Khrystokin Hennadii, Professor
Lozovytskyi Vasyl, PhD of theological sciences
Introduction
Analysing the conflict potential of religious, political and civil discourses is an urgent task for science. These discourses, on the one hand, provide an opportunity for statements by the parties to the conflict, and, on the other hand, construct social reality. Language is an active tool for shaping the perceptions of a society that lives in symbolic fields created by different meanings, discourses, and narratives. The style and content of language determine the peacefulness or conflict of interaction and communication between people, social groups and states. The analysis of public and religious discourses is especially important in times of war, when every statement becomes a factor that influences the course of the conflict and determines the behaviour of the opposing side. This is exactly the situation in Ukraine, where the existing permanent conflict between the Orthodox Churches of the Moscow and Kyiv Patriarchates has escalated after the Tomos was granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2019 and has flared up with renewed vigour in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine since February 2022.
The escalation of the conflict is caused by the difference in the reaction of the two churches to Russian aggression. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) actively opposed the aggression, used religious justification for the right of Ukrainians to self-defence, condemned the statements of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who supported the war, and provided active material and moral support to the Ukrainian military. Kirill of Moscow, who supported the war, and provided active material and moral support to the Ukrainian military. Instead, the discourse of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) was limited to a brief statement by Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv against the invasion and no condemnation of the sermons of the Moscow Patriarch. Within the UOC itself, a movement of priests emerged who wrote letters of appeal to their leadership and advocated dialogue with the OCU for the purpose of unification. Facts of cooperation with the occupiers, examples of commemoration of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow during the Divine Liturgy. Cyril of Moscow during a service in the UOC, the lack of strong condemnation of the actions of the Russian Orthodox Church, have given rise to public expectations of a ban on the UOC as a religious organisation whose control centre is located in the aggressor country. In response, the UOC adopted an updated Statute at its Council in May 2022, which removed all references to ties with the ROC and proclaimed the UOC’s “independence”. However, the ROC itself did not recognise this decision and retained the UOC as an integral part of the ROC in its constituent documents.
All these events have sparked an active public confrontation in the media space between the leadership and faithful of the UOC and the OCU, which has led to polarisation between their supporters in society. As a result, since the beginning of 2023, 368 churches have left the jurisdiction of the UOC and been officially registered with the OCU, and since the beginning of the full-scale aggression, there have been about 700 such churches1. The conflict became especially acute after the decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to transfer the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra to the state administration and attempts by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to adopt the Law on the Prohibition of Activities of Religious Organisations Affiliated with the Aggressor Country.
Today, there are many studies of the historical, political, and canonical aspects of the Ukrainian church conflict. It seems to us that the discursive and narrative aspect of the Ukrainian church crisis is the least studied and requires special attention. We are convinced that the struggle between discourses and narratives has determined both the crisis of Ukrainian Orthodoxy and the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Our task is to study the discourses of the main actors in this church-political crisis, analyse their statements, identify power claims, hidden motives and aspirations that shape social processes, and model options for the development of events and ways out of the crisis. The main actors (players, participants) in the church-political crisis that influence the course of events are the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP) and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), internal alternative theological groups in each Church, international and Ukrainian experts, government/law enforcement agencies and political parties, civil society and ordinary citizens. We limit the field of analysis to public statements by the main actors and do not analyse unofficial sources or everyday conversational discourses, which require a separate study.
Methodologically important for the disclosure of this topic are the techniques of narrative discourse analysis, which we will apply based on the works of J.Brockmeyer, D. Matheson, and R. Harre2. The methodology of discourse analysis allowed us to focus on the specifics of public discourses and helped to distinguish between analytical and narrative types of discourses presented in the media. The general methodological framework of the study also includes the constructivist approach proposed by philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century.
The discourse of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow
It is worth starting with an analysis of the public discourse of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. Kirill (Gundyaev) of Moscow. In his sermon on 3 March 2022, after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia, he spoke about the need to forgive sins and offences, and in particular said:
“But forgiveness without justice is surrender and weakness. Therefore, forgiveness must be accompanied by the indispensable preservation of the right to stand on the side of light, on the side of God’s truth, on the side of what the light of Christ reveals to us. All of the above indicates that we have entered into a struggle that is not physical but metaphysical”3.
Thus, patr. Kirill sacralises the war in the minds of believers, he comments on the events of the war as a struggle between “light and darkness”, where believers should stand on the “side of light”, which means in this context – on the side of the Russian Federation. Another sermon by Patriarch Kirill on January 2023 contains geopolitical considerations, in which he admonishes to condemn “crazy people” who admit that “the great Russian state, which has powerful weapons and is populated by very strong people” can lose. “We pray to God to teach those madmen and help them understand that any desire to destroy Russia will mean the end of the world”4. That is, for patr. Kirill, Russia is “the whole world”, and therefore defending the interests of the Russian Federation is the mission of all Christians, which requires “spiritual mobilisation, to which I now call on everyone”, it “will help mobilise all the forces of our Fatherland, and at the same time it will undoubtedly help in the end to complete reconciliation between Russia and Ukraine, which are the only space of the Russian Orthodox Church”5. Obviously, such “reconciliation” means the complete elimination of an independent Ukraine, because for Patriarch Kirill Ukrainians and Russians are “one great nation from the White to the Black Sea, which came out of the Kyiv baptismal font”, and the Orthodox Church “was and is the force that binds this nation together”4. In other words, Kirill sees the mission of the Russian Federation as the return of Ukraine to its living space, where there will be no Ukrainian people, and the ROC itself provides “spiritual bonds”. The patriarch thinks geopolitically, and he accused Ukraine of “radically changing the vector of its political and historical development, which is contrary to Russian interests”. It turns out that it was not the Russian Federation that attacked Ukraine, but the democratic choice of Ukraine in Kirill’s eyes “does everything to make Russia the enemy in the eyes of Ukrainians”. That is why the war is justified and sacred, for participation in which a person receives forgiveness of sins: “if someone, driven by a sense of duty, the need to take an oath, remains faithful to his vocation and dies in the performance of military duty, he sacrifices himself for others. And so we believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins that a person has committed”6.
The attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to the UOC after the Council of 2022 can be seen in a letter to Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem of 23.03.23, where Patriarch Kirill calls the UOC belonging to the “Moscow Patriarchate” and notes that it is “persecuted by the authorities, which are aimed at destroying canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine”7. It is important that the UOC has not reacted to all these sermons and accusations, and on the contrary, its supporters use the ROC narratives in the rhetoric of defending the UOC.
In general, we can see that the discourse of Patriarch Kirill (and the Russian Orthodox Church in general) is biased, politicised, aggressive, and authoritarian. He turns the discourse of the church into the ideological propaganda of the ideas of the “Russian world”. Kirill’s narratives combine sacred and state goals, and he justifies aggression by the political interests of the Russian Federation and the religious ideals of “Holy Rus”, which constitute the “side of light”. The narrative of Kirill’s is based on the principle of binary opposition of what can be attributed to “Russian/just/saved” as opposed to “non-Russian/false/sinful”. In doing so, he sacralises the entire Russian culture, statehood, and government as having received a special mission and consecration from God. In fact, Kirill’s narratives hide his desire for sacred power and the expansion of the ROC’s structures outside the territory of the Russian Federation. In this sense, the ROC is the spiritual guide of Russian imperial aggression.
Discourse of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
During his speech in Vilnius in March 2023, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople assessed the actions of the Russian and Russian Orthodox leadership. He spoke about the politicisation of the church and stressed that the Russian authorities use the church as “a tool to achieve their strategic goals”. The ROC and the Russian state leadership “collaborated in the crime of aggression and share responsibility for further crimes, such as the shocking abduction of Ukrainian children”. He also emphasised the importance of developing interreligious dialogue, which “should focus on ways to resist and neutralise the ability of the Moscow Patriarchate leadership to undermine unity and theologically legitimise criminal behavior”8.
He sees the mission of the Mother Church of Constantinople as a readiness “to help its children in Ukraine and Russia again, as it has done many times in the past”. The patriarch sees the church not only as a church institution but also as a space of common democratic values. Therefore, “it is our common Christian duty to use the power of dialogue to bring our Russian brothers and sisters back to our community of values”8.
To present the position of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Ukraine, it is worth referring to the article by Mykhailo (Komansky), Bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Ukraine. He comments on the status of the UOC after the Council of 2022 and notes that “from the point of view of canon law, they remain an integral part of the ROC”9. In addition, the bishop calls for not identifying “the Primate of the Moscow Patriarchate with the Church. We separate the Church as the body of Christ from certain functionaries who head certain governance structures in a certain historical period of time”. Here he voices the position inherent in the Ecumenical Patriarchate: “The Church is not only hierarchs, but also the laity. And the voice of the laity should be heard more and more”, but they are silent10.
In general, the discourse of Patriarch Bartholomew (and the Ecumenical Patriarchate in general) is a value-motivated, conciliar, based on the discourse of democratic values, but does not pursue the political interests of a particular country. It calls for dialogue, cooperation, unity and peace and condemns manifestations of violence, aggression and instrumentalisation of the church. The Ecumenical Patriarchate thinks on a universal scale, for it, the Church is not only hierarchs but also the laity, and it takes into account their interests.
The discourse of Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv
There are few official statements in the public discourse of Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv, the head of the UOC. Even before the outbreak of full-scale aggression, he always took a very restrained position, not favouring any of the parties in the conflict in Donbas. In 2020, in his Statement, Metropolitan Onufriy said that “the UOC has always called for and effectively promoted the cause of peace and reconciliation”11. However, he did not touch upon the annexation of Crimea by Russia, he did not mention Russian troops in eastern Ukraine or the Russian-Ukrainian war as such. His statement is filled with such neutral definitions as “armed conflict”, “fighting in eastern Ukraine”, “bloodshed on Ukrainian soil”, “people standing on both sides of the military conflict”, “armed confrontation”, “conflicts of earthly life”12.
Already in February 2022, immediately after the invasion began, he stated aloofly: “A disaster has happened. Unfortunately, Russia has started military operations against Ukraine. We appeal to the Russian president and ask him to immediately stop the fratricidal war”. But then he repeated the Russian Orthodox Church’s narrative: “The Ukrainian and Russian peoples came out of the Dnipro baptismal font and the war between these peoples is a repetition of the sin of Cain”13. The Metropolitan called on “not to panic, to be courageous and to show love for your homeland and for each other. First of all, I call you to intensified repentant prayer for Ukraine, for our army and our people, I ask you to forget mutual quarrels and disagreements and unite in love for God and for our Motherland”14. Another statement was issued on 10 March 2022, in which Onufriy wrote in his characteristically apolitical manner: “Today, our country is going through a time of difficult trials related to the attack on our country by the troops of the Russian Federation”, in all monasteries “intensive prayers are being held to stop the bloodshed”, “Unfortunately, a large number of civilians have recently been killed”15. In addition, “in order to prevent even greater casualties and suffering”, he asks “everyone in their power to create humanitarian corridors for the speedy evacuation of civilians” and calls for “compassion and Christian mercy” and asks “for the speedy exchange of prisoners”16. As we can see, he did not make any official statements condemning the war or the cruelty of the occupiers. Finally, the third public presence of Metropolitan Onufriy in the media space was associated with a meeting with captured Russian soldiers. He again positioned himself as a peacemaker who prays for the soldiers on both sides, “so that God may keep you, all the people who are on the battlefield”17.
