Mass Media of the Catholic Churches in Ukraine

Throughout Ukrainian history Christian religious traditions and culture have always played an important role. But because of many years of the atheistic Communist regime, there has been a significant separation between society and the older religious and social institutions. The process of religious and spiritual revival, nevertheless, was beginning even before Ukrainian independence was announced in 1991. But this revival also brought with it painful conflicts between religious confessions. During the last decade religious life in Ukraine has gone through some radical changes and the religious mass media has played its role in this. Generally this has been in the form of newspapers and magazines.

In the year 2000 there were over 150 printed religious publications, either published by particular religious denominations or without specific denominational allegiance. These are publications officially registered with the government or with a more or less mass audience (a circulation of a few hundred to a few thousand). There are also an undetermined number of minor publications, generally parish newspapers, which may have a circulation of a few dozen to a few hundred and are limited to one parish.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGGC) has a number of mass media publications.

Each eparchy has its own publication (The Goal, New Star, Divine Sower, Source of Life, Living Water, Christian Messenger, Good News Messenger). These are monthlies, with the exception of New Star, which comes out weekly and is available for subscription all over Ukraine. There are also many parochial publications, which often come out irregularly, with a circulation from a few hundred to a few thousand and rarely go outside the parish boundaries.

The UGGC has perhaps the greatest number of youth publications of the various Churches in Ukraine. For general Ukrainian consumption there is the newspaper I Believe, the only youth gazette in Ukraine with such quality and character: bi-weekly, interesting articles on social and political themes and also theological and moral items, news about the life of the Church and about its publisher, the youth organization, Ukrainian Youth for Christ.

The Commissions for Youth Affairs of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk have their own publications: Temple and Light of Truth. A number of youth organizations and seminarians also have their own publications: Our Newspaper, The Wide Horizon, Hope of the Church, Solidarity.

The Order of St. Basil the Great publishes a newspaper for its parishes, The Belltower, generally with catechism, instruction, social and historical articles. The Basilians also publish the magazine, Missionary (a catechetical and theological monthly) and Light (a joint publication in Cupertino with Ukrainians in the diaspora) and a bi-monthly almanac of scholarship and culture, Kyivan Church (with articles at a high scholarly level about Church history, Ukrainian culture and theology).

The newspaper Ark is a bi-weekly newspaper on religious and social themes which has its own website.

The majority of these Greek Catholic publications do not have a wide circulation: the maximum is about 4,000 copies. The Agency of Religious Information (ARI) publishes the Monthly ARI Bulletin, with news about religious life in Ukraine and the world, especially about the Catholic Church.

The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in Ukraine has a smaller number of publications. The general publication Parish Gazette comes out twice a month and is circulated in the dioceses of the RCC; it recounts the life of the Church and gives news of the Catholic Church. The monthly Preacher is a catechetical and formational supplement to the Parish Gazette. Each diocese has its own publication. Kairos, the Dominican publishing house, also publishes the Bulletin of Religious Information, a digest of articles on religious and social themes from the Ukrainian mass media.

In general, the Christian mass media in Ukraine is represented by a wide range of various journals, newspapers, and bulletins. The majority of them are published monthly with a circulation of a few thousand. (Circulation information, as a rule, is not publicized.) They contain catechetical, instructional and moral material, sermons, and news of the life of the Church; only a few give separate attention to social themes.