POPE FRANCIS AND RUSSIA'S WAR AGAINST UKRAINE (original) (raw)
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Unpacking the Vatican’s Diplomatic Failure in Reaching a Ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine War
Rome, IAI, May 2023, 4 p. (IAI Commentaries ; 23|26), 2023
The Vatican’s attempts to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Russia’s war against Ukraine have failed. In fact, they never had a chance. Pope Francis’s interpretation of the conflict as a proxy war between the West and Russia is unacceptable to Ukraine, as Kyiv feels that it is fighting an anti-colonial struggle for survival, freedom and Europe as a whole. Moreover, the Vatican’s insistence on ceasefires overlooks Ukrainian President Zelensky’s accountability to public opinion and Ukrainians’ confidence in the possibility of winning the war.
The Holy See Confronts the War in Ukraine Between Just War Theory and Nonviolence 1
2023
The Holy See Confronts the War in Ukraine: Between Just War Theory and Nonviolence. This paper explores Pope Francis' and the Holy See's reaction to the war in Ukraine, and attempts to explain the logic behind it. After introducing the Holy See's statements since the start of Russia's aggression, the author reads them through the background of Catholic social teaching. In particular, he claims that the ambiguities of the Holy See's position are due to the unresolved tension between the traditional just war approach and a tendency towards nonviolence. The latter has acquired prominence over the last decades, in particular with Francis' Fratelli Tutti. The author concludes that the war in Ukraine represents a pivotal moment in the Catholic Church's thinking on war and peace.
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This article shows how war is restructuring the configuration of religious life in Ukraine as a result of Russia's full-scale invasion. Following a short introduction, which documents churches' initial reactions to the war, I focus on three issues. First, I examine the ways in which the war exacerbates existing tensions within Ukrainian Orthodoxy, echoing the divide within world Orthodoxy. Second, I analyse the challenges faced by Ukrainian Catholics in relation to the Holy See's position on the war, which is marked by neutrality and a propensity towards nonviolence. Third, I delineate a few trajectories, which could allow churches to be more proactive in playing a role in peacemaking and future reconciliation.
After centuries of Polish, Russian, and Austrian rule, at the end of the First World War Ukraine enjoyed a brief independence, but not a day of peace. Benedict XV made a place for Ukraine in his proposals for an ethical peace. His open policy to the fledgling nation was influenced by Greek-Catholic primate, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, and by Count Michael Tyszkiewicz, envoy of the Ukrainian National Republic to the Holy See. Attempting to remain “above the parties” during the Polish-Ukrainian War, the pontiff was represented by his envoy in Warsaw, Monsignor Achille Ratti. Criticism of Ratti led him to appoint Father Giovanni Genocchi as Apostolic Visitor to Ukraine, but ongoing war impeded Genocchi from carrying out the mission. In 1921, the pope made several clamorous gestures in support of the besieged Ukrainians, but the Entente imposed a settlement of the victors over the vanquished. Ukrainians never forgot that Benedict XV had been one of their few supporters.
THE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH A POWERFUL PEACE ACTOR
Ukrainian Autocephaly: Source of Confrontation or Conflict?, 2019
According to the Ukrainian Constitution, the country is secular, where its churches and all religious organisations are separated from the state and the legislative process. According to theologian Gennadiy Druzenko, in the regional scope, Ukraine might be described as one of the most religious countries in Europe. Demonstrated by the history of the Ukrainian Church, dating back to the time of the Kyivan Rus, when its Prince Volodymyr the Great received Christianity from Constantinople in 988. It was one of the most remarkable events in the creation of the Ukrainian state, that united the Ukrainian people spiritually. However, it further served as an instrument of manipulation and basis for lies from the Russian side so as to justify its right to exert control over Ukraine. This current paper aims to analyse the role of the Church in peace mediation versus conflict promotion in the case of Ukraine, addressing such issues as: - Official relations between and within different churches in the country and show impacts of this in reality; - The official position of the UOC KP and UAOC towards the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, the illegal annexation of Crimea, possible future reconciliation and current geopolitical challenges, reactions to fake news and disinformation; - The official position of the Church, position on the ground and the reaction on the discrimination against LGBT, religious and ethnic minorities; - Based on these points we will analyse whether the Church promotes peace or encourages conflicts in Ukraine, trying to answer whether the Church as an institution could serve as a powerful peace actor or not.