Metropolitan Onufriy’s position on the OCU remains unchanged, he still adheres to the opinion voiced in 2019 that “the OCU is not a Church”. He said: “Now they want to make their own managed churches, which would be governed by people, not God. And we have already seen many politicians and political parties that were strong, powerful, economically rich, and all this has gone down in history, everything has collapsed. But the church is and will be”18. That is, for Metropolitan Onufriy, the only Church in Ukraine is the UOC, while the OCU is only a “political project of the Poroshenko Party”.
As we can see, the discourse of Metropolitan Onufriy is seemingly apolitical, he publicly tries not to use conflict rhetoric, his statements are neutral, rather cautious and balanced. He considers the OCU to be a political organisation only because P. Poroshenko facilitated the granting of the Tomos. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, he has called for support for the Motherland, but Onufriy blames the war on both sides. But this discourse is not typical of the entire UOC; the conflict rhetoric is diplomatically assigned to other spokespersons of the UOC. The metropolitan himself is developing a narrative about the UOC as the only canonical church in Ukraine.
Discourse of Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine
The official statement of Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv on the outbreak of a full-scale war immediately condemned military aggression and called for justice:
“I appeal to the international community, all religious leaders of the world to support Ukraine, to force Russia and Belarus to immediately stop the aggression. Those who have started and are waging an aggressive war against Ukraine should know that according to God’s law and human law, they are murderers and criminals. And for their crime, they will be held accountable before God and before humanity, without escaping condemnation and punishment”19.
Metropolitan Epifaniy’s sermon during a prayer service in St Sophia in November 2023 contained many political, historical and moral messages: “We are defending an independent Ukrainian state. We are fighting to live in freedom. We pay a very high price for this. But freedom is priceless”20. The result of the struggle will certainly be “Victory, because we have the truth on our side. We do not want what is not ours, but we will fight to the end for our God-given Ukrainian land. Therefore, we have already won morally”. Then Metropolitan Epifaniy makes a historical digression and states that this struggle has been going on for “more than 500 days… this war has been going on for not a year and a half, not the 10th year, but for several centuries”21. The Metropolitan speaks about the importance of national identity for a Christian: the real goal of the enemy is to “destroy Ukraine, to dissolve, to destroy our Ukrainian identity, but we managed to preserve our Ukrainian identity, our language, our culture, to revive our local Orthodox Church”21. Metropolitan Epifaniy speaks of a just peace: “We will soon celebrate our Victory. We all dream of this, because without the Victory, a just peace will never prevail in Ukraine. It will come only when we finally expel from our Ukrainian land the occupier, the aggressor who came to enslave and destroy us”21.
Responding to critics’ accusations of political influence, Metropolitan Epifaniy thanked individual political forces and noted that “no political force, party or individual leader can and will have any exclusive or even controlling role in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.” According to him, the OCU has not allowed and will not allow itself to be made a hostage or a participant in a party struggle. He accused the UOC of being politically biased, which “has been developing for years according to this false model of shadow control. Derkach, Novinsky, Medvedchuk and other similar figures considered themselves to be members of a “joint-stock company”, deciding all key issues behind the backs of ‘hired managers’ in cassocks”22.
We can see that the discourse of Metropolitan Epifaniy is emotional, patriotically motivated, value-driven, and polarised. He touches upon political and national issues, the topic of historical truth and justice in his sermons. He sees the mission of a Christian in the struggle for Ukraine’s freedom and victory over evil. This is a narrative of Christian patriotism and military resistance to internal and external enemies. In terms of its style and content, his discourse is the antithesis of that of Patriarch Kirill, who speaks of the same things, but in the interests of the Russian Federation. Both are opposed to the discourse of Metropolitan Onufriy.
Apologetical discourse within the UOC
The apologetic discourse of the UOC, which is opposite to the rhetoric of Metropolitan Onufriy, is of a completely different nature, as presented in the “Open Letter to the Leaders of International Structures” by Abbess Seraphima (Shevchik). The author blames the authorities for “violations of the rights to freedom of conscience and religion”23. She states that decisions are being made at all levels “to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, to take away land and property from its parishes and monasteries”. Accuses representatives of some state legislative and executive authorities of a “systematic discrediting campaign against the UOC”24. Abbess Seraphima also states that “there is no real connection between the UOC and the ROC” and that the authorities, society and experts unfairly “prove that the UOC has administrative ties with the Moscow Patriarchate”25. In most cases, Seraphima refers to unofficial conversations between officials or backroom statements by politicians, and does not provide real evidence that the authorities are taking actions to ban the UOC in violation of the law.
The author declares: “we categorically reject all accusations of our Church of pro-Russian sentiments and actions”, “the UOC has never supported the anti-Christian doctrine of the “Russian world””25, although this doctrine is professed by many hierarchs and believers of the UOC. But later it turns out that the main claim is that the authorities are protecting the interests of the OCU, with which the UOC does not want to engage in dialogue and which it perceives as a “schismatic organisation, not a church”25. The statement that “the adoption of Bill No. 8371 creates conditions for the destruction of an entire denomination in the state” looks rather biased. And in full accordance with the ROC narrative, Seraphim fears that after the adoption of the law, “the world will face repression against the Church on a scale that humanity has not seen for almost a century”25.
In general, the discourse of Abbess Seraphima’s letter is extremely emotional, motivated, tendentious and polarised, presenting everything in black and white. It does not contain a constructive position, there are no proposals, no initiatives for dialogue with the authorities and the OCU, no understanding and explanation of the reasons why the UOC found itself in this situation, no attempts to establish a dialogue with civil society. Although Seraphim spoke throughout the text about protecting the rights of believers, in fact, instead of Metropolitan Onufriy, she speaks about protecting the rights of the church leadership, about the interests of the structure.
Apologetic discourse within the OCU
In the OCU, we also find apologetic rhetoric. A representative of the OCU, Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabinko), who joined it from the UOC, comments on the conflict around the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra: “There is no persecution there. There is the fulfilment by the state of its functions, which it must perform.” The Lavra does not belong to the UOC alone, “it is the spiritual heart of Ukraine. And it belongs to the entire Ukrainian people, not to a separate legal entity, and we are all equal before the state law and before the spiritual law”26. Metropolitan Oleksandr explains the transition of the CHR to state administration by the fact that “Orthodox believers were told that we are “triune Russia””27. The bishop assesses as a political position the fact that many parishes of the UOC did not join the OCU: “This is a political and religious decision. And the responsibility for this lies with the hierarchy of the UOC (MP), which for 30 years has been saying that the rest of the religious organisations in Ukraine are non-canonical, graceless”27. Metropolitan Oleksandr believes that the actions of the UOC continue to be backed by Patriarch of Moscow, who is “the main defender of the UOC”, he “at all levels, including the UN Security Council, declares that we are being “persecuted”, we are being “oppressed””. Instead, all questions “should be answered publicly by Metropolitan Onufriy himself and explain the position he takes as the head of the UOC.”27.
Another spokesperson for the OCU, Metropolitan Yevstratiy (Zorya), takes a more categorical position. He pointed to the fact of peacekeeping meetings of Metropolitan Onufriy with captured Russians: “Onufriy did not condemn the evil that the Russians brought to the Ukrainian land, did not call on them to repent for the killings and destruction, but on the contrary, he wished them God’s protection”28. On the contrary, Metropolitan Yevstratiy directly accuses the UOC of bringing about the war, serving the Russian Orthodox Church and professing the ideology of the “Russian world”:
“For three decades, the rulers of the Moscow Patriarchate have been trying to make Ukraine submit to the “Russian world”, to love Moscow as the “Third Rome”, to believe in the fiction of the “indivisible Holy Rus”, not to resist the occupiers but to greet them with flowers – but it did not work. They are resisting. They are fighting. The guns are not silent”29.
In response to Onufriy’s discourse on the civil conflict, on “two sides that are allegedly equally guilty or equally innocent,” Metropolitan Yevstratiy notes: “In fact, Russia is fighting AGAINST Ukraine. Russia has attacked Ukraine. Russia has occupied part of its territory and wants to occupy even more”29.
As we can see, in general, the apologetic discourse of the OCU is based on the search for an internal and external enemy. It contrasts “peaceful Ukraine” with “aggressive Russia”. It sees the cause of this aggression in the unpatriotic position of the UOC, which has submitted to the “Russian world” and failed to fulfil its mission for Ukraine. Typologically, this discourse is similar to the apologetic discourse of the UOC and mirrors the polar discourse of the ROC.
Critical discourse of theologians within the UOC
We should not think that there is no alternative voice in the UOC. There are such voices and they are not isolated. Together, they have formed a group of clergy who actively advocate the need for dialogue with the state, society and the OCU, condemn Russian aggression and demand that their leadership break off relations with the ROC. The authors of the “10 Questions of the Clergy to the Holy Synod of the UOC”, in which they tried to clarify the status of the UOC in relation to the ROC in January 2023, should be mentioned here. Here are some of these questions: “What is the status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at this time?”, “Does the Holy Synod confirm the decision to completely withdraw the UOC from the ROC?”, “Did the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church send an official statement or act of complete withdrawal from the ROC to the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church?”, “Have the Primate and other hierarchs of the UOC officially withdrawn from the Synod, Bishops’ and Local Councils, the Inter-Council Presence and other ecclesiastical canonical bodies of the ROC?”30. The UOC leadership did not give any answer to these questions. This may indicate that either the UOC continues to be part of the ROC and therefore cannot give clear answers without revealing its hidden position. Or that the UOC does not consider itself part of the ROC, but providing these answers would destroy the fragile position of the UOC, which would have to self-determine publicly, and it does not want (cannot) do so. But in addition to criticism of its own leadership, there are active voices in the UOC demanding a church trial of Patriarch Kirill31.
