Development of the Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the Conditions of the Revanchist Policy of the Russian Federation against Ukraine

The article analyzes the development of Ukrainian Orthodoxy in the context of the revenge policy of Russia against Ukraine at the turn of the 21st century. It is discovered that almost a quarter of a century of inactivity of the Ukrainian authorities and active anti-Ukrainian and anti-state actions of the Russian Orthodox Church and its Little-Russian branch the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate contributed to their introduction into the Ukrainian humanitarian space of fundamental ideas, dogmas, and postulates of the “Russian World,” which subsequently led to the occupation by Russia of Crimea and parts of Donbas and the so-called “Russian Spring” in 2014. It is shown that Russia’s armed and information aggression in early 2014 called into question the very existence of the Ukrainian state and the Ukrainian nation, but thanks to the all-Ukrainian patriotic movement, including the stated policy and position of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, the enemy was stopped. It is proved that the undeclared Russian-Ukrainian hybrid warfare led not only to temporary territorial losses, huge casualties, tragedies, etc., but also to the unification of Ukrainians, the creation of the Ukrainian political nation, and a significant consolidation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate. Russian aggression became a catalyst for the unity of pro-Ukrainian forces and contributed to the intensification of the process of creating the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Research on religious identification of representatives of the Ukrainian community has been carried out using the methods of individual questionnaire survey and included observation; the influence of the destructive Russian factor on their religious self-identification has been traced. It is found that in the context of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Armed Forces, which began on February 24, 2022, Ukrainians united in the name of victory over the aggressor, so the patriotic believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate will have to make a final choice about whether or not to join the Orthodox Church of Ukraine not only to weaken the pro-Russian fifth column in Ukraine but to help resistance forces in liberating the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories