The Crisis of Theodicy in Wartime Ukraine: From Gottverlassenheit to the Anthropodical Shift

Authors

• Tetiana Havryliuk, National Academy of Statistics, Accounting and Audit (NASAA)Follow
• Yuriy Chornomorets, Dragomanov Ukrainian State UniversityFollow
• Svitlana Shkil, Dragomanov Ukrainian State UniversityFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

Tetiana Havryliuk — ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8525-9470
Yuriy Chornomorets — ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1285-9715
Svitlana Shkil — ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3859-816X

Abstract

Examination of the crisis of classical theodicy in the context of contemporary warfare, with particular attention to the experience of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. The problem of innocent suffering can no longer be approached solely through speculative attempts to justify the world order or reconcile radical evil with divine providence. Methodologically, the study combines hermeneutic, phenomenological, and comparative-conceptual analysis. It reconstructs a selective genealogy of Gottverlassenheit from Martin Luther’s Theologia Crucis through Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jürgen Moltmann, brings this tradition into dialogue with contemporary moral anti-theodicy, and examines Ukrainian philosophical and religious reflections shaped by wartime experience. The article’s central contribution is the conceptualization of the anthropodical shift: a reorientation from the metaphysical justification of suffering toward a practical ethics of responsibility, witness, solidarity, and the defense of human dignity. In this perspective, Gottverlassenheit is interpreted not as a problem to be resolved by another theoretical theodicy, but as an existential condition that redirects philosophical and religious reflection toward the suffering Other. The Ukrainian wartime context demonstrates how this shift acquires concrete ethical significance through practices of presence, moral responsibility, solidarity, and resistance to dehumanization.

Recommended Citation

Havryliuk, Tetiana; Chornomorets, Yuriy; and Shkil, Svitlana (2026) "The Crisis of Theodicy in Wartime Ukraine: From Gottverlassenheit to the Anthropodical Shift," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 46 : Iss. 10 , Article 2.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55221/2693-2229.2948
Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol46/iss10/2