Voices critical of the Russian Orthodox Church are heard publicly, not only among the clergy, but also among the bishops of the UOC. For example, the website of the clergy of the Lviv Diocese of the UOC published a post condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine: “This is not just a sin, but satanic madness that leads to the destruction of innocent people: Russia’s actions against the Ukrainian people are increasingly acquiring signs of genocide”32. Also, on 23 July 2023, after another massive shelling of the hero city of Odesa and the destruction of the Transfiguration Cathedral, the vicar of the Odesa diocese, Archbishop Victor (Bykov) of Artsyz, addressed an open letter to the Patriarch of Moscow. In the letter, he accuses Russia of aggression and demands that it not interfere in the affairs of the UOC:
“Your bishops and priests consecrate and bless tanks and missiles that bomb our peaceful cities.” “Because of your personal ambitions, you have lost the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and other Churches in the countries of “Holy Rus”! “Today, we (speaking on behalf of many bishops of the UOC) condemn this frantic Russian aggression against our independent country. We condemn the barbaric seizures of our dioceses in the East and South of Ukraine. We condemn the repressions and oppression that your authorities are creating in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine!”33.
An important voice in the UOC is the “Appeal of the clergy to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy” in July 2023, in which they stated that “there was no real break with the ROC”. In the appeal, the signatories condemned the silence of the UOC leadership: “Your Beatitude, you cannot remain silent any longer”34. The appeal demands: “We, the clergy of the UOC, call on you to initiate the immediate convocation of the UOC Council, which should lead to a real, not ephemeral, break with the ROC”, because “the Russian state doctrine has lost all signs of Orthodoxy, having united with Putin’s imperial regime and turned into its servant”35.
An alternative voice in the UOC is demonstrated by an article by Seraphim Pankratov, an archimandrite of the UOC, who represents the position of many representatives within the UOC. According to Seraphim, the attitude of the state and society towards the UOC is morally justified and understandable, because “it is not just a conflict between the UOC and the modern Ukrainian state. It is a conflict between the UOC and modern Ukrainian society”36.
Seraphim notes that although the UOC Council decided on independence, in fact “the decision to withdraw from the ROC was never formally adopted”37. The situation is such that “the decision of the Council can be interpreted in two ways – either as the creation of a “Ukrainian platform” within the ROC, or as the creation of canonical grounds for the proclamation of autocephaly”37. Seraphim is confident that “the actual existence of the UOC structures will continue” even after the adoption of the law banning the UOC. “The current conflict of the UOC with the state and society comes down to the problem of church-administrative subordination of our Church. It is not about faith, not about dogmas, but about the issue of jurisdiction – the power of the ‘Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia’ over the Ukrainian Church”37.
Archimandrite Seraphim realises: “Either we will exist on the basis of autocephaly, or we will live on the margins. In other words, either withdrawal from the Moscow Patriarchate or a collective “historical suicide” – the transformation of the Church into a sectarian group.” Because “the Tomos has been issued, the Local Church in Ukraine has been created, and that’s it!” Therefore, there is only one way out of the stalemate, “it is a dialogue on unification with the OCU”.37
Seraphim rightly identifies the main cause of the crisis – the corporate thinking of the UOC leaders. “Clergymen should stop thinking in terms of confessional/corporate interests and start thinking in terms of the benefit of the Church. The author suggests a way to peaceful coexistence:
“The subject of the dialogue between the UOC and the OCU – at least at the first stage – can be just such a mysterious unity! We can postpone the restoration of church-administrative unity “for later”. But we have no moral right to ignore the will of Christ, who wanted us to live not separately but together, in the unity of the spirit…”37
In general, the discourse of the alternative theologians of the UOC is Christian and self-critical, looking not for external causes of the Orthodox crisis, but seeing them in the behaviour and previous actions of the UOC. “We demand repentance from the representatives of the OCU. But where is our own repentance? Don’t we ourselves have to repent of our unchristian attitude, of inciting hatred, of unlovingness and pharisaism?” Then Father Seraphim admits: “How much mud was poured on the autocephalous movement! We sowed insults and enmity. And what response did we expect from our opponents? Gratitude? We declared the “spiritual death” of all Orthodox Christians in Ukraine who were outside the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church”37.
As we can see, the UOC presents an alternative public discourse that represents many priests and possibly some bishops. We are witnessing a truly Christian discourse of repentance, self-purification, identification of one’s own failings and the search for brotherly love. This is a discourse that carries the narrative of a unified Ukrainian Orthodoxy, independent of the Russian Orthodox Church, in unity with world Orthodoxy and in partnership with the Ukrainian state and society. Unfortunately, it is still marginal in the UOC, with no strong representation of lay intellectuals, and official church circles condemning it.
Internal self-critical, civil discourse of the OCU
A similar discourse can be seen in the OCU. It is worth exploring on the example of the “10 Theses for the OCU”, which were proposed back in 2019 by a group of clergy and laity of the OCU with proposals for an agenda for the newly created autocephalous Church, “which would help it better fulfil its vocation in the circumstances of today”. For this, the Ukrainian Church needs the following changes: “true conciliarity”, “renewal of parish life and Eucharistic revival”, “involvement of believers”, “quality translation of liturgical texts into Ukrainian and worship that speaks to the person of the 21st century”, “strengthening of Christ-centredness and restoration of the biblical consciousness of the Church”, “rejection of the Byzantine or Western type paradigm of “symphony”, rejection of the politicisation of the Church”, “priority of relations between the Church and civil society”, “transparency, accountability, unity in diversity and representation of the entire church people”, “social service, active social position of the Church”, “dialogue and openness”38.
Critical remarks on the need to reform and renew the Orthodox Church were also expressed in our articles previously published in the OPREE journal. In particular, we stressed the need for “renewal, modernisation and maximum transformation” of the Church. We proposed “to develop a well-thought-out and officially recognised concept of reforming Orthodoxy, which would include a critical analysis of the church’s crisis processes and a well-thought-out plan to overcome them”39. The article states that “the main aspects of reforming the church are the renewal of tradition, the need for a new reading of the canons, rethinking the negative historical experience of the past, overcoming the church’s dependence on state dictates and political ideologies”. It has been found that Ukrainian Orthodoxy faces the tasks of “implementing the decisions of the social doctrine of the Ecumenical Patriarchate into its own social doctrine, rethinking the attitude to modern economic and legal processes, problems of civil society and the rule of law, education and culture”39. That is, the theological solution for Orthodoxy could be the development of a theology of the modernisation of the Church, and the way out of the Church’s crisis is possible only in the direction of its renewal. “Church thought will be alive when it learns to creatively use the achievements of modern culture, science, philosophy, can assimilate and transform them, and conduct a constant dialogue with modernity”40.
Thus, in the OCU, there is a rather powerful voice of priests and lay intellectuals who express their wishes for the renewal of the Church. They offer an analytical theological and religious discourse that carries the narrative of a renewed, modern, reformed, socially and civically oriented Church that would establish partnerships with the state, build open relations with other faiths, significantly reform theological education, and become a mouthpiece of truth in society. In our opinion, this is an extremely important, non-conflictual discourse that should become the basis for interfaith unity.
Discourse of interfaith unity between the UOC and the OCU
In July 2022, after the meeting in St Sophia of Kyiv, an informal group of priests of the UOC and the OCU was formed41. After the second meeting in February 2023, the “Appeal of the Participants of the Interchurch Dialogue in St Sophia of Kyiv to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful” was adopted, which provides an opportunity to see their rhetoric. The participants spoke about the existing problems between the two churches and discussed ways to overcome them: “we strive to achieve the unification of all Orthodox Ukrainians in a single conciliar and local (autocephalous) Ukrainian Orthodox Church, recognised by the entire Christian Orthodox world”42.
The main achievement of the meeting is the recognition by the participants of the canonical equality of the UOC and the OCU and the importance of acting within the legal framework of legislation:
“we perceive the state and civil society of Ukraine as important participants in the dialogue of unity between the UOC and the OCU. We see the prospect of relations between the Orthodox Churches and the state and society based on the principles of the rule of law, mutual respect and partnership.” “We call for a direct dialogue without any preconditions to develop models that would make it possible to unite the UOC and the OCU into a single Local Church in the future”43.
The discourse of the group’s members is a discourse of unity, renunciation of corporate interests, respect for the other, and recognition of the canonical rights of both churches. The dominant narrative here is one of unity, peace, and partnership. Only such a discourse, in our opinion, can form the basis of interchurch dialogue.
Discourse of political parties, civil society and popular media
A typical example of narrative discourse of a political type is the statements of P. Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party. It has declared the need to ban the UOC if it does not “condemn Kirill (Gundyaev) and the entire Russian Orthodox Church as accomplices of aggression and genocide of Ukrainians”44. The party demands that the UOC:
“to break all relations with the ROC, in particular, to announce the withdrawal of its bishops from the Synod of the ROC and the non-application of the ROC Statute to it; to inform the Local Orthodox Churches of the break with the ROC and the intention to regulate its canonical status in dialogue with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in accordance with the Tomos granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate; to withdraw from the Moscow schism: to resume communion with the Local Churches that have recognised the OCU; and most importantly, to recognise the Sacraments of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and to begin a dialogue without preconditions and requirements for understanding and unification of the Ukrainian Orthodox”45.
As we can see, although the style of the party’s language is polarising, it demands that the UOC recognise the OCU for the sake of uniting all Ukrainian Orthodox Christians.
There is still a significant number of UOC supporters in the Verkhovna Rada, even among the “Servant of the People” fraction and other opposition parties. It became known that before the vote, they “went around all the deputies and intimidated them with ‘heavenly punishments’, saying that “God will curse them”, that ‘your child will get sick, you will be hit by a car’ if they vote for the bill. Such deputies make up about a third46.
An example of the civil type of discourse can be seen in interviews with several well-known public media personalities. For example, religious scholar and historian Andriy Kovalev said in an interview with Espresso:
“The head of UOC (“Moscow Patriarchate”) Onufriy Berezovsky is a man who has been working for 30 years to bring war to Ukraine. Onufriy is equally responsible for the crimes that Russian terrorists are now committing in Ukraine. This is a man who was an accomplice in the “Russian world”, which hides the hateful ideology of Russian imperialism, invented by Patriarch Kirill”47.
In her blog, Sonya Koshkina, editor of the newspaper “Left Bank”, analyses the adoption in the first reading of the “so-called draft law on the prohibition of the UOC ( Moscow Patriarchate)”. She notes that even the title of the law does not mention the UOC (Moscow Patriarchate). Further, when the UOC speaks of its “independence”, “they are simply lying. Because there is no such nomination (the status of “independent”) in canon law, which is obeyed by all world Orthodoxy”48. The author further notes that the UOC “can say as much as they want that they are independent of the ROC and are not part of it, but the truth is that they are part of the ROC, and the letter of Patriarch Alexy in 1990 gives them ‘broad rights of self-government’ within the ROC”46. Sonya Koshkina emphasises that in Ukraine, the adoption of the law “is not a matter of religious beliefs, but a matter of state security”:
“the trick of Moscow priests is to convince us that this is a godfight and they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs. But this is a categorical lie. This is about national security. No one interferes with religion, Ukraine is a secular state. No religious organisation has ever been banned in Ukraine”46.
