УНІВЕРСАЛЬНІ УМОВИ ДЕКОНФЛІКТИЗАЦІЇ СОЦІАЛЬНОГО ПРОСТОРУ: ПОТЕНЦІАЛ ЕТИЧНОГО АБСОЛЮТИЗМУ

Abstract

The article analyzes the conflict between the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) and the totalitarian government and its projection on the contemporary ethno-religious processes in Ukraine. It is shown that the UAOC as a kind of modern ecclesiastical structure created under the heavy influence of the stormy events of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921, was Ukrainian in spirit and form, and brought up respect for national history and culture among Ukrainians and became an object of prosecution during the the Great Terror. It was revealed that the UAOC continued to be a Ukrainian religious organization and professed love for Ukraine, and its hierarchs and priests in their sermons called on believers to be Ukrainians, to respect their mother tongue, cultural history, customs and traditions also during the second half of the 1920th half of the 1930es. The UAOC was consistently persecuted and exterminated by the repressive structures of the USSR. It is shown that the Soviet authorities decided to destroy the UAOC finally, and ordered the repressive authorities to end the so-called «Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists» in the ranks once and for all, so that the «Clergy» case concerning the activities of the Ukrainian counter-revolutionary national organization was fabricated. It has been revealed that the totalitarian regime accused the arrested believing Ukrainians of counter-revolutionary actions, the revival of church and religious life in Ukraine, the promotion of their own candidates in the upcoming elections to the Local Councils in order to incorporate their people into important state bodies in order to use foreign powers in the case of foreign intervention. It is established that as a result of the complex and purposeful repression of the totalitarian regime in Ukraine, the UAOC ceased its Ukrainian-centric activity and its remnants were finally destroyed. It is proved that only from the late 1980es, when the decline of communist ideology began, the Christians of Ukraine were able to restore Ukrainian church organizations, including the UAOC. It is revealed that the heavy post-colonial and post-totalitarian legacy and the subversive anti-Ukrainian activities of the Russian Orthodox Church and the former KGB agents have contributed to the escalation of conflicts in Ukraine.