Автокефалия Украинской православной церкви как инструмент обострения российско-украинского территориально-политического конфликта

Abstract

The study discusses the fact of granting autoceph-aly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Patri-arch of Constantinople as a political move aimed at aggravating Russian-Ukrainian relations at the pre-sent stage. The authors note the following reasons for this decision: the struggle of Constantinople and Moscow for primacy in the Orthodox world, the ge-opolitical factors in Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the role of the USA as a destabilizing factor in Rus-sian-Ukrainian relations, an appeal of the President of Ukraine P. Poroshenko to Ukrainian autocephaly issue as a key point in his election program in terms of low public approval rating. Based on sociological data, the research examines the spiritual and reli-gious influence of the Ukrainian Orthodox churches opposing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, i.e. the Ukrainian Auto-cephalous Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Ortho-dox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, and the Ukrain-ian Uniate Church. In conclusion, the study presents two possible development scenarios: Polish (the autocephalous church will later return to the Rus-sian Orthodox Church) and Lithuanian ones (the spiritual confrontation of churches will develop against the background of aggravating geopolitical contradictions in the region).