Religion During the Russian Ukrainian Conflict

Elizabeth Clark, Dmytro Vovk, Elizabeth A. Clark, Dmytro Vovk, Elizabeth Clark, Elizabeth A. Clark, Dmytro Vovk

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000710830
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This book investigates how the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine has affected the religious situation in these countries. It considers threats to and violations of religious freedom, including those arising in annexed Crimea and in the eastern part of Ukraine, where fighting between Ukrainian government forces and separatist paramilitary groups backed and controlled by Russia is still going on, as well as in Russia and Ukraine more generally. It also assesses the impact of the conflict on church-state relations and national religion policy in each country and explores the role religion has played in the military conflict and the ideology surrounding it, focusing especially on the role of the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches, as well as on the consequences for inter-church relations and dialogue.

1 Introduction

Elizabeth A. Clark and Dmytro Vovk

By 2018, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which started in 2014 with the illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and armed confrontation in eastern Ukraine, had seen open warfare that had cost more than 10,000 lives. This conflict between countries which have significant historical, cultural, religious, and political overlap has not only undermined the post-World War II order, but has also brought about dramatic changes in the religious configurations and landscape of the occupied territories, Ukraine, and Russia. It is striking to realize that thanks to the conflict and the aggressive politics of Putin’s regime, murder, kidnapping, torture, and expropriation of property of individuals and groups because of their religion exist in Europe of the twenty-first century with high standards and high protection of religious freedom. The conflict has also enhanced the political and geo-political overtones in inter-Orthodox relations within Ukraine and in world Orthodoxy. In an effort to counteract the Russian government’s advocacy of a “Russian World” (Russkiy mir), a putative sphere of Russian cultural, political, and spiritual influence that includes Ukraine, the Ukrainian state was significantly involved in the establishment of a new, independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church and forced a break with the Russian Orthodox Church.

This book brings together authors from the domains of sociology, law, religious studies, and theology to tease out various aspects of religion’s role in the conflict. The chapters reveal that while religious reasons are not the primary drivers and main focus of the clash, which is geopolitical, religion has played significant roles in it. Religious rhetoric and traditions have served as an accelerant and marker in the conflict, but religion has also itself been deeply affected by the conflict, as seen in violations of religious freedom in Donbas and Crimea, changes in church-state relations in Russia and Ukraine, and increased tensions in inter-Orthodox relations both in Ukraine and in worldwide Orthodoxy.

To use Monika Duffy Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy Samuel Shah’s (2011) distinction between the peripheral and central influence of religion in violent conflicts and wars, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has manifested a more peripheral influence, which primarily relates to the identities and loyalties of the players in the conflict, as opposed to a more central influence, which involves the religious goals of combatant parties. This may seem counter-intuitive, given the level of religious-related rhetoric of Russia and its proxies in Donbas and the stated aims of the Russian World doctrine. Although all parties employ religion as a tool for promoting their internal or external political agenda, a closer examination reveals that the core goals of the conflict pursued by Russia, Russia-backed separatists, and Ukraine are primarily secular, rather than religious.

In his book The Last Empire: the Last Days of the Soviet Union, Serhii Plokhy (2014) shows that Russian officials and politicians discussed the question of Crimean secession in negotiations with Ukraine in 1991. Hence the proposition of Crimean secession was rooted in the Russian political mind long before the Russkiy mir doctrine was formulated by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and employed by the Kremlin. At that time, Russian politicians justified their desire to annex the peninsula by claiming to protect the rights of Crimea’s Russian-speaking population and by accusing the Ukrainian-born Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchov with arbitrarily transferring the peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR. Moreover, Elizaveta Gaufman, in her chapter analyzing the main Russian social network Vkontakte, shows that within the popular sphere, even now the conflict lacks strong religious connotations; the users of Vkontakte mostly perceive the conflict as a secular one, where religion, particularly the grant of autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), is only one more geopolitical battlefield between Russia and Ukraine or between Russia and the West.

Similarly, the phenomenon of the Russian Orthodox Army and other Russian or pro-Russian militant groups fighting in Donbas against the Ukrainian government, as well as the religious alignment of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics (DPR/LPR), reflects a peripheral rather than central religious influence centering on loyalties and identities rather than goals. The militants have a strong religious identification as defenders of the Russian Orthodoxy, protecting the faith from “schismatics,” “Uniates,” “Western sects,” and Western immorality. The DPR and LPR authorities also stress their Russian Orthodox identification and entrench a privileged position for the church in the pseudo-republics’ laws, even though they and the militants both appear to not have a strong knowledge of Orthodox beliefs and practice (see Ihor Kozlovsky’s interview). Their subjective affiliation with Russian Orthodoxy has been an element of their political motivation to fight against Ukraine, though not the only element and probably not the crucial one; their secularly-argued Russian nationalism based on mythologemes of Russians and Ukrainians as “one people” and the Euromaidan as a “fascist coup” contributed to their willingness to commit violence at least no less than their religious identification. Additionally, after the collapse of the state order in Donbas, there have been no religious figures among leaders of the DPR, LPR, or militant groups: the political order has remained secular, though the emergence of such religious figures is considered as a feature of inherently religious conflicts (Otis, 2004).