Another proven evidence of the cooperation of some UOC hierarchs with the Russian Federation is that “according to law enforcement agencies, Metropolitan Onufriy and half of the Synod of the UOC have Russian passports, which is prohibited by Ukrainian law”49. At the same time, although “a lot of UOC believers remain patriotic”, this bill will try to block the activities of pro-Russian parishes and encourage those who are against the Russian Federation to move to the OCU46.
We can see the style of information presentation even in the titles of the articles and materials we used in preparing this article. The vast majority of them use abbreviations, neologisms, simplifications of positions, and emotional characteristics.
An analysis of narrative discourses by representatives of political parties, civil society and popular media shows that they are mostly polarised, emotional, and focused on simplified modelling of the situation and opposition between “pro-Ukrainian” and “pro-Moscow” churches. It is these types of discourse that are most represented in the media and influence the formation of public consciousness. At the same time, it is worth noting that the discursive power of political, civic and popular media overwhelmingly proceeds from the narrative of protecting the interests and territorial integrity of Ukraine and advocates for a legislative settlement of the church crisis in Ukraine.
Internal discourse of Ukrainian experts
We can study the analytical type of discourse on the example of public texts by Ukrainian religious scholars and theologians. In our analysis, we relied on the “Conclusion of the Religious Expertise of the Statute on the Governance of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church”, which was carried out by a group of local experts in January 2023. The experts set themselves the goal: “to establish, in accordance with the Statute of Governance of the UOC, the presence/absence of ecclesiastical canonical connection and the UOC’s entry into the structure of the Moscow Patriarchate (ROC)”50. At the same time, “the conclusion is based on the principles of studying religious organisations, their evolution and transformation under the influence of internal and external factors, established in the science of religion”. The EG based its study on categories that “have been formed in Orthodox theology in general and Orthodox ecclesiology in particular”51.
Experts state that “the adoption of the new version of the Statute on the Management of the UOC (dated 27.05.2022) and the Resolution of the UOC Council did not lead to the severance of the ecclesiastical and canonical connection between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church”51. The experts provided the following evidence: 1) the decisions of the Council were made in “violation of the norms of the UOC Statute in force at the time”, which makes it possible for them not to be recognised by the Russian Orthodox Church. 2) The UOC Council “does not use the concepts of “autocephaly” or “autonomy”, and all “appeals to “administrative independence” or “full canonical independence” are appeals to states that are in no way defined in the canons and tradition of the Orthodox Church”. 3) In fact, the ROC has not recognised these decisions of the UOC and continues to consider it its structural unit. 4) In addition to the decisions of the Council, “the members of the Expert Group are not aware of any documents that would indicate the withdrawal of the UOC from the ROC”. There was “not a single statement by any bishop of the UOC on the withdrawal from the Bishops or Local Council of the ROC”. 5) “The highest church authorities and governance bodies of the UOC did not react in any way to the seizure of a number of dioceses of the UOC by the leadership of the ROC”. 6) According to the decision of the of the Ecumenical Patriarchate: “Metropolitan Onufriy is no longer considered as the canonical Metropolitan of Kyiv, but as a hierarch based in Kyiv, as it was published in the Yearbook of the Ecumenical Patriarchate for 2020.” 7). According to the Law of Ukraine, the UOC is a religious organisation (association), “the governing centre (management) of which is located outside Ukraine in a state that is recognised by law as having committed military aggression against Ukraine”51.
All these and other arguments gave grounds for the experts to state that the UOC:
“continues to be subordinate to the ROC. It does not act as an independent (autocephalous) church and does not proclaim its own independence (autocephaly). The members of the Expert Group did not find any documents or actions that would indicate the transformation of the UOC into a religious organisation independent of the ROC”51.
The Expert Group also stated that “the UOC in relation to the ROC has an ecclesiastical canonical connection of the part with the whole. The relations of the UOC with the ROC are not the relations of one independent (autocephalous) church with another independent autocephalous church. The UOC also does not have the status of an autonomous church, which would be recognised by other churches, and, therefore, “from the point of view of ecclesiology and canon law, it is a structural unit of the ROC, which has separate rights of independent formation without its own canonical subjectivity”51.
When analyzing the UOC documents, the experts carried out not only a religious but also a theological and canonical analysis of the situation, which, according to their critics, went beyond their own competence. This conclusion became the basis for the adoption in the first reading of the law prohibiting the activities of organizations affiliated with the aggressor country in Ukraine. In general, the discourse of Ukrainian experts is analytical, contextual, and focused on finding ulterior motives in the actions of the UOC. The basis of this discourse is the narrative of national security and the compliance of the Charters of religious organizations with the current legislation of Ukraine.
Discourse of international religious experts
An illustrative example of the discourse of the international expert community is the “Assessment of the “Report of the Expert Commission” on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church” by Professor Thomas Bremer, Professor of Ecumenical Theology, Eastern Church Studies and Peace Studies at the University of Münster (Germany). In his methodology, he clearly distinguishes between scientific and analytical, theological and political discourses. The researcher defines his position as non-denominational, neutral and descriptive, which gives him the right to analyze the “Conclusion of Religious Expertise”. He makes a series of comments about it, which, in his opinion, is biased.
First, Bremer makes methodological comments. If something is written about in a UOC document, there is no reason to believe that it is not true. The argument here is that every denomination has the right to define and identify itself in accordance with the theological views accepted in that denomination. T. Bremer emphasises that “in a democratic society, everyone has the right to establish a religious group in accordance with rules and procedures that have not been previously applied, whatever they may be from a theological point of view”52.
Professor Bremer also notes that the commission must examine the evidence it has and come to a conclusion. “It cannot speculate, make hypothetical assumptions, talk about potential actions, and operate on unconfirmed facts.” Bremer considers the decisions taken by the UOC Council on independence from the ROC to be facts. Conversely, he does not consider the following to be facts that should be analyzed and evaluated: texts and decisions adopted by the ROC, half-hearted decisions that the UOC Council could have made, and the inconsistency of the UOC decisions with the canons of the Church.
Secondly, according to Bremer, the commission “relies on controversial and, therefore, dubious theological premises”. One of these premises is that it is impossible for the expert group to expect the UOC to comply with the canons, and that it is unjustified to “judge whether this is in accordance with church law”, because “if the UOC prefers to have a status that is neither autonomous nor autocephalous, but “self-governing and independent”, then the commission has no right to decide whether this is true.
According to Bremer, “epistemologically, it is impossible to prove that something does not exist, you can only prove that it does exist… no one can prove that the UOC does not belong to the ROC. The UOC claims that they do not belong. If someone does not believe this, or if they want to check it, they have to provide evidence that the UOC is part of the ROC. However, no such evidence has been presented”53. Here, Bremer takes into account only “direct facts” that could confirm the affiliation of the UOC with the structures of the ROC.
In Bremer’s opinion, “in the case of the UOC, it is the organization that is accused”, although the real “accusations are always made against an individual”54. In reality, there is no such single organization as the UOC. In reality, there are numerous charters of individual church communities. Therefore, Bremer’s opinion that “there is a political intention to ban the UOC, or at least significantly reduce its importance” is not quite correct. The draft law adopted by the Verkhovna Rada shows that Ukraine is not talking about banning the entire organization, but only its individual parishes.
In another text, T. Bremer expands his discourse from purely analytical to civic. He notes that: “when I express my criticism of what is happening, I do it not primarily for the sake of the UOC, but for the sake of Ukraine, because I see a distance from what I would like Ukraine to be, namely a democratic state in which the rule of law is respected”. Bremer continues: “I see a polarization of society in a situation where unity is needed. I know many UOC clergy and believers who are patriots of Ukraine.” Finally, Bremer makes the right observation that such actions by the authorities may bring unwanted condemnation from the international community, “the fight against the UOC may have grave consequences for Ukraine”54.
Thus, by analyzing Professor Bremer’s discourse, we can see that the discourse of individual representatives of international expertise is descriptive, positioning itself as objective, impartial, and formal. This is evident from the fact that Bremer relies on the narrative of the importance of democratic principles of freedom of conscience and the impossibility for the state to regulate the existence of the Church in any way. In this sense, this discourse is indeed unlike the discourse of Ukrainian analysts who conducted their analysis on other methodological grounds, taking into account the context of national security and war.
Discourse of the Ukrainian Civil Service on Ethnicpolicy and Freedom of Conscience (DEFC)
The discourse of the DEFC leadership can be studied on the example of the Letter of Viktor Yelenskyy, the head of the DEFC, “to T. Bremer in response to his comments on the DEFC conclusion”55. The methodological position of V. Yelenskyy is different from that of Professor Bremer. The head of the DEFC proceeds from the possibility for independent experts to investigate “the presence/absence of a connection between the UOC and the Russian Church”56. He admits that the question itself is a political and legal one, because the state is interested in the relationship of the UOC to the church of the aggressor country, which supported and blessed the war against Ukraine. Moreover, the state is not interested in a mystical connection, but “exclusively in a canonical connection. That is, the connection that is based on the norms and rules of the church system”56. The DEFC requires certainty, clarity, and formality. If the UOC does not believe that its bishops are part of the governing structures of the ROC, then nothing prevents them from stating so. But if “the bishops of the UOC do not consider themselves members of the bishops’ corps of the ROC, and the latter insists on the contrary, why shouldn’t the bishops of the UOC declare that they are not part of the episcopate of the Russian Church?”. Of course, they are not obliged to do so, but if they do not consider themselves to belong to an organization that “officially lists them as its functionaries?”, if they do not do so to clarify the conflict situation, to remove accusations against them, then a reasonable question arises whether the bishops of the UOC are truly independent. The logic of state structures is that the declaration of independence is declarative until the subject ceases to be formally affiliated with another structure by a certain letter or appeal. The head of the DEFC emphasises that the presence of UOC bishops in the structures of the ROC is a kind of dual membership in two structures. The leadership of the UOC “knows exactly what needs to be done to stop being part of the Moscow Patriarchate; what signals it should send to society to overcome the suspicion and doubts that have accumulated over the years. And this is being said to them not only by the state and society, but also by a growing number of their own clergy and laity”56.
