Our introductory episode focuses on the successful campaign in early 2019 to create a Ukrainian Orthodox Church, independent from the Moscow Patriarchate. This religious nationalism formed a major plank of then-President Poroshenko’s platform for re-election. However, in the 2019 elections, he lost in a landslide to Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian that had impersonated him on a popular show, who ran against him as someone dividing the Ukrainian people. Joining the program to explain the Church that Poroshenko helped create, why it failed him politically, and its implications for geopolitics in Eastern Europe, is Dr. Gene Lemcio, Affiliated Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the UW. This podcast was made possible in part by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, or the University of Washington.