Orthodox churches in Ukraine before and after the Euromaidan revolution

I discuss the religious life in Ukraine before and after the 2014 «revolution of dignity». The main focus of the article is on the Orthodox сhurches, as the most numerous and influential in Ukraine. I argue that since 2014 the pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) has intensified substantially, with a purpose of creating from this сhurch an image of the «radical other». The pressure was going along several lines: mass-media discussions, actions of authorities and the attempts to make changes in the relevant legislation. At the same time, the Church of Kiev Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church were receiving more support. However, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) has kept its status of the most numerous denomination, holding its firm presence in most Ukrainian regions. The attempts to marginalize this сhurch have further divided Ukrainian society, blurring the prospects for reconciliation.

THE POSITION OF THE SOVIET POWER TO CLERGY DURING OF TOTALITARIANISM FORMATION

BULLETIN Series Historical and socio-political sciences ◽

10.51889/2020-4.1728-5461.06 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 67 (4) ◽

Author(s):

K.V. Dzhumagaliyeva ◽

Keyword(s):

Political System ◽

Large Scale ◽

Religious Life ◽

Communist Regime ◽

Orthodox Church ◽

Soviet Power ◽

Way Of Life ◽

Soviet Government ◽

Religious Policy ◽

The Church

From the first days of the establishment of Soviet power, its attitude to religion was determined. The new government separated religion from the state, thereby initially determining its position to the clergy. Having come to power, the Bolsheviks repealed the laws, where peoples were opposed on religious-national grounds. The Orthodox Church took a frankly negative position regarding not only the church poly of the Bolshevik state, but also its entire internal and external poly. At the beginning, the Soviet government treated denominations differentiated. In comparison with the adherents of the Orthodox Church, Muslims were in a slightly more preferred position. The reason was that in Muslim society Islam was not just a religion but a way of life. Violent changes in the traditional way of Muslim peoples could lead to large-scale protests against the new government. But the national and religious life of Muslim peoples did not correspond to the class-political system of Bolshevism. As a result, the communist regime was forced, through aggressive ideological, coercive and repressive measures, to impose its line in the field of national construction and national-religious life. As the religious policy of the Bolsheviks intensified in the regions of the traditional spread of Islam, discontent among Muslim believers increased.

DIVIDE ET IMPERA. RUSSIAN CENTRALISM AS A CONFLICTING FACTOR FOR UKRAINIAN ORTHODOXY IN RETROSPECTION AND IN CONTEMPORARY REALITIES

Almanac of Ukrainian Studies ◽

10.17721/2520-2626/2019.25.12 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 77-83 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Svitlana Kahamlyk

Keyword(s):

Information Space ◽

Orthodox Church ◽

Russian Government ◽

Conflict Processes ◽

Church Unity ◽

Divide And Rule ◽

Russian Military ◽

The Church ◽

The topicality of the article is motivated by the present situation of Ukraine under conditions of Russian military and information aggression and of the active spread in the information space of the aggressive concept of the "Russian world". The purpose of the article is to investigate the causes and essence of conflict processes in Ukrainian Orthodoxy, in particular, to analyze the role of the Russian centralism in them in the past and in contemporary realities. It is determined that the causes of conflicts in the sphere of Ukrainian Orthodoxy aч re largely related to the act of ecclesiastical submission to the Moscow Patriarchate in 1686. The situation of Ukraine under conditions of Russian military and informational aggression, in which the church matters also played an important role, refer to the exploration of Russian centralism as a conflict factor for Ukrainian Orthodoxy. The actual character of the issue is also determined by the modern planting in the information space of the aggressive theory of the "Russian world" as well as the necessity to find the ways for consolidation of the Ukrainian society, in particular in the sphere of interconfessional relations. In order to weaken the opposition of the Ukrainian ecclesiastical superiors to imperial centralism, the Russian government deliberately resorted to incitement between the secular and the ecclesiastical elites. Such measures were taken by Empress Anna Ioanovna, who ordered Prince Oleksii Shakhovskyi, the ruler of Little Russia at that time to persuade the Cossack elders secretly to protest against the giving of land possession to the Church. In the same way the Empress Catherine II acted and consciously orientated the ruler of the Little Russia Earl Piotr Rumiantsev to support conflicts between the Ukrainian nobility and clergy according to the principle “divide et impera” (divide and rule). Contemporary Russian information aggression has revealed various forms of propaganda in Ukrainian society, one of which is the project of the “Russian world”. A major point in overcoming the influence of the Russian neoimperial factor in Ukrainian society as well as the contemporary conflicts on the level of Ukrainian Orthodoxy is the development of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine founded a result of the age-old aspirations of Ukrainian society for church unity. The important steps for strengthening if the church unity were outlined by the Bishops' Council of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine convened on December 14, 2019.

