The churches also play an important, albeit very different, role in both countries. In Germany, the Catholic and Protestant churches have a strong social presence. They generate considerable financial resources through church taxes and land ownership. The church in Germany is very wealthy. It is involved in social issues and establishes kindergartens, schools, soup kitchens and fundraising campaigns for poor people. Although the church has no real political power, it is an influential voice. This applies to family policy, refugee and social policy, legislation on euthanasia, abortion and religious freedom. However, membership numbers have fallen sharply in recent years due to child abuse cases, which have cast a long shadow over Germany. In Germany, you have to pay to leave the church.
Orthodox churches are the most regular thing in Ukraine, even though there are other churches and religions present. Most of the churches operate by leveraging costs of sold goods and donations made for sins to be forgiven by politics, past or current criminals, and simply generous religious people. Church in Ukraine used to be barely attached to political life, only in few ritual religious symbols are used, e.g. when the president gives an oath. However, from the stat of the war churches happened to be in a centre of political discusses sometimes, since Moscow Patriarchate used to propagand some pro-Russian ideas, which is not in favor of Ukraine, so it was banned on political level.
Church music in Ukraine is usually sang in old Slavonic language, usually not accompanied by any instruments, just choir. In some cases, same songs are repeated in modern languages of countries where orthodox churches are present: Ukrainian, Russian, Greek, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, etc. https://youtu.be/Ib7EkJD08e4. In Germany we have a lot of very old church songs like from Bach. But in the younger more modern church, more mordernised songs are trending. Often sungen in German, a very famos example is „Möget die Straße“.
Marie Gebert, Yevhen Hrechko
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