Religion is not the catalyst of the problem in Ukraine, but it is a key factor in how the battle has been, and continues to be, waged, writes Andrew Thomas Kania.Ever since Christianity was accepted as the state religion by Vladimir the Great in 988, religion has been a vital factor in Ukrainian culture and politics.Skipping over many centuries to the modern era, one can say that in the western Ukrainian nation, during the period of the Austro-Hungarian empire, a sense of self-determination grew with the greater freedom that was offered. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church became a bastion for education, cultural development and political free thinking.The married Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergy produced from within their educated families not only future priests, but politicians, militar