Reporters collect quotes. Often we hear people say things that are so haunting that the quotations stick in our minds and refuse to leave.

Let me share one of the quotes that has haunted me for more than a decade. It’s from an interview that I did with Victor Yelensky, a sociologist of religion from the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, during a June 2009 forum in Kiev about religion and politics in Ukraine. I was one of the speakers, along with another colleague — the late Arne Fjeldstad — of the Oxford Centre for Religion & Public Life.

Here is that quotation, which I used to close this “On Religion” column: “Religion ghosts in Ukraine.” Yelensky said:

"For many Orthodox people in western Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to live in any way under the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate. At the same time, for many Orthodox in eastern Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to not to be associated and in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. In the middle are places like Kiev. ...

"This is a division that is inside Ukrainian society. Is it based on religion? No. Is religion right there in the heart of it? Yes."

Again, that was 2009. There has been all kinds of speculation about the degree to which Orthodox tensions in Ukraine did or did not influence Vladimir Putin’s arrogant, egotistical, truly sinful decision to unleash hell on the citizens of Western and Eastern Ukraine.

If you want more background on that subject, may I recommend my earlier post (“Eastern Orthodox thinking on Ukraine? Reporters can't settle for the predictable voices”) and the massive Plug-In feature by Bobby Ross, Jr. (“Why some experts insist Vladimir Putin is motivated by history and religion”). No one needs to agree with all of the voices featured in Bobby’s round-up, because they are all part of cacophony we are hearing, right now. I offered my own take in this week’s “On Religion” column for the Universal syndicate: “Will Russia listen to Orthodox prayers for cease-fire?” Here is how that column ends:

… Inside Russia, numerous Orthodox priests and abbots -- 200-plus early this week, speaking "each on our own behalf" -- began signing an online petition calling for the "cessation of the fratricidal war in Ukraine" and negotiations. "We respect God-given human freedom, and we believe that the people of Ukraine should make their choice independently, not at gunpoint, without pressure from the West or the East," said the text.