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.

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.

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.

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.

31 May 2011, 14:50 | M | 

On 'Ukrainian Christianity'

“Ukrainian Christianity” is not Christianity sui generis, it is the same Christianity that serves all, and in our case, serves the Ukrainian people. In this sense, Kyiv- or Ukrainian-centrism is not a religious and political counterweight of Moscow or the Vatican, but an orientation to serve in the epicenter of one’s nation’s life.

16 May 2011, 08:24 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

Sirens, Monsters And Whirlpools

Buffeted by unabating winds from the north, the Ark of the Church is navigating perilous straits. On the one hand, she hears the siren song of militant nationalism.

11 May 2011, 14:37 | Kateryna Shchotkina's column | 

Rain at the End of the Century

The twentieth century was embodied in Karol Wojtyla – its national awakenings and catastrophes, world wars, discoveries and disappointments, crises, the Beatles, the scientific and technical revolution, mass media, secularization and thrusts of globalization. According to various theorists, the twentieth century was to bring the defeat of religion, destruction of the authority of the church, nullification of faith, its replacement, redefinition of postulates, and the making of faith and even God himself irrelevant.

4 May 2011, 16:46 | Viktor Yelenskyi's column | 

April: On the Church and Government

Out of all that was written or said about religion, society, and the state in April, I was personally most blown away by the Ukrainian president’s annual address to the Verkhovna Rada “Modernization of the Country: Our Strategic Choice.

17 April 2011, 15:38 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

Moral Relativism In Moscow

Recently American philosopher George Weigel reported that in an interview with Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, he had asked whether the March 1946 "Council" of Lviv, which purported to liquidate the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, was a "theologically legitimate ecclesial act." Hilarion had unhesitatingly replied in the affirmative.

1 April 2011, 17:36 | Viktor Yelenskyi's column | 

March: The election and the role of personality in history

During the enthronement of the newly elected head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church it is likely that the same thing occurred to many of the guests. When Bishop Sviatoslav reaches the age at which his predecessor asked the pope to accept his resignation, the 21st century will be at its zenith and the world will be different.

12 March 2011, 13:12 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

Succession Stories

In resigning from office last month, Archbishop Major Lubomyr Husar paved the way for a smooth and orderly succession. He thus dealt effectively with what has been a perennial problem, and not only in the Church.

14 February 2011, 08:02 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

Is there such a thing as catholic economics?

Nothing could be more distant from religion, many people would say, than economics. Economics is a hard-headed, hard-hearted field, known as "the dismal science." It is for pragmatists, not idealists; it deals with the corporal, not the spiritual.

25 January 2011, 12:08 | Kateryna Shchotkina's column |  | 

Without fear or reproach

The 10th year anniversary of the patriarch’s ministry is a good occasion to think about time – not only about how much has passed but how it was spent.

20 January 2011, 13:51 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

Christianization, de-christianization, re-christianization

"Secularization" is one of the most popular topics in today's religious and political discourse. But what does it mean? In the strictest sense, it means turning something sacred into something profane: for example, turning a cathedral into a "temple of reason," as happened with Notre-Dame de Paris during the French Revolution, or using a church as a cinema, as happened throughout the USSR.

15 December 2010, 07:39 | Andrew Sorokowski's column | 

Shifting the east-west paradigm

There is a fundamental paradox in the world view of many Ukrainians. Ecclesiastically they are Eastern – whether they are Greek-Catholic or Orthodox. But socio-politically and culturally as well as economically, their orientation is Western. They see themselves as a part of Europe.