion of the masses can be termed as “popular Christianity.” All this encourages us to understand religious tradition from other than a chronological approach. Religious tradition evolves as a manifestation of the religious elements within an integrated system of a people’s culture. These elements are organically inter-twined with the group’s spirituality. They express the given spirituality by comparison with that of other peoples. Inasmuch as national culture is dynamic, its religious element should also be expected to be in a state of flux and changing paradigms. In the Ukrainian heritage, traditional faiths are those whose systems of rituals and creeds are a unique product of national culture. Such is the Ukrainian Christian rite, which took shape during the first seven centuries of Christianity’s growth in Ukraine. It is the common heritage of both Ukrainian Orthodoxy and Ukrainian Catholicism (a.k.a. Greek Catholicism, or the Uniate rite). This helps us to understand why, during the period of nation-building, the Ukrainian state and national-democratic movements have, to an extent, defended theconfessional space of traditional Ukrainian churches from foreign missionaries. This reveals the desire for the rebirth of an entire national culture with each of its components intact. Only by adopting a perspective that includes the integrated context of religion’s history on Ukrainian soil can one comprehend the current religious situation in Ukraine, interdenominational relations, and attitudes towards missionary activity. A Complex Denominational History The denominational history of Ukraine is complex. This complexity is determined by Ukraine’s location on the border between East and West, at the locus of contact between two world religions—Christianity and Islam—and between two major Christian Churches: Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The religious map of Ukraine has never been mono-confessional. Even in ancient Ukraine-Rus, there were local gods who were revered by separate tribes in addition to the gods whom the whole eastern Slavic world worshipped. By installing Christianity as the State religion in 988, Prince Volodimir further complicated the map of religious life. He had hoped that this act should overcome a plurality of denominations. For the duration of about three centuries, the lower levels of the population (villages especially) remained pagan. But the upper tiers of society rapidly Christianized. In time, Ukrainians conducted their own unification of the religious world by combining paganism and Christianity into a hybrid belief system. This syncretic form of Christianized paganism describes the religion of most Ukrainians practically to this day. Ukrainians rarely recognize this when they claim to belong to traditional historical Christian denominations. Constant partitioning and seizing of territory by hostile neighbor states