Abstract

Wilhelm Dancă:
Religious Elements in the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict
(FKTh 2022-4, p. 274–284)

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict doesn’t only have a political, or military component, but a religious one as well.  In this paper I will try to show why these  elements are linked to each other and how religion has become an instrument in the hands of politicians. The Ukrainian government uses religion so as to impose the unity  of the country, while the Russian government intends to recuperate the territories of influence of the so-called “Russian world”. In this context we assist at a confrontation  between homo sovieticus and homo religiosus. The prevalence of the Soviet mentality over the Christian one is also confirmed by the relationship between Church and State  both in Russia and in Ukraine. Analysing the tensioned ecclesiastical relations, we noticed that religion has become an ideological  weapon. We closed our paper hoping that the God of peace who will put an end to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict will be born in exile. The article is a conference that the author  wrote for the “Tribuna Joan Carrera” on  June 14, 2022 in Barcelona, Spain.