Expеrt opinion

  • 23 January 2012, 11:36 | Interview | 

    Archbishop Thomas Edward Gullickson: I want to become a saint

    The new Apostolic Nuncio in Ukraine, Archbishop Thomas Gullickson has been in our country for only a few months. He presented his credentials to the President of Ukraine in November 2011. Our publication spoke with the Vatican ambassador about his impressions of Ukraine and local church life.

  • 17 January 2012, 00:10 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

    The New Colonialism

    Ukraine is well acquainted with the old type of colonialism, projected by an imperial state onto a subject population. But today, it may be the object of a new type as well – one practiced not by an alien nation-state, but by a transnational socio-economic and ideological elite.

  • 25 December 2011, 17:41 | M | 

    On the Birth of Christ and the Fall of the USSR

    Christmas is also a judgment on modern Pharisees, pillars of official religiosity. A baptized, but unenlightened Rus, needs a free unpoliticized Church. While the Church and the Kremlin develop the Russian world, Christ does not enter their doors. He is outside the lavish palaces, but with the people.

  • 23 December 2011, 14:51 | Society-digest | 

    “Yosyp Slipy was as farsighted as Andrei Sheptytsky”

    Private Secretary of the Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on the Patriarch and the current religious situation

  • 18 December 2011, 08:41 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

    Are we in a post-secular age?

    “Much of modernity is predicated on an antagonistic relationship between the sacred and the secular. We are proposing that we can move beyond that hostility. We are in a post-secular age now where people are yearning for a sense of meaning. It’s a pilgrimage, with few set answers.”

  • 15 December 2011, 11:40 | Society-digest | 

    Rev. Heorhii KOVALENKO: Churches must cooperate, for the sake of serving your neighbor

    This time around the guest of My Word is press secretary for the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Heorhii KOVALENKO. Although the column is meant for interconfessional interviews, covering a range of issues important for the believers of all churches (and even non-believers), politics also was present here to a certain extent.

  • 23 November 2011, 17:09 | Religious studies | 

    FOUR ISLAMIC LIONS ON THE CRIMEAN SAVANNA

    A Review of Trends in Contemporary Islam in the Crimea

  • 16 November 2011, 16:37 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

    Two Visions Of East Slavic Christendom

    Why is the Moscow Patriarchate concerned by the structural development of the UGCC? There are several possible interpretations.

  • 28 October 2011, 16:52 | Open theme | 

    Ukraine: secular state or cleric country?

    Ukraine is a secular state, and our Constitution clearly says this. But not everybody agrees. Thus, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchy initiates the introduction of orthodox projects into school agenda and opening of Ukrainian Orthodox University of Saint Volodymyr.

  • 27 October 2011, 09:11 | Interview | 

    Charley Warner: “Ukrainian denominations will not mature in their theological thinking until they write books on theology on their own”

    Charley Warner was one of the first teachers at the Odesa theological seminary. He lived in Ukraine till 1999 and then moved to Austria. During the EAAA conference “10 Years of Theological Education” RISU was able to ask him a few questions about changes in Protestant theological education, developments in modern Protestant theology, and his mission.

  • 19 October 2011, 15:03 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

    Inculturation

    Inculturation is the process by which a religion, entering a particular culture, takes on some of its features while infusing it with its message. The process is necessary in order to make that message comprehensible to that culture.

  • 18 October 2011, 18:11 | Interview | 

    New Ukrainian Prelate Speaks of Hope for Church Unity

    Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk discusses his role in fostering ‘unity of action.’

  • 17 October 2011, 08:33 | Open theme | 

    The need of Ukrainian Radical Orthodoxy

    Today the Christians of Ukraine face two objective challenges. First, spiritual revival is required as a way out of the regional crisis of the church and social institutes that started already yesterday. Second, one has to find new forms of Christianization of the world as a way out of the global world outlook crisis referred to as postmodern ideology.

  • 13 October 2011, 18:51 | Analysis | 

    Putinism and the Ukrainian Catholic Church

    The Eastern Churches bear an aspect of the Christian faith that is profound and astonishingly rich, with the power to amaze a culture that wrongly presumes it has seen it all. I also believe our culture is in urgent need of the vast treasure and deep beauty that have been entrusted to these Churches.

  • 28 September 2011, 11:24 | Open theme | 

    Open letter to "The Guardian" regarding article "Goodbye, Golden Rose"

    The article “Goodbye, Golden Rose” published by Tom Cross in The Guardian, 2 September on the old synagogue in Lviv, Ukraine, has numerous errors. Some of them were noted by those who responded online. Here I want to draw attention to other mistakes and serious misinterpretations, which, to me, grossly distort the issue under discussion.

  • 15 September 2011, 16:57 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

    Catholicism And Democracy

    One may or may not agree with the respected churchman's evaluation of how history has shaped Ukrainian national character. But few people are likely to be surprised that a Catholic prelate is proceeding on the assumption that democracy is good and desirable.

  • 13 September 2011, 16:25 | Open theme | 

    Very different reasons stand behind ROC’s accusations against the Greek Catholics

    In his commentary to Reuters, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfyeyev) once again reminded about the conflict between Greek Catholics and Orthodox in western Ukraine in the early 90s. As in previous years, this conflict is considered as the main reason it is impossible for a meeting to be held between Patriarch Kirill and Pope Benedict XVI.

  • 18 August 2011, 12:09 | Interview | view video | 

    Chief Rabbi of Kyiv Yakov Dov Bleich on Ukraine gaining its independence

    This interview is shortened version of the talk with Sara Sievers as part of the project The collapse of the Soviet Union: the Oral History of Independent Ukraine.

  • 17 August 2011, 07:47 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

    The Secret Library

    In this way, the Soviet authorities illustrated their policy towards the Church as an institution. For by sealing it off from society, they sought to prevent ideas and information from either leaving or entering. The Church would no longer affect the way people thought, and it would no longer be affected by knowledge from the outside world.

  • 15 August 2011, 11:07 | Interview | 

    Patriarch Lubomyr (Husar): ‘We are people who are just waking up to freedom…’

    These are the topics of RISU’s conversation with a man who, according to opinion polls, is considered to be the indisputable moral authority for Ukrainians of different social strata and cultural traditions, of different denominations and faiths – the primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) from 2001-2010, Patriarch Lubomyr (Husar).