East Slavic Peoples of Poland: Religion and Nationality (intersection trajectories in the historical context)

Abstract

The traditional view is that religion is one of the most important elements in the acquisition and preservation of identity by different nations. In the modern world, this pairing is changing connection with the formation of a civilized nation and a civil religion. Recently appears a concept according to which both religion and nationality are ideologies, which also causes their interaction and interpenetration, but on a different level. The question of whether religion is a defining, distinctive feature of a nation worries not only theorists. It finds its refraction in the practical plane and in the life of different nations and especially people who live in an alien confessional environment. It is also important to understand the influence of nationality on the choice and preservation of religious affiliation. Will examine these questions of the issue of religious-national mutual influence on the example of the East Slavic peoples (Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians) who lived and live on the territory of Poland. We will try to understand whether it is possible to put an equal sign between the concepts of "Orthodox" and "Russian" in the studied historical contexts, and to call the Orthodox faith and the Church in these territories "Russian". The article examines the ethnoreligious dimension of the political context, in particular, the influence of state acts on the Orthodox Church and believers who lived in Poland in various historical periods. An attempt is made to identify the features of the relationship between the Orthodox religion and the Church as an institution with the process of preserving and modernizing the national identity of the East Slavic (Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians) peoples of Poland. The analysis of its evolution during the XV-XXI centuries is carried out in changing geopolitical conditions (including the changes of borders).