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Category: Data

Description: These 174 news articles were collected from nine Ukrainian digital newspapers, in connection with Patriarch Bartholomew's visit to Ukraine in August 2021. The analysis (forethcomming) of the news articles shows that there were two diametrically different framings, which made themselves visible through word choice, which aspects of the visit were covered, and which participants and experts were interviewed. Four of the newspapers, and in particular two belonging to television channels that had been banned by the Ukrainian authorities earlier that year, adopted a negative framing of the visit. Consistent themes in these articles were claims that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with ties to the Moscow Patriarchate was the only canonical church, that the visit would exacerbate the persecution of that church's believers and the occupation of their church buildings, and that there were mass demonstrations against the visit. The other newspapers in the material had a more positive framing, and described Bartholomew, his visit to Ukraine, and the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine in neural or positive terms. I finally argue that Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has had a profound impact on the religious and media pluralism in Ukraine, and therefore, the analysis represents a glimpse into a bygone era.