This report examines the differing approaches to COVID-19 by the largest Christian churches in Armenia, Belarus, and Ukraine. It does so by assessing their relationships to, and communication with, state authorities and religious adherents.
The first wave of COVID-19 in 2020 coincided with Easter, the most significant and sacred period in Christian churches’ calendar. COVID-19 consequently tested the churches’ ability to adapt quickly to challenging situations.
The Armenian Apostolic Church took a responsible attitude and complied with government-imposed COVID-19 related countermeasures, despite an uneasy relationship with Armenia’s current government. The Belarusian authorities’ politics of denial and their reluctance to adopt adequate countermeasures left local churches to decide on approaches on their own. Eventually, the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus took a more proactive and coherent approach than the Orthodox Church to fighting the pandemic.
In Ukraine, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church both sided with the state authorities and conveyed anti-coronavirus policies to the general public. However, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate was poorly committed to this mission.
Read full report “The different approaches of Christian confessions to COVID-19 in Armenia, Belarus, and Ukraine.”
