Epiphanius, Onuphrius or the Pope: which church leader do Ukrainians trust?
This is according to the findings of a survey conducted by the Rating Group polling agency.
The results showed the following:
- Metropolitan Epiphanius, Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine – average trust rating of 3.0 out of 4. 22% trust him completely, 25% tend to trust him.
- Archbishop Sviatoslav, Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church – also 3.0, but 62% do not know him at all.
- Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople – 2.8. The majority – 59% – do not know him either.
- Leo XIV, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church – 2.6. Here, 41% trust him, but 27% do not.
- Metropolitan Onufriy, Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – 2.3. 28% do not trust him, and a further 38% do not know him.
Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, received the lowest rating – 1.1 out of 4. 73% said they do not trust him at all.
“Regarding Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church – as you can see, there is a lack of trust. Therefore, there is no point in discussing the Russian Orthodox Church or Kirill in Ukraine,” said Oleksiy Antypovych, co-founder and CEO of Rating Group.
It is worth noting that a significant proportion of Ukrainians are generally unfamiliar with religious leaders. According to Oleksiy Antypovych, a fairly high proportion of respondents do not know them.
Metropolitan Epiphanius has the lowest level of “unfamiliarity”: only 35% said “I don’t know him”. For the rest, this figure is significantly higher – ranging from 38% to 62%.
As a reminder, we previously wrote about which holidays are the most popular among Ukrainians in 2026.
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