Department of Philosophy of Religion The Department of Religious Studies of IF NASU during 2006-2008 carried out the specified planned theme. Below we present its sections in the summary. The full study material will be published in the monograph under the same title, which will be published by the end of 2009. The book can be used as a textbook on religious studies.

In the history of the Christian Church in general, and Ukraine in particular, Orthodox-Catholic relations occupy an extremely important place. The dramatic, as a fact of church and religious life, they attracted the attention of a large number of scholars of different fields of knowledge and research interests. Arsena Rychynsky, a well-known Ukrainian religious scholar whose views on the problem of unity of the Christian Church, overwhelmingly, are scientifically valid, meaningfully original and prognostically relevant. Under such a review, we would (...) like to update some of the researcher's provisions, which directly or indirectly correlate with the uniqueness in her Ukrainian expression. To this end, we recall that, by the exact definition of I. Lysyak-Rudnytsky, Ukraine is quite rightly considered a classic country of the unified tradition. Located on the border of the two worlds, by which we understand the Orthodox East and the Catholic West, it has become the subject of influence of both the Greek and Roman Churches, which, after all, has caused acute religious and religious events in Rus-Ukraine. inter-confessional controversy and repeated attempts at Orthodox-Catholic reconciliation, and even unification. (shrink)

In the article, based on the elaboration of a large array of literature on the topic, as well as direct and inclusive study of ritual practice, mainly orthodoxy, reveals the place and functional purpose of the religious factor in the complex structure of the religious phenomenon, in various manifestations of religious life.

As we begin to cover the events that immediately preceded the proclamation of the unification act of 1596, we do not think it necessary to prove how complex and responsible the case is. After all, despite the multifaceted nature of the phenomenon, which will later be called the Union of Brest, it is difficult for the researcher to abstract from its consequences, which had a significant impact on the course of the church and religious process of the last four centuries (...) in its regional and Christian community as a whole. It is not easy to understand the religious semantics of this fateful event, which was closely connected with the complex of concepts of state and cultural content. Therefore, we emphasize the self-evident: in the systemic order, Orthodox hypodynamism, which had its worst manifestation in the cultural inferiority of local self-sufficiency, was bound to become a brake on mature church-religious transformations. (shrink)

Despite the universal status of the Ferrara-Florentine Cathedral, the union of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches approved by him provoked ambiguous, but often very negative reactions. This is especially true of the Orthodox East, where the idea of ​​inter-church unification ages in a row was subjected to devastating criticism, and in cases of real attempts to introduce the union, there was a strong resistance from the individual zealots of the Byzantine Orthodoxy and their supporters. An exception to this rule was (...) not the Orthodox Russia, the spiritual leader of which and the believer, and subsequently the researchers of various fields of humanitarian knowledge, did not reach a common view on the canonicality of the Ferrara-Florence Union, and thus the legal basis for its introduction. (shrink)

The categorical rejection of the Ferrara-Florence Union by the Moscow leadership, as sometimes restrained, is sometimes unconcerned, but in general, the positive attitude towards the communist act of unification of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches from the side of the ruling circles of the Commonwealth is a fact that is undeniable and scientifically irrefutable. However, not all of those who have been guarding the ideological support for this self-evident nature for more than half a century are prepared to take into (...) account the positional distinction that touches the intra-Orthodox sphere. Therefore, I would like to present an account of the explanation of the factors that brought about the theory of "Moscow - III Rome" to life, and also led to the emergence of "Letters of Misail". (shrink)