Onufriy, left, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate, and Filaret, center, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchate, take part in celebrations to mark the adoption of Christianity in Kiev, Ukraine, on July 28, 2016. Orthodox Christians in Ukraine are divided between one church that is part of the Russian Orthodox Church and a splinter church under a Ukrainian leader that neither Moscow nor other Orthodox churches recognize. (AP/Sergei Chuzavkov)

Kiev, Ukraine — The Rev. Andriy Lototskiy faced perhaps the toughest decision in his life: He had to choose between his faith and his flock.

In 2014, Lototskiy had been preaching for 14 years at the Church of St. Volodymyr in the small village of Strilche in western Ukraine. That summer, as pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine sought independence from the central government in Kiev, his parishioners turned against him and demanded he surrender the keys to his church.

There was nothing wrong with his preaching. It was what he represented.

Lototskiy was a priest in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the largest faith community in the former Soviet republic. The problem was that his church was affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church and pledged loyalty to its primate, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.

His congregants had decided to join a wave of believers who had switched to an alternative, Kiev-based Ukrainian Orthodox Church after it was founded in 1992.

"I came to my church and heard them pray for Kirill," recalled Maria Satayeva, a 36-year-old German language teacher, to explain why she also left her Russian-affiliated church in Kiev in 2014. "I couldn't be there anymore."

In Ukraine, some 70 percent of the population identifies as Eastern Orthodox Christians. Among believers, the rest mostly belong to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church or various Protestant churches.

The original Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been subordinate to Moscow since the 17th century, even before Ukraine was made part of the Russian Empire. The relationship continued after the country broke away from the Soviet Union.

But those ties started to cause problems in 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine's territory in Crimea and instigated an ongoing armed conflict in eastern Ukraine that has claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Moscow's meddling occurred after President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fled the country in February 2014 following a groundswell of protests against his corrupt rule.

Now many Orthodox parishioners in Ukraine are distancing themselves from the Russian-backed church, whose hierarchs are a key pillar of support for Putin's policies.

Leaders of the Moscow-backed church deny that Russia exerts political influence on them. "People go to church for prayers, not politics," said Archbishop Kliment of the Moscow-backed Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who is based in Kiev.

"Our churches have no connection to the modern Russian state."

After much careful thinking, Lototskiy decided to stay with his flock and switch allegiance to the Kiev Patriarchate. It wasn't a painless decision.

"All my friends turned away from me in the beginning," he said, referring to other priests from his old church. "They said I betrayed the true church."

Around 60 parishes have switched to the Kiev-centered church since 2014 in transfers the leadership of the Moscow patriarchate says were illegal.