International Conference - Religion and War in Ukraine: The Political, the Public, and the Possible
Beginning with the hybrid war in Ukraine in 2014, and especially since the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, a parallel religious proxy war has unfolded. The war itself is a struggle over Ukraine’s sovereignty, political orientation, and geopolitical fate. Religion, as a critical marker of identity, heritage, and history, has been instrumentalized by all parties. Religion has served as a basis for nation-building and decolonization, state-building, and humanitarian relief. It has also been the source of social and political polarization. This international, interdisciplinary hybrid conference, “Religion and war in Ukraine: The political, the public, and the possible,” takes stock of the profound impact of war on religious life in Ukraine since the invasion and launches an international conversation about the role the range of religious groups in Ukraine – Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim—can play after the war. The conference will also include the opening of an exhibition, “Destroyed Temples of Ukraine.”
Session information and speakers can be found at the conference's registration site.
Hosted by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, in cooperation with the Working Group on Lived Religion in Eastern Europe and Eurasia.
Sessions are free and open to the public.
This is a hybrid event: Sessions can be joined in-person at the University of Alberta, or via Zoom.