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)

From the year of Ukraine's proclamation of state independence, a qualitatively different one began, without exaggeration - an epochal period of its development. The cherished dream of many generations of Ukrainians to live in an independent Fatherland has finally acquired a real outline, which in the post-Soviet consciousness of the million-minded people of Ukraine has been associated with centuries of cherished hopes for nation-wide peace, harmony, prosperity and happiness. But Ukraine is already in the second half of the 80's, and (...) more recently - in the early 90's of the twentieth century. entered a period of dramatic and all-encompassing changes, which predetermined the rapid dynamics of the acquisition by the Ukrainian ethnos of its substantive self, and in particular that of spiritual and religious literacy, which related to the need for self-knowledge and self-awareness and found expression in the intensification of Ukrainian religiosity. Involvement in the process of broad strata of Ukrainian citizens, and consequently people of different views, religions and beliefs, as well as the intensity of socio-ideological shifts, not only contributed to the enrichment of ideas about spirituality, but in fact led to its value-based revision. (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.

The article "Protestantism: to the causes of growth and spread at an early stage of its development" by V.Shevchenko deals with the epochmaking phenomenon of Protestantism, its exceptional place, role and significance in the history of Christian progress during past five hundred years. Special attention is dedicated to disclosure of number of some reasons, which caused the appearance of Protestantism.

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)

The cult and ritual sphere is an important component of the religious complex, which is usually understood as a collection of ritual acts related to the worship of supernatural reality and aimed at achieving the bond of the believer with the object of worship. As an inalienable attribute of the religious phenomenon, the cult was created along with its occurrence and is characterized by the complication of manifestation in the process of historical development. Having an amazingly wide arsenal of expression, (...) the ritual is usually formed on a specific religious basis and includes the cultural and artistic means of realization, ethnological features of embodiment, political and ideological factors of the order. In addition, at the level of interreligious interaction, the ritual ritual complex accumulates many elements of previous beliefs, symbolic and symbolic nature of which allows us to speak about the continuity of the religious tradition. In fact, this feature of ceremonial actions gives grounds to speak of a ritual ritual complex as a unique symbiotic entity, in spite of the fact that religious adherents are often considered to be an exclusive ritual, that is to say, the indisputable nature of their cult professed, whereas in the perception and appreciation of the wider public, associate with the top national achievements, sacred property. (shrink)

Surprisingly, the fact is that despite the well-studied sources of sources as well as the large number of studies devoted to the Union of Brest, this phenomenon of church-religious life of Ukraine at the end of the seventeenth century and is still perceived ambiguously. At the same time, the sharply negative attitude to this fateful event on the part of the Orthodox spheres was and remains predominant. Suffice it to recall that I. Franko's Brest union was "a fruit of betrayal (...) of the people and father's faith, fatal for Russia, and for Poland as a result of Jesuit intrigues," but according to class-ideological approaches of Soviet times, was considered "the main form of Catholic expansion on Ukrainian lands » Contributions made by the recent scientists to the interpretation of this significant event, too, do not inspire particular optimism, causing misunderstandings, and with them a lot of questions of the most different property. (shrink)

The Council of Trent of 1545-1563, which, incidentally, was not only long lasting but also difficult to convene, reflected a completely unstable general Christian situation during a period of rapid reformation. It is known that its foundations amounted to 95 Luther abstracts, and the subsequent course of events necessitated the immediate convening of the Ecumenical Council. Pope Clement VII made real attempts to do so, but did not reach the goal as a result of the war. Bulla of June 12, (...) 1536, his successor Pope Paul III also ordered the convening of the Ecumenical Forum of Christians in May 1537, but, as in the first case, there was a war again in the event of its holding. For the same reason, the cathedral did not gather in November 1542. Only in March 1545 the cathedral was convened, and in December of the same year - officially opened in Trident. (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)

As already mentioned, based on a number of goals and methods of classification, Ukrainian religious studies have been divided into two disciplines - academic and theological. The former, in particular, is characterized by historicity, tolerance, non-confession, objectivity and pluralism. Instead, theological religious studies, based on the belief in the truth of Divine Revelation and the indisputable authority of Scripture, are characterized by apologetic and confessional aspirations, which are accordingly manifested in affirming the truth of a particular religious doctrine and religious (...) belief. Some peculiarity of this division is the fact that according to which the classification principles of foreign religious studies are shifted into the sphere of internal and external specifics of the study of religious phenomenon, as opposed to domestic religious studies, whose study is often based on the ideological and supernatural components of the worldview what religion. (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)