WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR THE RELIGIOUS PLURALITY OF UKRAINE

Abstract

The article raises the issue of the danger of the Russian-Ukrainian war for the traditional religious diversity of Ukraine. The authors believe that religious plurality is threatened by objective and subjective circumstances. Among the first are the direct losses experienced by religious communities due to the death of their followers because of Russian aggression, captivity, and migration. People of different religious beliefs die en masse in the process of war. They, constituting the human resource and social base for religious communities of different religious traditions, will not reproduce the natural increase in the number of members of a particular faith. Therefore, such an expected and unexpected decrease in the number of believers as well as the number of their religious communities of both majority and minority religions will lead to a contraction of the religious field of Ukraine. This applies equally to territories controlled by the Ukrainian government and those temporarily occupied by Russia. During the war, surviving believers in the controlled territories are forced to migrate both within the country and beyond its borders. This introduces some chaos into the religious life of Ukrainian believers. Temporary/non-temporary displacement of millions of people significantly changes the religious landscape of the country.

Temporarily occupied territories have lost the communities of Ukrainian churches that have existed there for years – Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant. Residents of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions, parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are leaving their small homelands. Those who are unable to leave either join the army of non-believers or join churches and religious organizations that have Moscow/Russia as their administrative centers. Not only the landscape is changing, but also the nature of the religiosity of the Ukrainian population, which also depends on the policy and moods of the leaders of certain religious communities. The decision to change administrative subordination, which can be considered a subjective factor in the process of reducing religious pluralism in Ukraine, will lead to a transformation of the religious, national and political orientation of religious communities. The war influenced the polarization of sentiments in the religious environment not so much between religions as within the communities themselves, dividing former brothers in faith into supporters of Ukraine and the awareness of the need to defend it, and its enemies, the Zhduns, who expect the return of Soviet times and Moscow's dominance.

The authors conclude that the traditional for Ukraine religious pluralism is facing the threat of destruction (within uncontrolled territories) or a significant reduction (within controlled territories). Large churches maintain their area of responsibility, although they have lost their members (dead, displaced, migrants). Minority communities have struggled to survive after COVID-19, and with the beginning of the war, both the number of followers and the number of communities is rapidly decreasing. Previously, dominant religious associations allowed the possibility of minorities existing alongside them, even supported them to some extent, tried to form tolerant relations, and acted as a kind of guarantor of their freedom. Now, when the resources of even the dominant religions have greatly decreased, they definitely do not care about Jews, Muslims, Baha'is, etc. There is a danger that interreligious understanding will also experience a crisis.