THE INFLUENCE OF THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF UKRAINE

Abstract

With the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, the orderly religious life of Ukraine began to change noticeably. The annexation of Crimea and the occupation of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions affected the configuration of the Ukrainian religious map. Traditional statistics of the religious network of Ukraine required constant clarifications regarding the temporarily annexed territories. For the first time in almost 25 years of state independence and freedom of conscience, a significant decrease in the number of religious organizations and the geography of their distribution was recorded. First of all, this affected the network of Islamic organizations, the vast majority of which consisted of the Crimean Muslim communities. In addition, the Orthodox life of Ukrainians has undergone significant changes. The open aggression of russia against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, which led to tragic losses among Ukrainian believers, to the destruction of religious buildings, to the inclusion of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the russian Federation, and eventually the occupation of parts of these territories, to mass migration, to the destruction of religious centers of the spiritual life of Ukraine, had a significant impact on the transformation of the religious life of all Ukraine, on its confessional landscape. The war accelerated identification processes in Ukrainian society, including religious organizations, thereby correcting world religious processes.