New religious trends in the Ukrainian society

10.32420/2008.46.1934 ◽

2008 ◽

pp. 355-367

Author(s):

Liudmyla O. Fylypovych

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

World Economy ◽

Active Element ◽

Religious Life ◽

Population Migration ◽

The World ◽

Labor Resources ◽

Common Understanding ◽

The Church ◽

The end of the twentieth century in the religious life of the Ukrainian people was marked by dramatic changes: the network of religious organizations increased rapidly, the number of believers increased, the Church from the persecuted and followed authority of the institution turned into an active element of society, beginning to seek a common understanding with the state. The national uplift has coincided with the complex transformational processes associated with the globalization of the world economy, finance, natural and labor resources, population migration, culture, the spiritual sphere. All this is extremely relevant to the problem of self-identification of Ukraine as a state and every single Ukrainian as its citizen in different coordinates, especially spiritual ones.

«ПАСТИР ДОБРИЙ»: СУСПІЛЬНИЙ ПРОЕКТ МЕЛЕТІЯ СМОТРИЦЬКОГО

Humanities journal ◽

10.32620/gch.2019.2.04 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 30-39

Author(s):

Г. Г. Півень

Keyword(s):

Social Behavior ◽

Social Institution ◽

Political Elite ◽

Main Role ◽

Orthodox Church ◽

The People ◽

The Social ◽

National Ideology ◽

The Church ◽

The article analyzing the treatise by Meletius Smotrytsky's «Threnos» attempts to systematize the views of the author on the role and place of the Orthodox hierarchy in the formation of Ukrainian national ideology and political tradition.The key idea of the «Threnos» is the idea that social and historical conditions of that time in Ukraine require the appearance of a constellation of prophets or shepherds who are understood by author as spiritual mentors of the people. Their task was to enlighten Ukrainian society and raise its national-religious consciousness. The author of the «Threnos» pays considerable attention to the criticism of the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church when he determines their role in society, therefore, he obviously correlates this role with the expected arrival of the named ecclesiastical and moral leaders, and this gives us reason to suppose that the church should nominate the mentioned spiritual shepherd. Orthodox Church is also versed by Smotrytsky as an authoritative social institution obliged to become the basis for the moral improvement of society and its consolidation before the realization of an external threat. Smotrytsky pays special attention to the condemnation of the actual culprits of the situation that was formed ‑ in fact, the members of the church hierarchy. He distinguishes three main levels of criticism, which are used to judge the degree of decline of the spiritual shepherd - theological, ethical and social. According to Smotrytsky, each of these levels logically follows from the previous one, creating a peculiar hierarchical sequence linking the true shepherd with God, on the one hand, and with the Ukrainian society on the other one. He sees the main cause of evil in forgetting God's covenants. Smotrytsky believes that the indifference to the testaments of God is connected with the ignorance and incompetence of the ministers of the church, devastating to the whole flock. In other words, only the enlightened mind of the shepherd can make him a real mediator of the will of God - "good shepherd". Meanwhile, the ignorance is the cause of the ethical decline of the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church, and as a result, the moral degradation of all classes of Ukrainian society. According to Smotrytsky, the key to understanding the social behavior of the «evil shepherd» is the principle of the formation of the Orthodox hierarchy, namely the practice of selling church positions, for which the applicant was not obliged to undergo a pre-examination and election procedure, which would exclude a bad candidate. The result is logical: the immorality of shepherds, standing at the basis of their social behavior, leads to the humiliation of the authority of the Orthodox hierarchy, which, in turn, stimulates the collapse of the church structure that should cement Ukrainian society. Constructing an oppositional set of properties that relate to the characteristics of a «good shepherd», Smotrytsky draws his image in terms that repeat the foregoing, but receive a qualitatively different ethical sound. If pastorship was based on the authority of ethical perfection, it would provide the opportunity to cure the social diseases that struck the church, the main of which is the sale of church positions. However, though necessary, these steps are insufficient to consolidate the entire Ukrainian society. According to Smotrytsky, as a result of the healing of the Orthodox Church, its shepherds will have the moral right to lead the entire Ukrainian «nation». Thus, the ideas of Meletius Smotrytsky became, in fact, the first fixed attempt of Ukrainian intellectuals to offer their option for the further development of Ukrainian society, designed to ensure the continuity of the process of forming a national ideology and political tradition in conditions of explicit tension in interconfessional relations. The main role in this process is given to the updated Orthodox Church and its expected «good shepherds», who are called not only to improve the Church itself but also to consolidate the Orthodox community. In spite of the expressive motives of Christian providentialism, in the future this concept has found completely secular application, contributing to the ideological justification of the actions of the Orthodox brotherhoods and the Zaporozhian Cossacks, aimed at the restoration of the Orthodox hierarchy as new political elite.

