Southern Ukraine
According to a 2016 survey of religion in Ukraine conducted by the Razumkov Center, around 65.7% of the population of southern Ukraine declared to be believers in any religion, while 7.4% declared to be non-believers, and 3.2% declared to be atheists and agnostics. the study also found that 77.6% of the total Southern Ukraine population declared to be Christians (71.0% Eastern Orthodox, 5.1% simply Christians, 0.5% Latin Rite Catholics, 0.53% members of various Protestant churches, 0.5% members of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church), and 0.5% were Jewish. Not religious and other believers not identifying with any of the listed major religious institutions constituted about 24.7% of the population.
History of Christianity in Ukraine
One of the largest religious controversies in Ukraine recently involved having the almost exclusively western Ukraine-based UGCC move its administrative centre from Lviv to Kiev whilst its new cathedral's construction was sponsored by the first lady, Kateryna Yushchenko-Chumachenko. This move was criticised not only by the UOC(MP), but also by the whole Eastern Orthodox Communion.