Bridging the Ecclesial, the Academic, and the Political
After gaining independence and departing from official Soviet atheism, Ukraine managed to develop a neutral model of religion-state relations. The 1991 law on religious organizations provided basic guarantees of religious freedom at the individual and institutional levels: free exercise of religion, prohibition of discrimination based on religion, separation of religion and state, equal legal status…
Editors’ Note: This essay was written several months ago, but in the weeks since, the safety of the icons returned to the Church has forced its way back to the center of public attention in Russia. Signs of trouble had been building since August 2026, when a photograph showing glue seepage along a splitting seam…
Liturgy feels timeless. That is part of its appeal and purpose—to lift the worshiper out of the contingencies of their daily concerns and into the changeless mystery of salvation. But the formation of liturgy is never timeless. Hymns are written by particular people, in particular places, responding to a particular set of concerns. These historical…
“All power is from God” («Всякая власть от Бога», vsyakaya vlast’ ot Boga)—this is the formula on which Russian political servility has rested for centuries. Under Ivan the Terrible and under Peter the Great, under serfdom and under the Soviet regime, under Putin and Patriarch Kirill, the same appeal to the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to…
Heritage Under Siege The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople’s Theological School of Halki has been shuttered for fifty-five years—closed by laws of successive, military and civilian, governments of the Republic of Turkey law. The Halki case has long been overlooked in international media—after all, the school’s closure doesn’t meet the cynical media adage of “if it…
After the events of Euromaidan—commonly known in Ukraine as the Revolution of Dignity—in the winter of 2013–2014, Ukraine found itself not only in a state of open conflict with Russia but also undergoing a deep transformation of its national identity. Religion quickly became part of a wider public debate about sovereignty, historical memory, and the country’s geopolitical direction.