It is also worth noting that eastern Ukraine, including the area currently under the control of separatists, has been dominated by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) – the part of Russian Orthodoxy that these militants came to fight for. Before the conflict there was no evidence of any threats to the dominant position of the UOC-MP in Donbas, and since the conflict began the UOC-MP has continued to enjoy the status of a religious majority in the region, including being favored by local authorities, elites, and communities generally. Russian Orthodoxy serves as a part of the political ideology of the “people’s republics,” but again it is hard to say that Russia, the DPR and LPR, or militant groups, pursue any real religious ends such as protection or expansion of Russian Orthodoxy.

The use of religion as a marker by the DPR and LPR and the militants here raises a broader problem that can occur when using religious identity in a conflict, even ostensibly to protect a beleaguered group – how counterproductive this can often be in achieving security and influence for the group sought to be protected. Despite the avowed aims of militants to protect the rights of the UOC-MP and an Orthodoxy tied with Russia in Ukraine, for example, the conflict has had a clear negative impact on the interests of the ROC in Ukraine and its position the whole Orthodox World. For instance, social trust of the UOC-MP, the ROC, and its leaders has decreased significantly; up to 500 UOC-MP communities have changed religious jurisdictions and switched to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) or the OCU during 2014–2019; the ROC Patriarch Kirill has in essence become persona non grata in Ukraine; and the Ecumenical Patriarchate has legitimized unrecognized Ukrainian Orthodox churches, giving autocephaly to the OCU and challenging the status of Ukraine as a canonical territory of the ROC. Hence, as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Russkiy mir has not only failed to expand Russia’s influence in Ukraine, but has also lost its prominence as an actual political agenda in the country.

Religion of course can not only act as an accelerant or an identity marker, however. Religion’s involvement in de-escalating hostility has been most evident in Donbas, where the conflict has taken on the most violent form. Many Ukrainian churches and interfaith organizations have called for cessation of violence and reconciliation, and spoken out against aggressive Russian politics towards Ukraine. In 2014 religious minority communities in the Donbas region established a peaceful initiative, called a Prayer Marathon, in order to prevent Russian intervention in Ukrainian affairs and to decelerate tensions between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed local groups (see Ihor Kozlovsky’s interview). Several Ukrainian and Russian religiously-affiliated institutions have also provided relief and support for people affected by the military conflict (see interview with Vitaly Sorokun) and churches have been involved in prisoner exchanges between the Ukrainian government and the DPR/LPR.

And, certainly not least, the conflict has also had a significant impact on the situation with religious freedom, first of all in Donbas and the Russian-annexed Crimea. The DPR and LPR have morphed into the territory of probably the most brutal violators of religious rights in contemporary Europe: the authorities of these quasi-republics have banned or severely restricted the activities of all religious minorities, and they violently oppress and stigmatize believers of religions considered “non-traditional for the Donbas.” Several religious leaders, priests, believers, and even whole communities have been forced to leave the DPR and LPR or to go underground (Institute of Religious Freedom, 2018). In their interviews, Ihor Kozlovsky and Vitaly Sorokun describe the people’s republics as territories of total surveillance and permanent persecution for “unreliable” religious groups. In his chapter Robert C. Blitt argues that the DPR and LPR satisfy features of nonstate actors according to the U.S. International Religious Freedom Act and can be designated as entities of particular concern that have committed severe violations of religious freedom.

Crimea has transitioned from the relatively liberal regulation of religion in Ukraine to the intrusive authoritarian regulation of the Russian legal system. As Roman Lunkin illustrates in his chapter, religious pluralism has significantly decreased in Crimea following the annexation of the peninsula. Several religious leaders left or were deported from the peninsula. Restrictive and vague Russian legislation and court practices have stifled the institutional freedom, missionary work, and public activities of religious minorities. However, as Lunkin shows, the religious policies of the Russian Federation are determined not by religious motivations, but rather by political factors (including the “reliability” of religious groups and their involvement in the Euromaidan protests), national-security considerations (such as alleged religious extremist threats), and geopolitical reasons (e.g., links with mother churches abroad).

Crimea’s situation is now similar to that of Russia in general, where the contemporary norm is to view religious issues through the lens of national security, oppression of religious minorities (including those supporting the war with Ukraine, see Stanislav Panin’s chapter), and endorsement of the ROC as the de facto official religion, while all other religions are repressed in varying degrees (Sarkissian, 2015, pp. 91–101). During the conflict, the Russian parliament adopted the infamous Yarovaya Law, which put virtually any public religious activity and the private sharing of beliefs in residential locations under full state control. In 2017 the Russian Supreme Court completely banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization as extremist (see interview with Maria Kravchenko). These and many other cases put together make Russia the worst oppressor of religious freedom among post-Soviet, Orthodox-majority states and one of the worst in the whole post-Soviet space. In 2018, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended Russia be designated a country of particular concern along with three post-Soviet Middle Eastern countries: Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, all three notorious for severe violations of religious freedom.

