Russian Alternative Spirituality During the First Year of the War

Stanislav Panin holds a PhD in Philosophy from Moscow State University and is a PhD candidate in the Department of Religion at Rice University.

During the past year, religious communities in Russia have expressed the whole spectrum of views concerning the war in Ukraine, ranging from unconditional support to implicit or explicit opposition. Several publications, including my own post for this blog, documented reactions of alternative religious and esoteric groups to the current political situation.

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Not My Church: Ukraine’s New Draft Law Dealing with the Ukraine Orthodox Church of (not) the Moscow Patriarchate

Dmytro Vovk is a visiting associate professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and Director of the Centre for the Rule of Law and Religion Studies, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (Ukraine). An earlier version of this piece was posted on Forum18.

The Russia-Ukraine war, starting with the annexation of Crimea and the military conflict in eastern Ukraine and continuing with Russia’s full-scale invasion, has had a tremendous effect on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) and other related human rights in the region. Murders, tortures, forced detention, and FoRB violations—including forced displacement of priests and believers, acts of religious discrimination and social hatred to religious minorities inspired and directed by Russian proxies, as well as expropriations of religious properties—have become the reality of the territories occupied by Russia in 2014 and 2022.

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Peacebuilding and the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Jennifer G. Woods is Legal Counsel and the Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty at the Lake Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. She delivered the following remarks during a panel discussing “Religion’s Roles in Peacebuilding: Reflections from Religious Leaders” at the ICLRS 29th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 4 October 2022. At that time, she was Associate Director of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Department of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty.

We are living in an increasingly unstable and dangerous world.[1]

Total War

Humanity has, since the middle of the last century, been living in an age of total war. Total war implies the theoretical possibility that, except for the providence of God, earth’s inhabitants could wipe out their entire civilization. Nuclear weapons and biochemical arms of mass destruction are aimed at centers of population. Whole nations and societies are mobilized or targeted for war, and when such war erupts it is carried on with the greatest violence and destruction. The justification of war has become more complex, even though advances in technology make possible greater precision in destroying targets with a minimum of civilian casualties.

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