Abstract
Language plays a very important role in the religious life of an individual, community and state. A common language gives a feeling of unity, helps to create community bonds and facilitates integration and consolidation. Under the influence of the Revolution of Dignity and the hybrid war with Russia, the sense of national identity began to grow in Ukrainian society, and the attitude towards the Ukrainian language as an important component of national identity and security changed. Many Orthodox believers in Ukraine attach more importance to the language of worship and the attitude of the Church towards the hybrid war with Russia. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine established in 2018 represent different attitudes towards the annexation of Crimea, the war in eastern Ukraine and the language of religious practice. The UOC MP, staying in the protectorate of the Russian Orthodox Church, has never condemned the annexation of Crimea and the armed aggression of Russia against Ukraine. In the UOC MP, there is an informal ban on the use of the Ukrainian language, as they perceive liturgical activities in Ukrainian as a betrayal of the "Russian world". Such an attitude causes misunderstandings and even indignation on the part of the faithful, who more and more often go to the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine presenting a pro-Ukrainian attitude.
Highlights
Religion is what makes culture; it is a source of the social system of values and a vital culture-defining component, as well as one of the pillars of national self-identification[1]
The faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) differ in terms of defining their national identity and linguistic practices: 90 percent of the UOC-KP’s faithful and 76 percent of the UOC-MP’s faithful consider themselves Ukrainian-only[16], while 64 percent and 59 percent of the faithful of the respective Churches point to Ukrainian as the language of communication
28.7 percent of all Ukrainian citizens are negative about the UOC-MP and 20.9 percent show disfavor to its Ukrainian leader, Onufriy[41]
Summary
Religion is what makes culture; it is a source of the social system of values and a vital culture-defining component, as well as one of the pillars of national self-identification[1]. Religion furnishes the most convincing answers to the relevant question of “Who am I?”2 It is one of the primary criteria describing the external world; it delineates the space of shared values; it shapes the reality and human attitudes. The event that has undoubtedly influenced the perception of the place and role of religion and the position of the Church on the new reality in Ukraine, including its ability to set models of social behavior, is the hybrid war with Russia. This article aims to: (i) have a closer look at the importance of the national language for the functioning of the Church, (ii) analyze the attitude of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine to the Ukrainian language and (iii) analyze the impact of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity and war with Russia on the language of religious practices. The author employs the following research approaches: critical discourse analysis, qualitative content analysis, comparative method and historical method
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