The Ukrainian National Church, Religious Diplomacy and the Conflict in Donbas

Abstract

The article analyses political mobilisation towards the establishment of an independent Ukrainian national church. Ukraine had three Orthodox churches, the largest of which is under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, while the others lacked ecclesiastical legitimacy. On 11 October 2018, in a dramatic decision with geopolitical consequences, the Kyiv Patriarchate received ecclesiastical recognition from the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate. Drawing on 16 interviews with key clergy, academics and policy practitioners working on church-state relations in Kyiv, a literature review, and online data from Bulgarian, Greek, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian sources, the article argues that the conflict in Donbas has been a key factor in the national and international mobilisation towards autocephaly. This article demonstrates that in Eastern Orthodoxy, churches perform state-like functions in three areas, namely establishing diplomatic channels of communication; mobilising the faithful at national and international levels; and advancing human security discourses on violence, survival and tolerance.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/joc.2019.0023
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Politics, History and International Relations
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Aston Centre for Europe
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities
Additional Information: Copyright: 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press. Funding: British Academy.
Publication ISSN: 2574-4968
Last Modified: 27 Dec 2023 09:10
Date Deposited: 16 Sep 2019 10:15
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://muse.jh ... /article/746144 (Organisation URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2020-01-11
Accepted Date: 2019-09-13
Authors: Leustean, Lucian N (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-1137-2307)
Samokhvalov, Vsevolod

Download

[img]

Version: Accepted Version

| Preview

[img]

Version: Accepted Version

| Preview

Export / Share Citation


Statistics

Additional statistics for this record