713 churches. Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Byzantine rite Catholic church in Transcarpathia emerged from the underground and was restored as a separate entity from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church based in Galicia, namely the Ruthenian Catholic Church. This was done despite the protests by a portion of the Church members led by the bishop of Khust who demanded to be integrated into the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Despite this revival, unlike its sister Church in Galicia, the Ruthenian Byzantine rite Catholic Church has not regained its pre-war position as the dominant Church in Transcarpathia. It currently has about 23% of Transcarpathia's parishes, slightly less than 60% of the Orthodox total there. Its traditional base is the Rusyn (Ruthenian) ethnic minority in Transcarpathia. Protestantism In the 16th century small groups of Anabaptists appeared in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, but the influence of the Reformation in Ukraine remained marginal until three centuries later. Protestantism arrived to Ukraine together with German immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were initially granted religious freedom by the Russian Imperial authorities, unlike the native population. While some were Catholic, the majority were either Evangelical (in North America known as Lutheran) or Mennonite (Anabaptist). Of the 200,000 or so Germans in Volhynia c.1900, some 90% or so were Lutheran. Lutheranism went into a major decline with the emigration of most of the Germans out of the region during the World Wars but there are still small remnants today (2006) in the Odessa and Kyiv regions. One of earliest Protestant groups in Ukraine were Stundists (the name originated from the German Stunde, "hour") German Evangelical sect that spread from German villages in Bessarabia and Ekaterinoslav province to the neighbouring Ukrainian population. Protestantism in Ukraine rapidly grew during the liberal reforms of Alexander II in the 1860s. However, towards the end of the century authorities started to restrict Protestant proselytism of the Orthodox Christians, especially by the Stundists, routinely preventing prayer meetings and other activities. At the same time Baptists, another major Protestant group that was growing in Ukraine, were treated less harshly due to their powerful international connections. In the early 20th century, Volyn became the main centre of the spread of Protestantism in Ukraine. During the Soviet period Protestantism, together with Orthodox Christianity, was persecuted in Ukraine, but the 1980s marked the start of another major expansion of Protestant proselytism in