On February 24, 2022, the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against the Ukrainian state began. Among the arguments of the Russian leadership regarding the beginning of the war was protection of the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate). There were also other reasons to draw attention to activities in the religious and church circles of Ukraine. The last significant event in the religious information space was the Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on May 27. and its decision on full independence and self-governance (the technical term “autonomy” was consciously not used).
All these events needed coverage in the Ukrainian and foreign media. At the request of the organizers, Sergii Bortnyk, the head of our Foundation presented his vision of the religious situation in Ukraine in general and on specific events. Below we list most notable speeches:
• Renovabis Foundation webinar “(Even more) war in Ukraine? Everyday life in the mode of war”
• Interviews for Bavarian Radio, North German Radio (NDR) from Kiel, South-West Radio (SWR), several interviews for the British BBC,
• Round table of the Ukrainian Catholic University “Ukrainian Churches during the war”,
• Video interview for the German Villigst Foundation,
• Lecture at the University of Zurich,
• Speeches for groups of German priests of the Soest district in German Westphalia,
• Podium discussion at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Bielefeld,
• Interview for Otrok.ua magazine,
• Interview for Medusa Radio – https://meduza.io
• Speech at the webinar of the German Catholic Office of Social Doctrine (KSZ)
The most systematic was the collaboration with the G2W Institute in the person of Stefan Kube, in which we recorded four video interviews. Records in German can be found here – https://noek.info/nachgefragt. Another form of our information work was cooperation with the most popular German newspaper “Die ZEIT”. For its “Faith and Doubt” page, Evelyn Finger and I have prepared articles for five issues of the newspaper.
Our Foundation remains open to cooperation with interested mass media and church organizations on further coverage of the religious situation in Ukraine (sbortnyk14@gmail.com).