The concepts of “culture wars” in different contexts have different meanings. One of the common ones comes from the American context and denotes the conflict between conservative and liberal values, also covering the sphere of public morality and the place of religion in the public consciousness.
At the same time, this term comes from the German notion “Kulturkampf”, which literally translates as “struggle for culture”. The term was applied to the hard struggle of the state power of the German Empire, led by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, to establish state control over the Roman Catholic Church during the 1870s, after the accession of the contemporary territories of southern Germany to the empire.
It is this aspect – the open confrontation between church and state – that has an analogue in today’s Ukrainian context. At the same time, this parallel with the situation in Germany should emphasize the complexity of the current problem in Ukraine. After all, today’s situation of confrontation does not boil down to exposing individual collaborators during the war or criticizing individual mistakes of the leadership of the largest denomination in Ukraine, but is aimed at complex persecution and possible prohibition of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. What is probably less realized by the state authorities is the possible reformatting of the public role of religion in Ukraine and the general growth of secularization of the society as a result of the current information attacks on the UOC.
Regarding specific examples of analysis that illustrate these “culture wars” in Ukraine, two names should be named. On the one hand, this is the informational activity of Kateryna Shchotkina – who in recent years has been systematically criticizing the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and on the other hand, the activity of Nikolay Mitrokhin, a field researcher of Ukrainian religiosity for the last quarter of the century.
The impetus for such a kind of correspondence duel of the two named researchers was some materials devoted to the analysis of sociological data in the field of religiosity of the Ukrainians that were published in the Ukrainian media in May and June 2023. In particular, this was a survey of the Razumkov center, supported by “Dzerkalo tyzhnya” (literally “Mirror of the week”) newspaper.
Kateryna Shchotkina, based on these data, wrote two materials – “War. How the relations of the Ukrainians with God and the Church have changed” (https://zn.ua/ukr/war/vijna-jak-zminilisja-vidnosini-ukrajintsiv-iz-bohom-ta-tserkvoju.html) and “The destiny of the UOC-MP in Ukraine: the way away from the temple” (https://zn.ua/project/church/?fbclid=IwAR3YU7rvFyLqRdNtlN-Wg6P65BRkiim0n6TOJJmsu1XU91UuX88bmeIBBdc). Both materials are worthy of the researchers’ attention, and one of the key theses of this double analysis is the loss of trust in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the side of Ukrainian society.
Fresh materials of Kateryna Shchotkina in English on the website with an eloquent title “Out of the Russian world” (https://outofrussianworld.substack.com/) also are interesting. She tried there, in particular, to answer a number of questions about the religious situation in Ukraine, uniting them with the topic “Persecution of faith in Ukraine. Really?” (see: https://outofrussianworld.substack.com/p/persecution-of-faith-in-ukraine-really).
In particular, in the style of “frequently asked questions”, she briefly answers the following questions: “Are there real persecution of the church in Ukraine?”, “What do the Ukrainian society and authorities want from the UOC-MP?” etc. In response to the question whether the actions of local authorities in Ukraine are legal, she explicitly argues: “Local authorities are guided not by law, but by the wishes of local citizens”.
Nikolay Mitrokhin, although a well-known researcher of religiosity, has been devoting his attention in the past 1.5 years to the events of the Russian-Ukrainian war. At the same time, his recent extended interview for the website “Dialog tut” (literally “Dialogue Here”) was indicative – see https://www.dialogtut.org/skilky-mozhna-stoyaty-u-viri-ne-otrymuyuchy-adekvatnoyi-pidtrymky-kyyeva/. Its title is quite eloquent – “How much one can ‘stand in the faith’ without receiving adequate support from Kyiv?”
Here, on the one hand, he argues: “The UOC, as a nationwide Church, unites both those who oppose the building of Ukraine as a national state and those who support such an idea”. At the same time, he openly speaks about the mistakes of the leadership of this church: “The UOC made two large mistakes. First: vague and incomprehensible position of the church leadership… Second mistake: the absolutely failing media strategy of all previous years”.
Such a position does not prevent Mitrokhin from being generally critical of the current religious policy of the Ukrainian state: “Nothing good ever came out of the efforts of the state to forcibly explain to the believers what and how they should believe … Believers, on the contrary, go in a more conservative direction, because they have enough excessive guardianship of the state in their ordinary life. People need something different from the Church… All external attempts to force the Church to be ‘not this, but different’ are violence against human rights”.
Both authors – Shchotkina and Mitrokhin – despite fundamental differences seek for social reconciliation in the church sphere of Ukraine. Practically this concerns the reconciliation of both largest Orthodox jurisdictions in Ukraine – the UOC and the OCU. This desire for reconciliation can be expressed in the words of Mitrokhin from the mentioned interview: “In Ukraine, a united local Church, which will consist of today’s representatives of the OCU and UOC, is quite possible, and sooner or later this idea will mature. I have said before that Ukraine will come to this. Nevertheless, the believers of the UOC should mature for this”.
A brief analysis of the materials of both authors suggests that their own positions do not opposite each other completely. In particular, Kateryna Shchotkina admits that “in recent years, two canonical churches have been operating on the territory of Ukraine: the autonomous UOC within the Moscow Patriarchate and the autocephalous OCU”. Besides, in her English-language materials, she rather gently describes the unwillingness of many UOC believers to change to the OCU: “For the overwhelming majority of members, the church is a “zone of stability” (and a “comfort zone”, of course). Shifts, changes, and shocks in this area are perceived very painfully, especially in the situation of the war, which leaves too few “islands of stability” in our lives.
And yet, despite the softening of positions on the differences in the identity of the faithful of the UOC and OCU, Shchotkina claims the “collective responsibility” of the believers of the UOC: it exists, but lies not in the legal, but in the moral field. “This is the responsibility of any person who belongs to a group – a party, a team, an organization – by person’s own free choice. We are all responsible for what we choose, and for what we do. Even if this responsibility has nothing to do with the criminal court”.
I would agree with this position, but one question remains: how appropriate and correct is it for the Ukrainian state in the situation of the war and incomprehensible prospects on the front line to bring the situation in the internal life of the country to a purposeful escalation of passions in the public consciousness and to the desire for a legal ban of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, when this is done to please the low-religious majority? Is it not better, according to Mitrokhin, to reduce “excessive state guardianship”, and, according to Shchotkina, to preserve “islands of stability”?