Calendars, Prayerbooks, and Chatgroups from the Russian-Ukrainian War

Nadieszda Kizenko is a professor of history at University at Albany–SUNY.

At first glance, a Russian-language prayerbook titled Mothers, Wives, Sisters, Let Us Pray for Our Warriors seems to be nothing special. It’s small. It’s made of paper. It’s cheap. Much of what’s inside has appeared in other places and other prayerbooks. And yet it represents a useful framework for looking at how the Russian Orthodox Church is attempting to engage women of faith in the current war against Ukraine. Reading this book prompts the question: what does it mean to have a book scripted by Church authorities for private prayer on a political issue?

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Law, Religion, and Decolonization

This series aims to explore the roles of colonialism and decolonization in the interaction of law and religion.

Religion and religious institutions can be employed by the state to support its imperial expansion and facilitate the loyalty and cultural homogenization of colonized territories and populations. Historically, these processes are often combined with proselytizing the imperial religion. They can, however, also preserve some religious freedom or autonomy for the domestic population, as Stanislav Panin discusses regarding Russia’s colonization of Siberia and the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in that colonization.

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Spiritual Decolonization, National Security, and Religious Freedom: Squaring a Triangle in the Case of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Andriy Fert is a UNET non-resident fellow at Zentrum für Osteuropa- und internationale Studien in Berlin.

Dmytro Vovk is a visiting associate professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

In June 2023, the fashionable Ukrainian multimedia cultural project Ukraїner published an article on decolonization. Decolonization, as the author describes it, is “a process of cleansing the public space from the markers of (Russian) occupation,” including monuments, mosaics, names of streets, and public premises associated with the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia.

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