Author ORCID Identifier
ORCID: 0000-0002-1296-0872
Abstract
The article reveals the role of the Armenian Church in preserving the ethnic identity of Armenians in the diaspora on Ukrainian land. The transgression or adaptation of the religious and ecclesiastical sphere of Armenians to the new environment in Ukraine was a "soft" process, since it was a transition within a Christian society, and therefore not on religious, but on the confessional basis of "Own"/Christians, although "Others." The specifics of the mentality, general algorithms of migration and incorporation into the new socio-cultural environment determined the main aspects of the transition of the religious and ecclesiastical sphere of Armenians into the alien cultural environment: the creation of their own autonomous religious locus, which became the center of the formation of the social topography of their colonies; legal registration and consolidation of the status of religious autonomy; parallel functioning of religious location of Armenians (not only the traditional Armenian Apostolic Church, but Orthodox/Chalсedonians as well as Catholic Armenians). In the diaspora, the necessity of Armenians to adapt to the landscape, climate, political, and socio-economic realities of the Kyiv and Galician-Volhynian States, and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, should have led to appropriate adjustments in mentality and stereotype of behavior. This tendency was significantly strengthened by the Union1 processes. The changed mentality and stereotype of Armenian behavior made it possible to successfully unite the Ukrainian branch of the Armenian Apostolic Church with Rome. The Union with Rome fixed two main mental components of Armenians in diaspora: despite all the changes in rite, language, liturgy, laws, etc., they were still Armenians, but they became another, different Armenians, not like the Armenians of the ancestral homeland. Both the Armenian Apostolic and Armenian Catholic churches have played a leading role in preserving the national cultural and historical memory of Armenians, which became a safety mechanism preventing the complete assimilation with the Ukrainian-Polish (Ukrainian-German, Ukrainian-Romanian and Ukrainian-Russian) environment.
Recommended Citation
Haiuk, Iryna
(2023)
"The Pattern of the Transformation of the Religious Life of the Armenian Diaspora in Ukraine: Conditions, Causes, Consquences,"
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 43
:
Iss.
1
, Article 5.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55221/2693-2148.2402
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol43/iss1/5