Theological perspectives for post-war Christianity in Ukraine. "Тheology after Bucha"

Abstract

The town of Bucha became a collective symbol of the modern genocide of Ukrainian people, because it was there where the scale of all the crimes committed against Ukrainians was revealed during the liberation of Kyiv Oblast from the Russian occupiers in March-April 2022. It was Bucha that gave many people in Ukraine the reason to debate if there is God at all. Today, Ukrainian churches began to consider the possibility of "theology after Bucha", asking practically the same questions that Christians and Jews were concerned with after World War II. As then the main question was "Where was God at Auschwitz?" Now the question is where Biblical God was during Bucha genocide, and in a broader context, where God is with the love and mercy in Ukraine after February 24, 2022. The article is nearly the first scientific research of Christianity in Ukrainian academic religious studies during the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war. The author examines the conditions for the foundation of a new theological system in the realm of Ukrainian Christianity after the victory over rushism, following the example of the theology after the Holocaust/Shoa in Western Christianity after WWII. The article analyses a number of caveats that, if not addressed today, could make the constructive development of the abovementioned theology impossible. The author predicts possible parallels between "theology after Auschwitz" and the future "theology after Bucha". In fact, “theology after Auschwitz" did not radically affect Western, primarily European Christianity after 1945 because it did not provide unambiguous answers to a range of urgent essential questions related to the existence of a believer in the world recovering from the great war. So, with a considerable degree of probability (already evident from the remarks of individual representatives of different religious denominations) there is concern that "theology after Bucha" may fail practically at its beginnings, becoming a "pure theory", having no chances to be applied at the all-Christian level. It is partially clear today that an attempt would be made to launch "theology after Bucha" exactly along the ideological tracks of "theology after Auschwitz", that is, to direct it exclusively to the search for the arguments shifting the burden of responsibility for "Bucha" from God and thereby possibly save Christianity from the ideological crisis it has been in Ukraine after February 24, 2022. The author concludes that if "theology after Bucha" really begins to move along the similar ideological fairway like "theology after Auschwitz", the post-war Christianity in Ukraine will face a disappointing perspective to lose social relevance and, as a result, will be radically reduced to ritualism.