THE AMBIVALENT NATURE OF SOCIAL SERVICE AND VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES OF THE UCC DURING THE “GREAT WAR”

Abstract

The article is devoted to highlighting the specifics of social service and volunteer activities of the UOC during the Russian-Ukrainian war. In the course of realization of this task, it was found that in the process of legal consolidation of the autonomy of the state and the church and the development of the legislative framework for the formation and functioning of religious organizations in Ukraine, the latter were transformed into full-fledged civil society institutions aimed at meeting the spiritual needs of society. In addition, the formation of the legal framework enabled all religious organizations of Ukraine to carry out multi-vector social service in areas of intersection of their interests on a partnership basis with the state, even though their role in building civil society is not always unambiguous. This ambivalence was most clearly manifested in the activities of the UOC, whose leaders, despite their openly pro-Russian orientation, implemented a number of social programs through clergy, active parishioners, churches and monasteries. The Revolution of Dignity and Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine prompted religious organizations in Ukraine to develop their social doctrines in order to respond appropriately to the demands of society and their flocks regarding the events and challenges facing Ukrainian society. The UOC did not stand aside from these processes. As a member of the UCCRO, it joined the development of national reform projects, strategies for the development of Ukraine, and socially significant activities, which, however, did not prevent its leaders from spreading Russian narratives in the public consciousness both in the post-Maidan period and during the full-scale war. Their promotion, in the context of armed confrontation, is accompanied by the implementation of a number of socially significant projects, which, however, do not correlate in scale with the extensive church network and international relations of the UOC. This gave researchers grounds to consider the UOC’s social service and volunteer activities as a kind of cover for anti-Ukrainian activities. Despite the fact that such accusations are not without rational basis, in our opinion, the social service and volunteer activities of the UOC can be seen as a manifestation of the so-called “grassroots” activity of communities and believers, in whose minds the UOC appears not so much as an organic part of the Russian Orthodox Church centered in Moscow, as a carrier of the centuries-old Orthodox traditions of the Ukrainian people.