Unlike T. Bremer, V. Yelenskyy thinks taking into account the entire previous history of the UOC evolution, the political situation, the situation of war and the influence of the ideas of the “Russian world” on the church. DEFC believes that the leadership of the UOC is motivated and deliberately does not want to enter into a dialogue with society, the state and its own clergy: “The hierarchy stubbornly refuses to engage in dialogue with civil society, the authorities and even their own clergy and faithful who are trying to reach them”56. DEFC states that “The Expertise was appointed in full compliance with the Law of Ukraine ‘On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations’, as well as the Regulations on the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience”56. Both the Law and the Regulations provide for the involvement of representatives of religious organizations in the examination”, but the representative of the UOC refused. That is why V. Yelenskyy stated: “I do not see any facts that would be distorted by the experts; events and phenomena that would be distorted by them; actions and deeds that would remain unnoticed by them. Accordingly, I do not find any arguments that would allow me to accept the conclusions of your analysis of the Expertise under discussion”56.
In general, the position of the DEFC is contextual, it takes into account the interests of the state it represents, the position of experts, civil society, the situation of war, the decisions taken by the Council and the strategic interests of the development of social processes in Ukraine. The DEFC discourse is motivated by the fact that it seeks to take into account the public consensus and political component in the issue of the status of the UOC. This is a political and state position, and this is exactly what it should be. The DEFC cannot be completely detached from reality, it is not a judicial authority, its position is not a purely expert and analytical position, it is a state position that expresses the interests of national security.
Discourse of the legislative, judicial and law enforcement bodies of Ukraine
In December 2018, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a law requiring all religious organizations to report their connection with the aggressor state. In December 2022, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine upheld this law in its decision. Finally, in October 2023, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted as a basis the government bill No. 8371, initiated by President Zelensky. It is called the softest among the others. The government document launches a complicated and lengthy mechanism for moving towards prohibition. It looks like this: “the State Service for Ethnicpolicy and Freedom of Conscience must first establish that a particular religious organization has its center in Russia. After that, the service issues an order to the church to rectify this situation. And if this does not happen, then the DEFC files a lawsuit against this particular legal entity in court, which must then decide on a ban”57. The difficulty is that the government document launches a complicated and lengthy mechanism for moving towards a ban. It looks like this:
“the State Service for Ethnicpolicy and Freedom of Conscience must first establish that a particular religious organization has its center in Russia. After that, the service issues an order to the church to rectify this situation. And if this does not happen, then the DEFC files a lawsuit against this particular legal entity in court, which must then make a decision on the ban. This is the most legitimate judicial path and will not cause strong condemnation in the West for violating religious freedom and human rights”57.
The adopted draft law is complicated by the fact that “the trial may take a long time, and it may take years before the actual ban is enacted”. And also the fact that “the UOC as a legal entity does not exist, but there are separate units against which it is necessary to sue: Kyiv Metropolis (the main one), dioceses (more than fifty) and individual parishes (thousands). And there are about 9,000 such legal entities in total”57.
An example of the official type of discourse of law enforcement agencies can be seen on the Security Service of Ukraine website. The spokesperson cites “a range of crimes committed by pro-Russian priests: from high treason and collaboration, denial or justification of Russian aggression, production and distribution of Russian symbols, violation of equality of citizens, smuggling of evaders across the border, and even distribution of child pornography”58. On the basis of such articles, the Security Service of Ukraine opened 68 cases and announced the most suspicions. “Almost two dozen ‘clergymen’ of the UOC (Moscow Patriarchate) have already been convicted. They received terms from 5 to 12 years. In addition, “on the initiative of the Security Service of Ukraine, 19 representatives of the pro-Russian church were deprived of Ukrainian citizenship because they had Russian passports”59. Similar statements were made by the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, who said that representatives of the UOC, manipulating the rights of believers, were covering up their crimes60.
The website of the Security Service of Ukraine reports that “Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church is suspected”61. It states that he “contributes to the armed aggression of the Russian Federation and denies the war crimes of the occupiers”, “is a member of the inner circle of the highest military and political leadership of the Russian Federation and was one of the first to publicly support a full-scale war against Ukraine”, “massively uses the religious communities of the Russian Orthodox Church controlled by him in the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as representatives of the UOC (Moscow Patriarchate) in Ukraine”62. In particular, it is stated that “the cleric blessed the commander of the Russian Guard Zolotov for the war against Ukraine”, “the patriarch repeatedly gave comments to propagandists from the central TV channels of the Russian Federation, in which he supported the aggressive policy of the Kremlin and called on believers to unite in the war against Ukraine”. Based on the evidence collected, Gundyaev was notified of suspicion under the following articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: “p. 3 of Art. 110 (encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine); Part 3 of Art. 436-2 (justification, recognition of the lawfulness, denial of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, glorification of its participants); Part 5 of Art. 27 and Part 2 of Art. 437 (planning, preparation, unleashing and waging of an aggressive war)”62.
Law enforcement discourse should be a state, formal discourse that has a basic narrative of protecting national interests and should not contain evaluations and moral prescriptions, but should speak the language of facts, regulations and court decisions. The analyzed discourse is generally fit for purpose. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the “mildest version” of the draft law, and the authorities are not trying to speed up the “ban on the UOC”. The SBU bodies are working “pointwise”, only in specific cases of violation of the law. The neologisms present in the style of the Security Service of Ukraine (the name of russia with a lowercase letter, the use of the words “rashists”, “UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate”) have become quite common in the public space of Ukraine. In general, we did not observe any significant signs of polarization, violation of rights and freedoms, or abuse of power in the discourse of judicial, legislative, or law enforcement agencies.
General analysis of the discourses of the church crisis actors
We have examined the main types of discursive rhetoric of the actors (participants) that in one way or another influence the course of the church crisis in Ukraine. The existing discourses actively construct media reality and public opinion in the public sphere. There is a mutual effect here: structures and institutions develop discourses (narratives), the media are in search of and produce discourses, and the discourses themselves influence the media and, through them, the minds of participants. This is a reciprocal interaction that constitutes media reality and consciousness in the polyphony of the Ukrainian public space, where a real and sometimes fierce dialogue takes place between these discourses. We have to state that each voice exists as if in its own symbolic field, it reflects the interests of a certain group of society and speaks its own language, which is not always understandable or acceptable to other groups. The impossibility of a productive dialogue on the church issue is due to the lack of a common language, different visions and assessments of current events, and different political or corporate interests of the participants.
The diversity and conflict of discourses in the public sphere of Ukraine reflects both the clash of polar narrative discourses and the discrepancy between narrative, analytical and state discourses. These discourses exist in different symbolic fields: church-canonical, political, civil, state, and media. The main types of discourses of the actors of the church crisis are: theological, political, state-legal, expert, civil, etc., each of which has its own logic, semantics and pragmatics, and considers the situation in its own plane. In addition, discourses can be official, popular, individual and collective. In fact, these discourses conventionally exist on different symbolic “floors” and their collision occurs when a certain discourse falls on the wrong floor, or when they all appear together in the media news. Typologically similar and dissimilar discourses can be in opposition or unity with each other. Such typologically homogeneous discourses are religious discourses (UOC and OCU), state and political expert, and public discourses – they form common discursive fields of similar meanings. While opposing discourses do not form such common fields and may differ significantly in the way they organize information. The discourses of religion and state, or political and expert, or judicial and public are typologically heterogeneous – they have completely different ways of internal organization.
Contradictions in discourses can also be explained through narrative conflict. Typologically (common) different discourses may (not) coincide when they have (not) coherent symbolic fields of narratives (messages and interests). For example, media discourses may (not) coincide with theological discourses (of the UOC and the OCU), depending on incompatible narratives. And vice versa, typologically similar theological discourses (UOC and OCU) may conflict due to the difference in their narratives – “attitudes towards autocephaly”. Likewise, typologically common expert discourses (of domestic and foreign experts) diverge from each other when they present different narrative bases (identifying the “connection of the UOC with the ROC” and stating “bias”). At the same time, the theological (OCU), state (DEFC, law enforcement) and expert (“national experts”) discourses, which are completely different in their types, look quite coherent when they accept a similar narrative – “independent, free Ukraine” and “Ukrainian Church free from the ROC”. Whereas internal discourses of the UOC, which are similar in theological terms, become conflicting when they adopt different narratives in the “assessment of autocephaly” or the demand for “dialogue with the OCU”.
An analysis of discourses in the UOC has shown that not all of them coincide with the ideology of the Russian Orthodox Church’s “Russian world”. The UOC is a complex and very diverse entity that contains several alternative discourses and narratives. The unifying narrative of “Ukraine’s independence” and “the unity of Ukrainian Orthodoxy” coexist with the divisive myth of the UOC about its “canonical exclusivity”, “condemnation of the OCU as schismatics”, and the ideology of the “Russian world”. Moreover, there is no clear correlation between the UOC supporters’ professed narratives of “their own canonicity”, “suspicion of Ukrainian statehood” and the ideology of the “Russian world”. For example, the entirely pro-Ukrainian faithful of the UOC, who are defending Ukraine at the front, may consider the OCU “graceless” because it is “not canonical” for them. And at the same time, for them, the definitions of “Ukrainian”, “Ukrainian Orthodoxy”, and “autocephalous” do not necessarily coincide with the concepts of “schismatic” and “graceless”. In the vast majority of cases, religious terms in the minds of a representative of the UOC are not identical to those of a representative of the ROC. Unlike the latter, UOC believers do not necessarily put “state”, “national”, “church”, “patriotic”, “holy”, “native”, “own”, “Great Russian”, “national”, “quality”, “fair”, “majestic”, “victorious”, “authoritative” in the same row. Likewise, unlike the Russian one, for the Ukrainian consciousness of the UOC (which does not profess the “Russian world”), the meanings of “non-canonical”, “democratic”, “schismatic”, “Ukrainian”, “alien”, “hostile” may not coincide in the same row… Whereas a characteristic feature of conservative utopian consciousness (Russian or committed to the “Russian world”) is the identification of religious and secular, collectivist and individualist, sacred and profane characteristics.