The reason for the crisis of Ukrainian Orthodoxy in 1941-1944

10.32420/2001.18.1147 ◽

2001 ◽

pp. 67-78

Author(s):

Nadiya Stokolos

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Religious Life ◽

Orthodox Church ◽

Church Life ◽

Good Will ◽

Direct Guidance ◽

Political Economic ◽

The Church

Restoration of religious life, the formation of an autocephalous Orthodox church in the occupied German troops, Ukraine faced a number of foreign-policy and domestic problems. First of all, it is about the approach of different personalities and groups of Orthodox hierarchs to their solution. At that time, there were two irreconcilable, antagonistic concepts - Metropolitan of Warsaw Dionysius (Valledinsky) and Archbishop of Kholmsky and Podlyassky Hilarion (Ogienko). It should be noted at the outset that both these hierarchs were in Poland, which was declared by the General Governorate of Hitler and actually bordered by the Germans occupied by Ukrainian lands, most of which were included in the "Reichscommissariat Ukraine". It was in these occupational administrative formations, under the direct guidance of Hitler and his close circle, that the whole range of Ukrainian problems - political, economic, national, cultural, and church - was solved. Ukrainian Orthodox circles and their leaders have long hoped for the invaders' good will to solve Ukrainian problems and, for the most part, tried to act on the basis of their own concepts of governance of church life. All of them, as time showed, were, to a greater or lesser extent, peculiar "ideas - fixed", since they contradicted the principled vision of the solution of the church issue in Ukraine by the German invaders.

The Late Byzantine Monastery in Town and Countryside

Studies in Church History ◽

10.1017/s0424208400009980 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 16 ◽

pp. 219-241

Author(s):

Anthony Bryer

Keyword(s):

Thirteenth Century ◽

Twelfth Century ◽

Orthodox Church ◽

Field Of Study ◽

Before And After ◽

Important Field ◽

The Church ◽

Special Case

In this paper I want to look not only at the late Byzantine monastery in town and countryside, but how each category fared after the Turkish conquests, when towns became important again. By the late Byzantine monastery I mean one commonly established by a founder’s typikon, and commonly enjoying stavropegiac rights of autonomy (especially from the thirteenth century). Material for the late Byzantine monastery is abundant enough both before and after the conquests, especially on Athos which is a special case. But it is comparatively less explored after the conquests. This is curious, for if it is true, as we are so often told, that it was the Orthodox church which kept alive the flame of Hellenismes during the dark centuries of the Tourkokratia, and if it is true that it is monasticism which is the peculiar guardian of Orthodoxy, and that monks are, in Theodore of Stoudion’s words, ‘the nerves and foundations of the Church’, the fate of the late Byzantine monastery should be an important field of study. I have adapted my approach to the nature of the bulk of the surviving evidence, which is economic. This may be like trying to write an account of a university’s research on the basis of its finance department’s records alone, but in times of a squeeze it may not be an unfair approach. A late Byzantine monk had to feast so as to fast. I began my study by making a census of known Byzantine monasteries, within the twelfth-century borders. This has been done before. Beck worked on a corpus of a hundred and sixty monasteries, which Charanis brought up to two hundred and forty one. Charanis reckoned that there might be about seven hundred recorded all told, less than a tenth of the actual total. By chance my list of monasteries came to exactly seven hundred, so I drew the line there, although it is clear that diligence would unearth up to one thousand.

New religious trends in the Ukrainian society: changing strategies

10.32420/2009.50.2031 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 45-57

Author(s):

Liudmyla O. Fylypovych

Keyword(s):

World Economy ◽

Active Element ◽

Religious Life ◽

Complex Transformation ◽

The World ◽

Labor Resources ◽

The Relationship ◽

Transformation Processes ◽

The Church ◽

The end of the twentieth century in the religious life of the Ukrainian people was marked by dramatic changes: the network of religious organizations rapidly increased, the number of believers increased, the Church with the persecuted and followed by the institution of the institution became an active element of society, seeking to find a new place in the relationship with the state. The national uplift has coincided with complex transformation processes related to the globalization of the world economy, finance, natural and labor resources, culture, the spiritual sphere, and population migration. All this is extremely relevant to the problem of self-identification of Ukraine as a state and every single Ukrainian as its citizen in different coordinates, especially spiritual ones.

