Raphael Lemkin called the persecution of Ukrainian national churches by the Soviet regime an act of genocide, comparable to the Nazi Holocaust. The extermination of Ukrainian identity — civil, ethnic, cultural, and religious — remains one of the goals of the war waged against Ukraine by the Russian Federation, the heir to, and arguably the surpasser of, the worst practices of the Soviet Union.

Conflicts surrounding unique religious monuments and sites of national historical significance — the Kyiv Pechersk, Pochayiv, and Svyatohirsk Lavras, the mirage of the Desyatynna Church, among others — illustrate Russia’s policy of keeping Ukraine within the orbit of its neo-imperial interests ("Russian World"). This is achieved through the abuse of religion and the instrumentalization of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), with the aim of obstructing de-Russification and, consequently, the nationalization/Ukrainization of Ukraine’s symbolic sacred historical and cultural space — a space in which the symbolic becomes inherently political.

The political misuse of religion under the guise of protecting ethnic minority rights is also evident in the case of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which seeks to restore its former jurisdiction over Ukrainian territories in the border regions of Bukovyna and Bessarabia.

For specialists in the fields of the humanities, (ethno-)political science, and social disciplines.

CONTENT

Chapter 1. Kyiv Pechersk Lavra: intergroup identity conflict

Chapter 2. Pochayiv Lavra: no-go in-group identity

Chapter 3. Svyatohirsk Lavra: ad hoc identity construction

Chapter 4. "Desyatynna church" project: the higher extrema

Chapter 5. The lower local extrema cases