A public opinion poll conducted by the Razumkov Centre Sociological Service with support from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Office Ukraine in November 2025 surveyed the peculiarities of the religious consciousness of Ukrainians, including the correlation between the church/confessional affiliation of citizens and their socio-political preferences. The thing is that people belonging to different religions, confessions, churches may have different socio-political views or assessments of events in society.

It appeared that although such differences in views and assessments do exist, they are not fundamental. Say, regarding foreign policy preferences, a positive attitude towards the European Union was reported by the vast majority of believers of all major confessions and churches (among believers of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine – 84%, Protestants – 83%, Greek Catholics – 82%, believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) – 67%).

Similarly, although Greek Catholics and believers of the OCU (76% and 70%, respectively) more often than those polled in general (64%) reported a positive attitude to NATO, this bloc is viewed positively by the majority of believers of other confessions and churches. 

Greek Catholics and faithful of the OCU (89% and 72%, respectively) more often than all those polled (67.5%) agree that the collapse of the Soviet Union had more positive consequences than negative ones, but the majority of representatives of all other confessional and church groups also agreed with this.

The majority of representatives of all confessional and church groups agreed with the statement “The Russian people is responsible for the war against Ukraine”. Among Greek Catholics, 97% agree with this, among the OCU believers – 90%, among Protestants – 83%, among the faithful of the UOC (MP) – 55.5%.

However, the poll revealed one interesting feature – significant differences in the views of regional groups within the believers of the UOC (Moscow Patriarchate) in some points, which are often greater than the differences between the believers of different churches. We are talking about two regional groups of UOC(MP) believers: those living in the country’s West, and in all other regions (Centre, South, and East).

Regarding the UOC(MP) believers in the Western region, it should be noted that during the poll, none of the respondents living in Halychyna (Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil regions) called themselves UOC(MP) believers, while the share of such people is quite large in the other West Ukrainian regions (Rivne, Volyn, Chernivtsi, and Transcarpathia) – 21%. For comparison, in the Central and Eastern regions, only 4% of residents called themselves UOC(MP) believers, in the Southern regions – 3%. Residents of the “non-Halychyna” regions of Western Ukraine make up 45.5% of all believers of the UOC(MP), which significantly exceeds the share of residents of the Western region among the population of Ukraine.

Strictly speaking, even in the Soviet times, residents of West Ukrainian regions constituted the largest group of believers of the Moscow Patriarchate. That is why its leadership was so resistant to the restoration of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church – as a result, the Russian Orthodox Church lost a significant part of its parishioners. But the ROC, and later the UOC(MP), managed to maintain its influence and a significant part of believers in Volyn, Bukovyna and Transcarpathia. Therefore, we can say that, unlike other regions of Ukraine, where few religious communities remained in Soviet times (especially in the South and East), the influence of the UOC(MP) has traditionally been stronger in Volyn, Bukovyna and Transcarpathia.

It is worth noting that, according to the poll, 70% of the UOC(MP) believers in the Western regions are rural residents, unlike the UOC(MP) believers in other regions, 71% of whom live in cities. While city residents in most cases have an opportunity to choose the church they want to attend and belong to (since communities of different churches are usually represented in cities), in a village, where there can be only one church (and often it is a UOC(MP) church), this choice is significantly limited.

In addition, in the Western regions, the UOC(MP) believers are more involved in church life than in other regions. Say, 63% of the UOC(MP) believers in the West reported that they attended church in the week preceding the poll, while in other regions – only 34%.

Therefore, it may be said that in the Western regions, affiliation with the UOC(MP) is to a greater extent determined by an established church tradition, while in other regions, a conscious choice of the church community may have a greater influence, including on ideological and political, rather than strictly religious, grounds.

To some extent, this may explain the differences in socio-political views and assessments of the situation in society between the believers of the UOC(MP) in different regions.

What are these differences? For example, the attitude to and level of trust in the government: 46% of the UOC(MP) believers in the Western regions trust the Ukrainian authorities, as compared to 17% in other regions, and 58% and 30.5% trust the President of Ukraine, respectively. There is also a difference in trust in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (98% and 66%, respectively), although, as we see, AFU are trusted by the majority of these two groups of believers. 

Regarding foreign policy preferences, despite is a big difference between these two groups, in both, a positive attitude to the European Union prevails (88% and 54%, respectively) – which cannot be said about NATO: while the vast majority (84%) of the UOC(MP) believers in the Western regions positively views this bloc, the majority of believers of this church in other regions (56%) has a negative attitude to NATO.

Regarding the assessment of the relations between the state and the church in Ukraine, the vast majority (71%) of the UOC(MP) believers in the Western regions believes in complete freedom of conscience and equality of religions before the law in Ukraine, while 73% of the UOC(MP) believers in other regions disagreed with this.

Only 14% of UOC(MP) believers in the Western regions oppose the provision of the law, whereby “Propaganda of the ideology of the “Russian world” both directly by a religious organization and by its governing bodies may entail a ban of such a religious organization,” while 48% of UOC(MP) believers in other regions disagreed with this.

The vast majority (78%) of UOC(MP) believers in the Western regions agreed that the Russian people is responsible for the war against Ukraine, while among UOC(MP) believers in the other regions, the majority (57%) disagreed with this.

Noteworthy, the differences in assessments between UOC(MP) believers in the Western regions and believers of this church in the other regions cannot be explained by the general differences in the public opinion in different regions – in recent years, the differences between regions have become insignificant. But while in the Western regions the views of the UOC(MP) believers are quite close to the prevailing sentiments in this part of the country, in the other regions the position of believers of the UOC(MP) often radically differs from the that of the majority of the residents in these regions.

What conclusions can we draw from this? First of all, affiliation with a certain church by itself does not determine the socio-political views of its believers – these views are formed under the influence of many factors, and the religious environment is only one of them. In addition, this environment, even within one church, can be quite different and be shaped not only by priests, but also under the influence of believers who go to church, guided by various motives, among which socio-political motivation can play a significant role.

This material was prepared on the basis of a public opinion poll conducted by the Razumkov Centre Sociological Service as part of the research project "Religion and Church in Ukrainian Society: 2000-2025" with support from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Office Ukraine in November 2025. 

Face-to-face interviews were taken in Vinnytsia, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zhytomyr, Transcarpathian, Zaporizhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Lviv, Mykolayiv, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Chernivtsi regions and the city of Kyiv (only in the territories controlled by the government of Ukraine and free of hostilities).

The poll was conducted using a stratified multi-stage sample with random selection at the first stages of sampling and quota selection of respondents at the final stage (when respondents were selected on the basis of sex and age quotas). The sample structure reproduces the demographic structure of the adult population of the territories where the poll was conducted at the beginning of 2022 (by age, sex, settlement type).

2008 respondents aged above 18 years were polled. The sample theoretical error does not exceed 2.3%. However, additional systemic deviations of the sample may be caused by the consequences of Russian aggression, in particular, forced evacuation of millions of citizens.

https://razumkov.org.ua/statti/tserkva-odna-a-pogliady-rizni