In explaining the behavior of the UOC supporters, we are rather confronted with the phenomenon of conservative corporate consciousness. There is a widespread position in the media that identifies the entire UOC with the “Moscow church” on the grounds that it does indeed have supporters of the “Russian world” ideology. In fact, in our opinion, we are talking about a strong corporate psychology, reinforced by the fear of losing the sources of sacred power and faith in the chosenness of their corporation (its “grace/canonicity”), which, according to the UOC supporters, make the existence of their church “faithful”, “special”, “sanctified”, “meaningful”, different from the existence of competitors (“graceless”/”non-canonical”). It is the fear of losing its privileges, its sacredness, and, in fact, its corporate and discursive power over society and truth (God), and even deeper, the fear of destroying the integrity of the church structure and the fear of change and modernization that is the main motivation for the UOC not to recognize the OCU and not to break relations with the ROC. In order to preserve this power and belief in its own “canonicity” (“sacredness”/“truth”), and to preserve the structure and avoid renewal, the UOC maintains an imaginary connection with the ROC as a legitimizing factor of its election (“grace”). In our opinion, under certain conditions, the UOC can get rid of its dependence on the ROC if Constantinople becomes a factor of legitimization. The UOC’s concealment of its connection with the ROC is evidence not so much of its real administrative dependence on it (in fact, it now makes all decisions independently), but of its belief that the ROC is the link between the UOC and Ecumenical Orthodoxy, the source of supreme sacred authority (“grace”). If it were not for the belief in this symbolic connection, the UOC would have long since officially shed its dependence on the ROC. But in a situation where the Ecumenical Patriarchate has granted autocephaly to the OCU (which for the UOC has been “non-canonical”/“graceless” for decades), now, in order not to lose its “canonical status” (“grace”/“sacred authority”), the UOC cannot recognize the OCU. Therefore, the UOC is forced to maintain ties with the ROC, albeit a dubious “conductor” of its connection with the Ecumenical Church. The UOC leadership perceives dialogue and reconciliation with the OCU as humiliation, image loss, and “symbolic death”. Thus, the leadership of the UOC is a guardian of its discursive power and sacred exclusivity, its own material interests, which it does not want to share with the OCU. It would rather imitate the state of a victim of “persecution” than recognize equality with the OCU.
Surprisingly enough, the UOC does not want to declare a break with the ROC also because it uses the Russian church. In our opinion, the myth of a “hidden connection with the ROC” is a play on the ROC’s ambitions. And the public positioning of itself as “independent” from the ROC is a game with the Ukrainian state and society in order not to be banned, and at the same time it is a game in front of the world community to demonstrate “persecution” (because persecution is a sign of the Church’s truth). And all this for the sake of preserving the inviolability of the church structure, sacred power, property, and autonomous position in society and the state. At the same time, the ROC, in turn, plays on the desires of the UOC. The ROC’s statements about “persecution” in Ukraine are a play to its own electorate, the Kremlin, and a reminder to Ecumenical Orthodoxy that the ROC will never let go of the UOC. The Russian Orthodox Church did not like the UOC’s declaration of “independence”, but its active appeal to international structures and church organizations allows the ROC to present itself as a mother church, a factor symbolically binding the UOC.
In its turn, the OCU wants to weaken the UOC as much as possible, to destroy its symbolic power, to show that after receiving the Tomos, it has a legal right to equality in the system of the Ecumenical Church and to symbolic power in Ukraine. By all its actions, the OCU is trying to force the UOC to engage in a public equal dialogue, to officially sever relations with the ROC, and thereby weaken its legitimacy and bring the church issue into the canonical mainstream of Constantinople. In this situation, the UOC should enter into a dialogue with the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the OCU. And the OCU sees the solution to the church crisis as either the accession of the UOC to itself or its complete delegitimization, which does not suit the latter. The peculiar “neutrality” of the UOC and its ties with the ROC are presented in the public space as not loyalty to the authorities and not patriotism. The leadership of the OCU will not object to the closure of the UOC in order to eliminate its competitor in this way. In this, the interests of the OCU coincide with the interests of the majority of citizens.
It is not beneficial for the state to “liquidate” the UOC, as this would be a sign of repression. The state needs to unite the two churches into a single Local Church, which would unite the people of Ukraine and demonstrate a symbolic victory over Russia. Therefore, the state supports “transitions” and allows them to weaken the stubbornness of the UOC and strengthen the OCU. But in reality, the government is interested in direct and quick negotiations between the churches and their unification. The adoption of the law should encourage the UOC to engage in dialogue. The specificity of the situation is that the state operates in the symbolic field of secular law, and the church operates in the symbolic field of church law (canons), which do not coincide with each other. This allows the UOC to assert its right to “independence from the state” but in fact to defend its corporate interests. But here the state cannot resolve the situation on its own.
Thus, different types of predominantly narrative discourses clash in the public field of Ukraine. The future of this situation is not clear. In our opinion, if the previous policy continues, the UOC will be marginalized. If it opens up to dialogue, breaks off relations with the ROC, starts a dialogue with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and establishes partnerships with the state, then it has a chance for renewal. Fear of transformation and power ambitions preserve the UOC, and it is increasingly becoming a closed corporation that does not perform the functions of a church for the whole society. This slows down the process of renewal of the entire Ukrainian church.
In our opinion, Ukrainian Orthodoxy requires reform, renewal and modernization63. The church crisis is largely due to an unwillingness to change. Each structure prefers to maintain its privileges, protect its interests and expand. Instead, the state and society are now undergoing significant transformation. At the same time, all participants are facing the challenge of war and adaptation to the new realities of political and geopolitical life. And this adaptation will be best achieved when all participants find the strength and wisdom to coordinate their actions in a common goal – the victory of Ukraine and the renewal of the country for further development.
Common to all the actors in the church crisis is the space of civil society, on the basis of whose values it is worthwhile to conduct a dialogue and seek ways of understanding. The principles set out in the document “For the Life of the World” of the Ecumenical Patriarchate can serve as a basis for future dialogue of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In our other publications, we said that “it is extremely important that the Orthodox churches fully adapt to their social doctrines the provisions on the values of civil society adopted in the documents of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This will allow the UOC and OCU to “create conditions for peace and unity, establish partnerships with the state, take an active part in the development of civil society and become true leaders of spiritual authority in Ukrainian society”64.
Conclusion
As a result of analyzing the main statements of the actors in the church crisis in Ukraine, namely: UOC and OCU, Ecumenical Patriarchate and ROC, international and Ukrainian experts, government agencies and popular media, we found that the participants’ narratives form pairs that are mirror combinations of rather polar discourses. For example, the authoritarian and politicized discourse of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow who conducts church-political propaganda of the “Russian world” narratives, is radically different from the non-instrumentalised discourse of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who implements narratives of justice, dialogue and cooperation. The patriotically motivated and value-driven discourse of Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine, which promotes a narrative of Christian patriotism and military resistance to external enemies, is opposed to the seemingly apolitical discourse of Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv and All Ukraine, which spreads a narrative of unity among all Ukrainian citizens and passive acceptance of Russian aggression. Mirror-image, polar and extremely emotional are the apologetic and rather conflicting discourses of the UOC and OCU spokespersons, who promote narratives aimed at protecting the interests of their own structures and neutralizing competitors. At the same time, there is a self-critical Christian discourse in the church that identifies its own failings and seeks brotherly love, represented by representatives of the group for the unity of the church. It has also been found that the contextual, religious and theological discourse of Ukrainian experts, focused on the protection of national security, is polarized with the descriptive, positioning itself as an impartial, factual discourse of representatives of international expertise, based on the formal principle of protecting the rights and freedoms of religious communities and remaining outside the context of war. In its turn, the contextual and formalized discourse of the DEFC and law enforcement agencies, which takes into account the interests of the state and the position of all actors, in some ways corresponds to the polarized, emotionally charged discourse of the popular media, which also proceeds from the narrative of protecting the interests and territorial integrity of Ukraine. At the same time, the mass consciousness of Ukrainians is a place of intersection and conflict between the narratives of actors who mostly take a pro-Ukrainian public position.
In the end, we identified theological, political, state, and mass media types of discourses that actively construct their own narrative strategies in the media that reflect the interests of certain actors, structures, and social groups. At the same time, they use their own languages, which are not always understandable or acceptable to others, and ordinary citizens perceive the diversity of discourses as a clash. The impossibility of a productive dialogue between the UOC and the OCU is due to the difference in narratives, different assessments of history and current events, and different political or corporate interests, although they are speakers of the same theological language. At the same time, it was found that not all representatives of the UOC are carriers of the ideology of the Russian Orthodox Church’s “Russian World”. In the situation with the UOC, we are faced with the phenomenon of a persistent conservative, corporate consciousness, fear of losing its symbolic, sacred power, unwillingness and inability of the current leadership to change the church structure, to engage in dialogue with the OCU, and unwillingness to reform and modernize the church. While the OCU is successfully destroying the monopoly of symbolic power of the UOC, it shows that after receiving the Tomos, it has canonical equality in the Ecumenical Church and symbolic power in Ukraine. The OCU is trying to force the UOC to engage in a public equal dialogue, officially sever relations with the ROC, thereby weakening its legitimacy and bringing the church issue in Ukraine into the canonical mainstream of Constantinople. The specificity of the situation is that the state operates in the symbolic field of secular law, and the church operates in the symbolic field of church law (canons), which do not coincide with each other, so it is impossible to resolve the conflict without an official decision of the UOC. It was also found that society and the state are in the process of active transformation, while each church avoids change and prefers to preserve its interests, which does not contribute to resolving the church crisis in Ukrainian society. We see the solution to the church crisis in the active cooperation of all actors within the values of civil society.