Religions
Russia’s war against Ukraine, in which the aggressor has been making use of religion, including theological rhetoric, to achieve its aims, has sparked reactions from Orthodox Churches all over the world. This has led to a revitalisation of social teaching, including discussions on war and peace within the Orthodox tradition. This may well become a further impetus for more in-depth research on religion and international relations, and possibly for more reappraisals of the secular identity of IR studies. An analysis of the attitudes of Orthodox Churches towards this war indicated that the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church, which considers itself the most important centre of Orthodox culture and civilisation, is waning. The reaction of other local churches showed that it is difficult to recognise the Russian Orthodox Church as such an authority. These revaluations may have a significant impact on Russia’s place in the new international order, although much depends on the final o...
Przegląd Zachodni, Journal of the Institute of Western Affairs in Poznań, Special Issue, 2019
The aim of the article is to analyse the place and importance of the Orthodox Church in the society and political culture of Ukraine after 2013. The new political realities following the Revolu-tion of Dignity, the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas created new challenges for the Or-thodox Church in Ukraine. Particularly important is the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church’s authority over the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.At the turn of 2018 and 2019, by a decision of Patriarch Bartholomew I and with the support of the Ukrainian political authorities, a new reality became fact in Ukrainian Orthodoxy. However, the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (as a metropolis) does not mean that the split has been overcome. There will be two hostile, equal and comparably strong structures in Ukraine, politically backed by Ukraine and Russia, and this will draw those countries into conflicts over their religious structures and the wealth that their communities possess. At this stage, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine will rely primarily on the potential of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, and this fact in turn will hinder the transfer of bishops and priests associated with the Moscow Patriarchate. The rift will be difficult to repair.
The Uppsala Yearbook of Eurasian Studies III, 2022
For a long time, social ethics in general and peace ethics in particular were not a serious issue for Russian Orthodox theology. However, questions of peace and war have resulted in the first attempt to engage with social ethics from a theological point of view. This paper analyzes the historical and content-driven dynamics of discourse about peace and war in Russian Orthodox theology. Taking the Church's statements on two crucial topics, justice and disarmament, I follow the development of Russian Orthodox peace ethics from its beginnings during the Cold War to the current war in Ukraine. Over this period, the entanglement of theological reason and political strategy becomes obvious.
Doctoral Thesis, 2022
In the last century, the Ukrainian-Polish relationship has ranged from strategic, neighbourly cooperation to wide-scale oppression and violence. Despite political and historical attempts to address historical controversies and tragedies, there continue to be diverging meta-narratives on events such as the Volhynian massacres and Operation Vistula, which suggest a protracted conflict. Therefore, this thesis will, first, suggest that representatives of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) are particularly well-suited to initiate, facilitate, and guide peacebuilding efforts in the lingering Polish-Ukrainian conflict, and second, make some suggestions of how such peacebuilding activity could take shape. To make these arguments, this study is structured in the following manner. After a thorough description of the academic and societal status quo on the Polish-Ukrainian conflict, three lines of argument will be pursued. First, by means of a qualitative analysis of interviews and focus groups with twenty-eight research participants (representatives of religious communities in Ukraine and Ukrainian experts), it will become apparent that the Polish-Ukrainian conflict is perceived to be unresolved, that there is a need for peacebuilding, that a wish for more meaningful peacebuilding exists, and what kind of peacebuilding is envisioned. Second, through an analysis of religious peacebuilding and peacebuilder characteristics, I will suggest that the UGCC and her representatives, in a variety of ways, align especially well with these characteristics. Third, the possible, future effectiveness of the UGCC and her representatives in the peacebuilding process is not merely a theoretical positum, for the history of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict shows that in people like Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts’kyi, the UGCC finds an important precedent for such peacebuilding activities. Following these three strands, then, I will conclude with some practical suggestions of how this potential in the UGCC could be actualised.
Russia’s War in Ukraine and the Limits of Religious Diplomacy
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 42 : Iss. 4 , Article 3. , 2022
The ongoing international efforts to put an end to the bloodshed in Ukraine have exposed the limits of faith-based diplomacy. This is particularly true when church and state embrace each other in a symbiotic alliance, in order to pursue their respective hegemonic ambitions