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	Religion in Ukraine
The main religion in Ukraine is Christianity. The majority of the religious population belongs to the Orthodox Church. Ukraine's religious traditions date back to the first acquaintance of Ukraine with Christianity around the first century, when apostle Andrii preached on the hills of Kyiv and had given his blessing to the founding of the future capital. On that spot was later built the Andriivska church. The first historical evidence of Christianity in Kyiv Rus dates back to the IX cent. In 988 grand prince Volodymyr the Great introduced Christianity as the state religion. The young church developed intensively. In the XI cent. numerous temples and monasteries, among which the Kyivo-Pecherska Lavra stands out, had been built, while religious education spread. By 1018 there were some 400 churches in Kyiv. During that period there were two competing centres of the world's Christianity: Constantinople (Byzantium) and Rome. At the time the Kyiv Metropolia officially was part of the Constantinople Patriarchy and therefore after rift in the single Christian church that occurred in 1054 it became part of the Orthodox Church. It is necessary to mention that the history of the Ukrainian church is as complicated, as the history of the state. In 1596 certain orthodox bishops concluded a union with Rome in the town of Berest (now -- Byelarus). Thus was founded a Greco-Catholic church with Byzantine ceremonies, one which now enjoys popularity in Galicia. Meanwhile, the Kyiv Orthodox Metropoly came under forced subjugation of the Moscow Patriarchy in 1686. In the 1920s there were some attempts to establish an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, an attempt that failed. In the period that followed, namely that from the 1930s to 1980s, the Soviet state extensively persecuted the church. The majority of temples were closed and most priests were subjected to repression. After Ukraine had declared its independence in 1991, the new state filled this spiritual vacuum by guaranteeing rights to freedom of religion and worship in the constitutional. During this period the number of religious communities increased almost on 3500, and there were 16462 communities in Ukraine on January 1, 1995. These religious communities are represented by almost seventy confessions, schools and persuasions. During last three years the number of monasteries and religious educational establishments has more than tripled, while the number of missions and congregations has increased by a factor of six. There are more than 4,500 Sunday schools and catechism centres, and 64 religious periodicals active today. State power organs always try to create appropriate material base religious organisations to function normally. Only in 1994 138 temples were returned to the church, 261 temples have already been built and 1739 new temples are constructed now. The largest confessions in present-day Ukraine are: The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchy (the Chief - Metropolitan Volodymyr); The Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church (the Chief - Cardinal Myroslav-Ivan Lobachivsky); The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchy (the Chief - Patriarchy Philaret). A trend of interest is the increasing activity of the Roman-Catholic and Protestant communities, as well as the growing number of Jewish synagogues. In addition, the last few years have seen a trend of increased popularity of different east confessions not traditionally associated with Ukraine.