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Ishchuk N., Khrystokin H. Civil Society Values as a Uniting Factor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Community, Journal of Ecumenical Studies University of Pennsylvania Press. Volume 57. Number 2, Spring 2022. pp. 282-296. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/860556ent_ua/k_zgurnalistiki/магістратура/
- Скільки храмів УПЦ офіційно перейшли до Православної Церкви України. [How many UOC churches have officially transferred to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine?]. 17 жовтня 2023. [October 17, 2023]. https://glavcom.ua/country/society/skilki-khramiv-upts-ofitsijno-perejshli-do-pravoslavnoji-tserkvi-ukrajini-nazvani-tsifri-962849.html[↩]
- Й. Брокмейер, Р. Харре. [J. Brockmeyer, R. Harre]. Нарратив: проблемы и обещания одной альтернативной парадигмы. [Narrative: problems and promises of one alternative paradigm]. Вопросы философии. [Questions of Philosophy]. 2000. №3. Pp. 29-42. https://galapsy.narod.ru/PsyNarrative/Brockmeier.htm. Д. Матисон [D. Matheson]. Медиа дискурс. [Media Discourse]. Анализ медиа-текстов. Исследования медиа и культуры. [Analyzing media texts. Media and Culture Studies. Translated from English.]. Пер. с англ. (Харьков: Гуманитарный центр, 2017).[↩]
- Кирилл: Прощение без справедливости есть капитуляция. [Kirill: Forgiveness without justice is capitulation]. 06 марта 2022. [March 06, 2022.]. https://secretmag.ru/news/patriarkh-kirill-vyskazalsya-o-situacii-na-ukraine-06-03-2022.htm[↩]
- Кирилл заявил о «братских народах» и обвинил Украину в «изменении вектора исторического развития». [Kirill declared “brotherly nations” and accused Ukraine of “changing the vector of historical development”]. 07.01.23. https://tsn.ua/ru/ato/kirill-zayavil-o-bratskih-narodah-i-obvinil-ukrainu-v-izmenenii-vektora-istoricheskogo-razvitiya-2239165.html[↩][↩]
- Кирилл призвал россиян к «духовной мобилизации». [Kirill urged Russians to “spiritual mobilization”]. 27 сентября 2022. [September 27, 2022]. https://meduza.io/news/2022/09/27/patriarh-kirill-prizval-rossiyan-k-duhovnoy-mobilizatsii-dlya-primireniya-rossii-i-ukrainy[↩]
- Кирилл заявил, что смерть на войне против Украины “смывает все грехи”. [Kirill said that death in the war against Ukraine “washes away all sins”]. 26 September 2022. https://zmina.info/ru/news-ru/patryarh-kyryll-zayavyl-chto-smert-na-vojne-protyv-ukrayn%D1%8B-sm%D1%8Bvaet-vse-grehy/[↩]
- Кирилл назвал «Московским Патриархатом» так называемую УПЦ (МП) в письме Патриарху Феофілу ІІІ. [Kirill called the so-called UOC-MP “Moscow Patriarchate” in a letter to Patriarch Theophilos III]. 02.04.2023. https://infonavigator.com.ua/novosti/kirill-nazval-moskovskim-patriarhatom-tak-nazyvaemuju-upc-mp-v-pisme-patriarhu-feofilu-foto/[↩]
- Ecumenical patriarch: Russian Church shares blame for “crimes” in Ukraine. March 22, 2023, 4:20 PM. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ecumenical-patriarch-russian-church-shares-blame-crimes-ukraine-2023-03-22/[↩][↩]
- Єп. Михайло, (Команський) [Ep. Mikhail, (Komansky)]: «З погляду канонічного права колишній МП залишається невіддільною частиною РПЦ».[“From the point of view of canon law, the former MP remains an integral part of the ROC”]. 24 вересня 2022. [September 24, 2022.]. https://lb.ua/society/2022/09/24/530351_iepiskop_mihaylo_komanskiy_z.html[↩]
- Єп. Михайло, (Команський) [Ep. Mikhail, (Komansky)]: «З погляду канонічного права …».[September 24, 2022.]. https://lb.ua/society/2022/09/24/530351_iepiskop_mihaylo_komanskiy_z.html[↩]
- Митр. Онуфрій назвав війну з Росією «збройним конфліктом» і жодного разу не згадав про Росію і окупацію Криму. [Metropolitan Onufriy called the war with Russia an “armed conflict” and never mentioned Russia and the occupation of Crimea]. 02.08.2020. https://df.news/2020/08/02/onufrii-nazvav-viinu-z-rosiieiu-zbroinym-konfliktom-i-zhodnoho-razu-ne-zhadav-pro-rosiiu-i-okupatsiiu-krymu/[↩]
- Митр. Онуфрій назвав війну з Росією «збройним конфліктом» і жодного разу не згадав про Росію і окупацію Криму. 02.08.2020. https://df.news/2020/08/02/onufrii-nazvav-viinu-z-rosiieiu-zbroinym-konfliktom-i-zhodnoho-razu-ne-zhadav-pro-rosiiu-i-okupatsiiu-krymu/.[↩]
- Очільник УПЦ МП закликав молитися за українське військо.[Head of the UOC-MP calls to pray for the Ukrainian army]. 24 лютого 2022. [February 24, 2022.]. https://lb.ua/society/2022/02/24/506688_ochilnik_upts_mp_zaklikav_molitisya.html.[↩]
- Очільник УПЦ МП закликав молитися за українське військо… [February 24, 2022.]. https://lb.ua/society/2022/02/24/506688_ochilnik_upts_mp_zaklikav_molitisya.html.[↩]
- Предстоятель УПЦ МП митрополит Онуфрій просить росіян надати гуманітарні коридори та провести обмін військовополоненими. [The head of the UOC-MP, Metropolitan Onufriy, asks the Russians to provide humanitarian corridors and exchange prisoners of war]. 14 листопада 2023. [November 14, 2023]. https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-society/3425899-predstoatel-upc-mp-onufrij-zvinuvativ-rosiu-v-napadi-ta-zaklikav-nadati-gumanitarni-koridori.html.[↩]
- Предстоятель УПЦ МП митрополит Онуфрій просить росіян… [November 14, 2023]. https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-society/3425899-predstoatel-upc-mp-onufrij-zvinuvativ-rosiu-v-napadi-ta-zaklikav-nadati-gumanitarni-koridori.html.[↩]
- Митр. Онуфрій зустрівся з полоненими окупантами в Києво-Печерській лаврі. [Metropolitan Onuphry met with the captured occupants in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra]. 22 серпня 2022. [August 22, 2022.]. https://lb.ua/society/2022/08/22/526995_onufriy_zustrivsya_z_polonenimi.html. «Хочу пожелать, чтобы Бог хранил вас». Як митрополит Онуфрій з окупантами зустрічався. [“I want to wish God to keep you safe.” How Metropolitan Onuphry met with the occupiers]. 21 серпня, 2022. [August 21, 2022]. https://glavcom.ua/columns/zorya/khochu-pozhelat-chtoby-boh-khranil-vas-jak-mitropolit-onufrij-z-okupantami-zustrichavsja-869442.html[↩]
- Митр. Онуфрій порівняв ПЦУ з політичною партією. [Metropolitan Onufriy compared the OCU to a political party.]. 20-01-2019. https://molbuk.ua/news/164816-mytropolyt-onufriy-porivnyav-pcu-z-politychnoyu-partiyeyu.html.[↩]
- Звернення Митрополита Епіфанія з приводу нападу на Україну. [Address of Metropolitan Epifaniy on the attack on Ukraine]. 24 Лютого 2022. [February 24, 2022]. https://www.pomisna.info/uk/vsi-novyny/zvernennya-mytropolyta-epifaniya-z-pryvodu-napadu-na-ukrayinu/[↩]
- Митр. Епіфаній [Metropolitan Epifaniy]: «Війна Росії проти України триває не 10 років, а декілька століть». [“Russia’s war against Ukraine has been going on for several centuries, not 10 years”]. 14 листопада 2023. [November 14, 2023.]. https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-polytics/3746426-rosijskoukrainska-vijna-trivae-ne-10-rokiv-a-dekilka-stolit-epifanij.html.[↩]
- Митр. Епіфаній [Metropolitan Epifaniy]: «Війна Росії проти України триває не 10 років, а декілька століть»…[↩][↩][↩]
- Митр. Епіфаній: Жодна політсила не матиме у ПЦУ якоїсь виняткової та контролюючої ролі.[Metropolitan Epifaniy: No political force will have any exclusive and controlling role in the OCU.]. 13.04.2023. https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-society/3695616-zodna-politsila-ne-matime-u-pcu-akois-vinatkovoi-ta-kontroluucoi-roli-epifanij.html[↩]
- Ігум. Серафима, (Шевчик). [Ihum. Serafyma, (Shevchyk)]. Відкритий лист до лідерів міжнародних структур та країн Великої сімки з приводу релігійної ситуації в Україні. [Open letter to the leaders of international organizations and the G7 countries on the religious situation in Ukraine]. https://www.dialogtut.org/vidkrytyj-lyst-do-lideriv-mizhnarodnyh-struktur-ta-krayin-velykoyi-simky-z-pryvodu-religijnoyi-sytuacziyi-v-ukrayini/[↩]
- Ігум. Серафима, (Шевчик). [Ihum. Serafyma, (Shevchyk)]. Відкритий лист до лідерів міжнародних структур та країн Великої сімки з приводу релігійної ситуації в Україні…[↩]
- гум. Серафима, (Шевчик). [Ihum. Serafyma, (Shevchyk)]. Відкритий лист до лідерів міжнародних структур та країн Великої сімки з приводу релігійної ситуації в Україні…[↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Митр. Олександр Драбинко про ситуацію довкола УПЦ (МП): «Немає гонінь. Є виконання державою своїх функцій». [Metropolitan Oleksandr Drabynko on the situation around the UOC (MP): “There is no persecution. There is the fulfillment by the state of its functions”]. 05 квітня 2023. [April 05, 2023.]. https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/drabynko-upts-mp-kyrylo-onufriy-lavry/32351077.html[↩]
- Митр. Олександр Драбинко про ситуацію довкола УПЦ (МП): «Немає гонінь. Є виконання державою своїх функцій»…[↩][↩][↩]
- «Хочу пожелать, чтобы Бог хранил вас». Як митрополит Онуфрій з окупантами зустрічався.[“I want to wish God to keep you safe.” How Metropolitan Onuphry met with the occupiers]. 21 серпня, 2022. [August 21, 2022]. https://glavcom.ua/columns/zorya/khochu-pozhelat-chtoby-boh-khranil-vas-jak-mitropolit-onufrij-z-okupantami-zustrichavsja-869442.html[↩]
- «Хочу пожелать, чтобы Бог хранил вас». Як митрополит Онуфрій з окупантами зустрічався… https://glavcom.ua/columns/zorya/khochu-pozhelat-chtoby-boh-khranil-vas-jak-mitropolit-onufrij-z-okupantami-zustrichavsja-869442.html[↩][↩]
- 10 запитань духовенства до Священного Синоду УПЦ. [10 questions of the clergy to the Holy Synod of the UOC]. 12 січня 2023. [January 12, 2023.]. https://lb.ua/society/2023/01/12/542382_viryani_i_duhovenstvo_upts_mp_prosyat.html[↩]
- Священники УПЦ (МП) зібрали майже пів тисячі підписів за церковний трибунал над Кирилом. [Priests of the UOC (MP) collected almost half a thousand signatures for a church tribunal over Kirill.]. https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/news-kyrylo-tserkovnyi-trybunal/31808350.html[↩]
- Т. Левченко [Levchenko, T.]. «Якщо злочинці носять рясу»: чи розвалиться Московський патріархат? [“If criminals wear cassocks”: will the Moscow Patriarchate collapse?]. https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/chy-rozvalytsya-moskovskyy-patriarkhat/31775839.html[↩]
