The political instrumentalization of religion / Church is - it seems - a fact. However, if any doubts arise in this respect, they can be dealt with by articulating what is constant / variable in the content of the idea (i.e. the idea of political instrumentalization of a religion / church) in terms characteristic of phenomenology, and then by reconstructing, analyzing and discussion of dimensions used for characterization: all politics-religion / state-church relations, political instrumentalization as a specific form of these relations and its internal differentiation (typology). All this must be preceded by reflection on the perspectives and limitations of unambiguous identification of the actual presence of instrumentalization and its form. This is done by recalling unclear, ambiguous cases (Pascal's bet and the authentic statement of the mother of a Jewish child...). In this context, heuristically particularly valuable are two forms of political instrumentalization of religion / church - self-instrumentalization and religiously motivated "black" PR of political opponents - and the attempts to use them together. These phenomena are illustrated by the reinterpretation of cases of political instrumentalization of religion / church present in the literature on the subject.