New Split (Ukrainian Crisis and Religious Factor in the Context of Prospects for Socio-Political Development)

The article is devoted to the role of the religious factor in the context of the socio-political development of modern societies against the background of military-political confrontation. The ongoing processes are analyzed at several levels — national, international, and ecclesiastical. Utilizing the post-secular paradigm, as well as actor and identitarian approaches, the authors examine the religious dimension of the Ukrainian crisis. They draw a particular attention to the situation in the world Orthodox Christianity. The authors reveal the reasons why the main line of cleavage in the modern Christianity formed precisely in its Orthodox segment and was closely intertwined with the largest international political crisis of the first quarter of the 21st century. The article shows that the Ukrainian crisis has a destabilizing effect on the situation in the world Orthodox Christianity, reactivating old conflicts and creating new sources of tension. Having stated that the Ukrainian crisis served as a trigger and catalyst for dynamics in different spheres, covering a significant number of different types of actors, the authors at the same time point out that socio-political development in the context of the religious factor has deeper roots. From their viewpoint, the observed phenomena and processes indicate the formation of new models of interaction between the state, society and church within the framework of post-secular or traditionalist discourse, which in turn is associated with the rapid establishment of a new scientific and technological order. According to the authors’ conclusion, as it already happened many times in history, the religious factor is obtaining key importance in determining the basic features of the new era. The transformation of Modernity into something else, which is taking place before our eyes, does not result in the “elimination” of this factor, but, on the contrary, transforms religious factor into an important component of the formula for a new way of life. The Ukrainian conflict intensifies the search for post-secular models of socio-political development in the Western political areal. At the same time, Russia and the West itself are moving in different ways, since the Russian model is closer to pre-secular practices.