•  
  •  
 

Abstract

With the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, religion has shifted from a sphere of great importance in inter-state relations to the national security domain, where the sides in the conflict perceive religion as potentially posing the utmost threat and have resorted to extraordinary measures to securitize it. The author argues that at the core of the Ukrainian securitizing move was the struggle for the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which allowed weakening Russia's influence not only on the Orthodox milieu but also on Ukrainian society as a whole. Russia, viewing the loss of control over Ukraine as a danger to its national security, applied a wide range of extreme means in its attempts to torpedo Ukrainian autocephaly. Whereas in the Ukrainian case, the actor of securitization, unable to convince its audience of the need for stricter legislation and greater police control, took the route of expanding the rights and liberties of religious associations hoping to gain its loyalty. The Russian securitizing move abroad (namely, in Ukraine) was accompanied by a domestic assault on religious freedom and the defeat of hotbeds of religious dissent.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.