Religion and international migration: a case study of Ukraine

This paper studies the relationships between religion and migration in modern-day Ukraine. We focus on Ukraine’s numerous churches and their attitude toward the phenomenon of emigration, their relevant activities with regard to the outward migration from the country, and the migration experiences and intentions of the believers. We find that the Greek Catholic Church has put special attention on the emigration phenomenon in its social doctrine, while the doctrines of other churches have been less elaborate, both in general terms and with regard to the issue of external migration in particular. Moreover, we demonstrate that worshippers belonging to the different churches have very similar growing concerns about the negative effects of Ukraine’s economic development—social divide and unemployment in particular.