The Religious life of Romanians in 18th-20th century Hungary, reflected in the works of researchers in the Hungarian space

Journal of Education Culture and Society ◽

10.15503/jecs2020.2.422.428 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 422-428

Author(s):

Alin Cristian Scridon

Keyword(s):

Bulk Material ◽

Religious Life ◽

Point Of View ◽

Orthodox Church ◽

The Road ◽

Romanian Orthodox Church ◽

Romanian Orthodox ◽

Distorted Form ◽

The Church ◽

Research Period

Aim. We tend to believe that the religious life of Romanians in the diaspora – living in the proximity of the Romanian borders (we do not take into account the groups that left towards Spain, Italy, Germany, and so on at the beginning of the third millennium) - is a taboo subject. The Orthodox (Romanian) clerical elite focused less on the assiduous study of the religious life of their Romanian brothers outside the borders; in this case, in Hungary. Therefore, we have the scientific duty—but more importantly, the moral duty—to bring to light the truths that are either not known or are known in a distorted form. The road of Voniga (Giula-Giroc) that we followed during the PhD research period was a blessing from the point of view of a scientific void/niche. Methods. In our study, we have applied two “simple” components: the archive and the specialised bibliography. Results. The archive was largely preserved only by Elena Csobai and Emilia Martin. The respectable ladies professionally structured the archive (Romanian Orthodox Church in Hungary) and saved hundreds of research sources from the depth of history. Conclusion. As Moisa noted (2011), the puzzling ethnographic, linguistic, cultural, and historical bulk material is without a doubt focused on the Church. The church is inextricably linked to the lives of Romanians in Hungary. Going through the tens of thousands from the mentioned fields, even superficially, there is an undeniable truth: the spirituality is present, more or less, in the writings of most of the select researchers who have worked in the scientific field for the past three decades.

THE IDEOLOGY OF "UKRAINIAN ORTHODOXY" IN THE SCIENTIFIC WORKS OF M.F. SUMTSOV AS A CIVILIZATION MEANS FOR THE CONSOLIDATION OF UKRAINITY

Almanac of Ukrainian Studies ◽

10.17721/2520-2626/2018.23.25 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 151-155

Author(s):

Nataliia Fradkyna

Keyword(s):

Theoretical Basis ◽

Public Life ◽

Orthodox Church ◽

Spiritual Values ◽

Christian Church ◽

National Unity ◽

Significant Step ◽

Important Means ◽

The Church ◽

The research of the features of Ukrainian Christianity in the works of M.F. Sumtsov was analyzed. On this theoretical and philosophical-theoretical basis, the characteristics of the features of the «Ukrainian Orthodoxy», which have an influence on the formation of Ukrainian identity, are singled out and given. Modern scholars V. Gorsky, A. Kolodnyy, Y. Chornomorets emphasize the philosophical and cultural consequences of the Ukrainian Orthodox paradigm to determine the meaning of life-style guidelines of Ukrainians, the mental and identification characteristics of the Ukrainian nation. An ideologue of Ukrainian Orthodoxy contributing to the consolidation of modern Ukrainian society, the unification of common religious spiritual values, was presented in the works of Mykola Sumtsov, one of the first in his scholarly works. One of the ways to overcome the crisis of our society and a significant step towards consolidation of the national Ukrainian identity is to obtain autocephaly by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In the writings of Mykola Sumtsov it is emphasized that the Christian church is an important means of Ukrainian national unity. Mykola Sumtsov speaks about pan-European, democratic tendencies in the Ukrainian Orthodoxy, the approach of Ukrainian Orthodoxy to the soul and everyday life of Ukrainians, involvement through the church to public life. In the study of the features of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, the author identified his following defining characteristics: cordocentrism, democracy, harmony of public and ecclesiastical life. morality, focus on active moral and practical activity. On the basis of our research, we have identified a significant theoretical potential of M. Sumtsov's works, their high analytic and encyclopedic character.

Summary

10.32420/1998.8.192 ◽

1998 ◽

pp. 90-91

Author(s):

Editorial board Of the Journal

Keyword(s):

Religious Life ◽

Religious Studies ◽

Language And Literacy ◽

The Church

In the first section “Scientific Reports and Notes” of the Bulettin there are published the papers by V. Suyarko “The Humanistic Mission of the Religious Studies”, O. Buchma “Personality, Society, Religion: the Spiritual Transformations on the Edge of the Millenium”, T. Gorbachenko “The Language and Literacy as the Components of the Church-Religious Life of the Christians”, G. Nadtoka “The Orthodox Monasteries in Ukraine of the 1900-1917”.