Authors: N.I. Kochan

Summary: Raphael Lemkin called the persecution of Ukrainian national Churches by the Soviet regime an act of genocide similar to the Nazi Holocaust The extermination of Ukrainian identity — civil, ethnic, cultural, religious — remains one of the goals of the war waged against Ukraine by the Russian Federation — the heir to and apparently surpasser of the worst Soviet practices. Conflicts around unique religious monuments and places of national history — the Kyiv Pechersk, Pochayiv, Svyatohirsk Lavras, the mirage of the Desyatynna church, etc. — illustrate the Russian policy of keeping Ukraine in the orbit of its neo-imperial and imperialistic interests ("Russian world") via abuse of religion and instrumentalization of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Moscow), obstructing de-Russification and subsequently nationalization / Ukrainization of national symbolic sacred historical and cultural space whereas symbolic space transfomis political. The political aspects of misuse of religion under the pretext of protecting ethnic minorities rights are shown by example of Romanian Orthodox Church’s policy to restore former jurisdiction in the Ukrainian territories on borderland of Bukovyna and Bessarabia.

Reading audience: For specialists in the field of humanities, (ethno-)political science, and social disciplines.

ISBN 978-617-14-0367-3

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53317/978-617-14-0367-3

Responsible institutions: Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of NAS of Ukraine

Published: Kyiv

Size in pages: 184

Print run: 100