The conflict has also seriously influenced church-state relations in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government and in both Donbas and Crimea. The common trend within the Ukrainian state, the two pseudo-states in Donbas, and the Russian regime in Crimea is a strengthening of the positive identification of public authorities with religion. As W. Cole Durham, Jr. (1996) suggests, state identification, towards its extremes (theocratic states at one end or states seeking to abolish religion at the other) correlates with a low level of religious freedom and inequality among religions, whereas various regimes with moderate positive identification or moderate separation of religion and state correlate with a higher degree of religious freedom and higher equality. The move towards greater positive church-state identification in Crimea after annexation and also especially in Donbas and the accompanying loss of religious freedom are significant. The Ukrainian case is different due to several political and social factors: plurality of the religious landscape, a relatively high level of freedom, Ukraine’s drift to the West and European integration policies, and the need of support from Western countries. Thus, for now, the gradual rapprochement of the Ukrainian state and the OCU has not yet resulted in serious violations of religious minorities’ rights and the establishment of an official or endorsed church as, in varying degrees, is the case in other post-Soviet Orthodox-majority countries.

Finally, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has also prompted serious transformations in both Ukrainian and global Orthodoxy. The war with Russia popularized the idea of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church among both religious and non-religious Ukrainians (see Viktor Stepanenko’s chapter). As a result, the state has actively facilitated the unification of Ukrainian Orthodox churches and negotiated autocephaly for the OCU with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The conflict certainly is not the only reason for the creation of the OCU, as Jerry G. Pankhurst and Cyril Hovorun show in their chapters, but it definitely triggered the process. The ROC and the Russian government have reacted poorly to the establishment of the OCU and its recognition by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which has provoked new tensions between the Phanar and the Russian Church and created an Orthodox-wide turmoil: every autocephalous Orthodox church now faces the problem of (non)recognition of the new church and, therefore, the question of taking either Constantinople’s or Moscow’s side in this larger religio-political game.

Meanwhile, because of the conflict, the UOC-MP – the Ukrainian religion with the most followers – is now officially and publicly disfavored. While there is nothing new about the Ukrainian state’s taking the side of one of the country’s Orthodox churches, this is definitely the first time such a policy has become official and entrenched in legal rules. The Ukrainian government and most of the public perceive the UOC-MP as a threat to their national security because of the Church’s ties with the ROC and indirectly with the Russian state and because of the alleged involvement of some of its leaders and clergymen in the separatist movement in Donbas and Crimea. Thus, in post-Euromaidan Ukraine the UOC-MP finds itself in the position of the pro-Russian minority to whom, as Jack A. Goldstone (2014) writes, post-revolutionary societies do not wish to expand formal equality. Hence the state’s attempt to force the UOC-MP to change its official name to reflect ties to Russia. In addition, Ukrainian legislation has regulated the procedures for religious communities to change religious jurisdiction, which previously was left to the charters of individual religions, in an attempt to make it easier for UOC-MP communities to transition to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

These efforts raise questions of religious freedom for the UOC-MP and its believers: first, to what extent are national-security concerns a legitimate justification for strengthening state control over religion, and second, whether these measures were proportionate, considering that they targeted the whole church rather than particular leaders, clergymen, or communities involved in illegal activities (see chapters by Elizabeth A. Clark and Dmytro Vovk). Moreover, labeling the UOC-MP as a “Russian church” is more complicated than it may seem. In his chapter, Andriy Fert demonstrates that the UOC-MP has employed two different narratives of self-representation, each of which play to different concepts of identity common over time in Ukraine. One of them focuses on the ecclesiastical unity of the UOC-MP and the ROC, and the other emphasizes the role of the UOC-MP as the Ukrainian national church.

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict itself, the creation of the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and the conflict between the Ecumenical and Moscow Patriarchates are still works in progress. Hence, the chapters of this book are only pieces of a complicated puzzle that has yet to be finished. However, we hope that these pieces can contribute to a deeper understanding of the religious dimension of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

* * *

Our book offers the first major analysis of the multiple roles of religion in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Krawchuk and Bremer (2016) address these issues thoughtfully, but focus primarily on the events surrounding the Euromaidan and inter-Orthodox issues at the beginning of the conflict. Our authors engage not only the role of religion in the conflict itself from 2014–2018, but also examine the creation of the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine at the end of 2018 and its ramifications in the geopolitical sphere. In addition, in contrast to most of the existing work in the field of religion in Russia and Ukraine, which addresses church-state relations through sociological, historical, and religious studies lenses (see Balakireva & Sereda, 2013; Krawchuk, 2014; Krawchuk & Bremer, 2016; Shlikhta, 2014; Shlikhta, 2016; Plokhy, 2002; Plokhy & Sysyn, 2003; Wasyliv, 2014; Yelensky, 1999), we also offer perspectives from other fields as well, such as law and religion, religious freedom, historical memory, and alternative spiritualties. The volume also contains fresh analysis with novel data from social media, registration of religious organizations, etc.

The book is divided into four sect...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• PART 1 Religion, politics, and law
• PART 2 Impact of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on religious public life and communities
• PART 3 The Russian-Ukrainian conflict and inter-Orthodox relations
• PART 4 Interviews
• Index