THE HISTORICAL PROCESS OF THE FORMATION OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF UKRAINE IN 2019: CHURCH, STATE, AND STATE-BUILDING

Date

2023-10

Author

Keskin, Serhat

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This dissertation examines the Ukrainian presidents’ endeavors to create an autocephalous Orthodox church in Ukraine and tries to understand how this Church was successfully established in 2019, while previous attempts failed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Also, it discusses the significance of the Church in post-Soviet Ukraine state-building process. To this end, semi-structured elite and expert interviews in Kyiv (Ukraine) in 2019 and 2020 and Ankara (Turkey) in 2022 and 2023 are conducted. Based on the interview data, this thesis argues that the reasons for establishing the Orthodox Church of Ukraine are multidimensional and multifaceted. Thus, it would be an oversimplification to explain the formation process with one specific factor. It also suggests Russia’s violation of Ukrainian territorial integrity and state sovereignty triggered the need to establish an autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Therefore, this study proposes that the chain of events since 2013 created favorable national and international conditions for the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2019, and the then president Petro Poroshenko successfully mobilized these conditions toward forming the Church. Addressing the role of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Ukrainian and Russian relations from a historical perspective and examining the institutional characteristics of the autocephalous Orthodox Church in Eastern Orthodoxy, this thesis argues that establishing an independent Ukrainian church, freed from Russia’s influence, is vital for a sovereign Ukrainian state and institutional consolidation.

Subject Keywords

Post-Soviet Ukraine, Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Autocephalous Orthodox Church, State-Building, Sovereignty

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/105536

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis