Religion and War in Ukraine
Unforeseen Consequences and New Challenges
Catherine Wanner editor Heather J Coleman editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publishing:14th Jan '27
£171.99
This title is due to be published on 14th January, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
This book offers an incisive analysis of the religious dimensions of Russia's war against Ukraine since the February 2022 full-scale invasion. Ukraine is a multiconfessional society with exceptionally high rates of religious identification. A parallel religious proxy war intensified to reshape Ukraine's religious landscape to favor specific transnational connections and political outcomes. Religion has been simultaneously instrumentalized, weaponized, and securitized by all parties, making it a critical and volatile marker of identity with profound consequences.
Using interdisciplinary approaches, this volume explores the intersection of war and religion by analyzing how diverse religious communities—Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim—navigate and shape the conflict. Bringing together Ukrainian scholars and international experts with decades of fieldwork and archival research experience, the book examines controversial issues, including state policies toward specific religious institutions, the Vatican's mediation dilemmas, and the experiences of minority religious communities. While religious institutions advance social solidarity and humanitarian efforts, they are also a volatile force capable of deepening divisions.
This book is essential reading for students, scholars, and researchers in Religious Studies, Conflict Studies, International Relations, Political Science, Anthropology of Religion, and Peace and Reconciliation Studies. It offers valuable insights for policymakers and the general public, providing timely perspectives on the complex role of religion in contemporary armed conflicts.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Canadian Slavonic Papers.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has brought the complex instrumentalization of religion to the attention of a broad international community. From the Vatican to the Bible Belt of the US to global Orthodox structures, the Russian invasion has made Ukrainian religious affairs a matter of great interest and dispute. This volume provides insight as to the complexities and nuances of this conflict and the challenges ahead.
Frank Sysyn, Director of the Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta
This timely volume offers an intelligent and insightful account of religion’s crucial role in the war in Ukraine, illuminating its entanglement with politics, collective identities, and global networks. Both engaged and even-handed, it captures religion’s power to divide and to reconcile. With intellectual courage and academic rigor, it shows how scholarship can foster understanding, better policy-making, dialogue, and reconciliation.
Irina Paert, University of Tartu, Estonia
Few studies have truly sharpened the focus by presenting the details and inner dynamics of the religious landscape of the Russian-Ukrainian War. This volume demonstrates how religion offers many examples of what has been called “the ambivalence of the sacred.” Anyone seeking to better understand the many facets, contradictions, and potentials that religion displays in contemporary Ukraine will benefit from consulting the articles in this collection.
Alfons Brüning, Institute for Eastern Christian Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
Ukraine's religious landscape has been reshaped more dramatically since 2022 than at any point since Soviet atheization, yet scholarship has barely kept pace. This volume corrects that. From parish-level contestation to canonical geopolitics, Wanner and Coleman curate analyses that are empirically grounded, theoretically adventurous, and refreshingly unafraid of complexity. Essential reading.
Tornike Metreveli, Lund University
ISBN: 9781041450566
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
258 pages