- «Сумасшедшая агрессия»: архиепископ УПЦ МП из Одессы направил гневное письмо путинскому патриарху Кириллу и синоду РПЦ. [“Crazy aggression”: the archbishop of the UOC-MP from Odessa sent an angry letter to Putin’s Patriarch Kirill and the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church]. 23 июля 2023. [July 23, 2023.]. https://informator.ua/ru/bezumnaya-agressiya-arhiepiskop-upc-mp-iz-odessy-napravil-gnevnoe-pismo-putinskomu-patriarhu-kirillu-i-sinodu-rpc-[↩]
- Закликаємо до негайного скликання Собору УПЦ, де має відбутися остаточний розрив із РПЦ. [We call for the immediate convening of the UOC Council, where the final break with the ROC should take place]. 24 Липня, 2023. [July 24, 2023]. https://www.dialogtut.org/zaklykayemo-do-negajnogo-sklykannya-soboru-upcz-de-maye-vidbutysya-ostatochnyj-rozryv-iz-rpcz/[↩]
- Закликаємо до негайного скликання Собору УПЦ, де має відбутися остаточний розрив із РПЦ… https://www.dialogtut.org/zaklykayemo-do-negajnogo-sklykannya-soboru-upcz-de-maye-vidbutysya-ostatochnyj-rozryv-iz-rpcz/[↩]
- Серафим (Панкратов), архімандрит УПЦ [Seraphim (Pankratov), archimandrite of the UOC]: ЧИ є майбутнє без діалогу? [Is there any future without dialog?]. https://lb.ua/blog/seraphim_pankratov/582390_upts_chi_ie_maybutnie_bez_dialogu.html[↩]
- Серафим (Панкратов), архімандрит УПЦ [Seraphim (Pankratov), archimandrite of the UOC]: ЧИ є майбутнє без діалогу? https://lb.ua/blog/seraphim_pankratov/582390_upts_chi_ie_maybutnie_bez_dialogu.html[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- 10 тез для ПЦУ: віряни опублікували пропозиції до плану дій нової помісної Церкви. [10 theses for the OCU: believers publish proposals for the action plan of the new local Church]. 31.01.2019. https://risu.ua/10-tez-dlya-pcu-viryani-opublikuvali-propoziciji-do-planu-diy-novoji-pomisnoji-cerkvi_n96159.[↩]
- Hennadii, Khrystokin and Vasyl, Lozovytskyi. (2023). “Reform of Orthodoxy: Current Challenges and Tasks”, Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 43: Iss. 8, Article 2. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol43/iss8/2.[↩][↩]
- Hennadii, Khrystokin and Vasyl, Lozovytskyi (2023). “The Orthodox Theology of Modernity: Problem Statement and Prospective Tasks”, Occasional Papers on Religionin Eastern Europe: Vol. 43: Iss. 9, Article 3. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol43/iss9/3.[↩]
- «Крига скресла»: представники ПЦУ та УПЦ зустрілися у Софії Київській.[“The ice has broken”: representatives of the OCU and UOC meet in St. Sophia of Kyiv]. 6 липня 2022. [July 6, 2022]. https://suspilne.media/257662-kriga-skresla-predstavniki-pcu-ta-upc-zustrilisa-u-sofii-kiivskij/.[↩]
- Звернення учасників міжцерковного діалогу в Софії Київській до єпископату, духовенства та вірян Української Православної Церкви і Православної Церкви України. [Appeal of the participants of the interchurch dialogue in St. Sophia of Kyiv to the bishops, clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine]. 20 Лютого, 2023. [February 20, 2023]. https://dess.gov.ua/zvernennia-uchasnykiv-dialohu-upc-ta-pcu-v-sofii-kyivskiy-16-02-2023/.[↩]
- Звернення учасників міжцерковного діалогу в Софії Київській… [February 20, 2023]. https://dess.gov.ua/zvernennia-uchasnykiv-dialohu-upc-ta-pcu-v-sofii-kyivskiy-16-02-2023/.[↩]
- «Європейська Солідарність» вимагає терміново ухвалити закон про заборону діяльності в Україні рпц і підпорядкованих їй структур та організацій. [“European Solidarity” demands the urgent adoption of a law banning the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church and its subordinate structures and organizations in Ukraine]. 28-12-2022. https://eurosolidarity.org/2022/12/28/yevropejska-solidarnist-vymagaye-terminovo-uhvalyty-zakon-pro-zaboronu-diyalnosti-v-ukrayini-rpcz-i-pidporyadkovanyh-yij-struktur-ta-organizaczij.[↩]
- «Європейська Солідарність» вимагає терміново ухвалити закон… 28-12-2022. https://eurosolidarity.org/2022/12/28/yevropejska-solidarnist-vymagaye-terminovo-uhvalyty-zakon-pro-zaboronu-diyalnosti-v-ukrayini-rpcz-i-pidporyadkovanyh-yij-struktur-ta-organizaczij.[↩]
- Московські попи: що далі? [Moscow priests: what’s next?]. Блог Соні Кошкіної. [Sonia Koshkina’s blog]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPDax7oJCA8[↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Воробйов [Vorobyov]: «Предстоятель церкви московського патріархату Онуфрій – співвідповідальний за злочини росіян в Україні». [“Primate of the Moscow Patriarchate Church Onufriy is co-responsible for the crimes of Russians in Ukraine”]. 27 червня, 2022. [June 27, 2022] https://espreso.tv/predstoyatel-tserkvi-moskovskogo-patriarkhatu-onufriy-spivvidpovidalniy-za-zlochini-rosiyan-v-ukraini-religieznavets-kovalov[↩]
Московські попи: що далі? [Moscow priests: what’s next?]. Блог Соні Кошкіної. [Sonia Koshkina’s blog]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPDax7oJCA8[↩]- Митр. Онуфрій і ще понад 20 священнослужителів УПЦ МП мають громадянство Росії. [Metropolitan Onufriy and more than 20 other clergymen of the UOC-MP have Russian citizenship]. 7 квітня 2023. [April 7, 2023.]. https://lb.ua/society/2023/04/07/551334_mitropolit_onufriy_i_shche_ponad_20.html[↩]
- Висновок релігієзнавчої експертизи Статуту про управління Української Православної Церкви на наявність церковно-канонічного зв’язку з Московським патріархатом.[The conclusion of the religious expert examination of the Statute on the Governance of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on the existence of ecclesiastical and canonical ties with the Moscow Patriarchate]. https://dess.gov.ua/vysnovok-relihiieznavchoi-ekspertyzy-statutu-pro-upravlinnia-upc/[↩]
- Висновок релігієзнавчої експертизи Статуту про управління… https://dess.gov.ua/vysnovok-relihiieznavchoi-ekspertyzy-statutu-pro-upravlinnia-upc/[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Т. Бремер [T. Bremer]. Аналіз «Висновку релігієзнавчої експертизи Статуту про управління Української Православної Церкви на наявність церковно-канонічного зв’язку з Московським патріархатом». [Analysis of the “Conclusion of the Religious Expertise of the Statute on the Governance of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on the Existence of Ecclesiastical and Canonical Relations with the Moscow Patriarchate”]. https://www.dialogtut.org/maye-uperedzhenyj-harakter-i-spotvoryuye-fakty-teolog-z-nimechchyny-pro-vysnovok-dess/[↩]
- Т. Бремер [T. Bremer]. Відповідь Віктору Єленському.6 Листопада, 2023. [Response to Viktor Yelensky. November 6, 2023.]. https://www.dialogtut.org/ya-z-vamy-ne-zgodnyj-majzhe-v-usih-punktah-tomas-bremer-vidpoviv-viktoru-yelenskomu/[↩]
- Т. Бремер [T. Bremer]. Відповідь Віктору Єленському…https://www.dialogtut.org/ya-z-vamy-ne-zgodnyj-majzhe-v-usih-punktah-tomas-bremer-vidpoviv-viktoru-yelenskomu/[↩][↩]
- В. Єленський [V. Yelenskyy]. Лист професору Томасу Бремеру у відповідь на критику висновку ДЕСС. [Letter to Professor Thomas Bremer in response to criticism of the DESS conclusion]. https://www.dialogtut.org/viktor-yelenskyj-vidpoviv-profesoru-tomasu-bremeru-na-krytyku-vysnovku-dess/[↩]
- В. Єленський [V. Yelenskyy]. Лист професору Томасу Бремеру у відповідь на критику висновку ДЕСС… https://www.dialogtut.org/viktor-yelenskyj-vidpoviv-profesoru-tomasu-bremeru-na-krytyku-vysnovku-dess/[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Рада дала старт забороні УПЦ МП. Як і коли це може запрацювати. [The Rada has launched a ban on the UOC-MP. How and when it can work.]. https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/news-65747898[↩][↩][↩]
- Держзрада і не тільки: в СБУ розповіли про злочини духовенства УПЦ МП. [High treason and more: the SBU tells about the crimes of the clergy of the UOC-MP]. 08 листопада 2023. [November 08, 2023]. https://meta.ua/uk/news/video/94031-derzhzrada-i-ne-tilki-v-sbu-rozpovili-pro-zlochini-duhovenstva-upts-mp/.[↩]
- СБУ опублікувала перелік осіб, які потрапили у «церковний список» санкцій РНБО.[SBU publishes a list of people on the NSDC’s “church list” of sanctions]. 20:30, 3 грудня 2022. [20:30, December 3, 2022.]. https://ssu.gov.ua/novyny/sbu-opublikuvala-perelik-osib-yaki-potrapyly-u-tserkovnyi-spysok-sanktsii-rnbo.[↩]
- Уповноважений Верховної Ради з прав людини Дмитро Лубінець заявляє, що представники УПЦ московського патріархату, маніпулюючи правами віруючих, прикривають свої злочини. [The Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, states that representatives of the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate are manipulating the rights of believers to cover up their crimes.]. https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-society/3686503-predstavniki-upc-mp-prikrivaut-svoi-zlocini-pravami-i-svobodami-viran-lubinec.html.[↩]
- СБУ повідомила про підозру патріарху РПЦ Кирилу, який благословив рашистів на вбивства українців. [The SBU serves a notice of suspicion to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who blessed the Nazis for killing Ukrainians.]. https://ssu.gov.ua/novyny/sbu-povidomyla-pro-pidozru-patriarkhu-rpts-kyrylu-yakyi-blahoslovyv-rashystiv-na-vbyvstva-ukraintsiv.[↩]
- СБУ повідомила про підозру патріарху РПЦ Кирилу… https://ssu.gov.ua/novyny/sbu-povidomyla-pro-pidozru-patriarkhu-rpts-kyrylu-yakyi-blahoslovyv-rashystiv-na-vbyvstva-ukraintsiv.[↩][↩]
- Hennadii Khrystokin, Vasyl Lozovytskyi. “Reform of Orthodoxy: Current Challenges and Tasks”, Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 43: Iss. 8, Article 2. (September, 2023) https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol43/iss8/2
Hennadii Khrystokin, Vasyl Lozovytskyi. “The Orthodox Theology of Modernity: Problem Statement and Prospective Tasks”, Occasional Papers on Religionin Eastern Europe: Vol. 43: Iss. 9, Article 3. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol43/iss9/3 (October, 2023).[↩]
- N. Ishchuk, H. Khrystokin. Civil Society Values as a Uniting Factor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Community, Journal of Ecumenical Studies University of Pennsylvania Press. Volume 57. Number 2, Spring 2022. pp. 282-296. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/860556ent_ua/k_zgurnalistiki/магістратура/[↩]