Roczniki Kulturoznawcze

A few Words from Editors

Liudmyla Fylypovych — 2021-06-17

The Culture of State-Church and Church-State Relations: The Ukrainian Case

Liudmyla Fylypovych — 2021-06-17

The article is devoted to relations between Church and the Ukrainian State and analysis of their current state and prospects of development. The authors analyze some state–church approaches to the relationship between State and Church based on Ukrainian legislation and social concepts of churches. The main task of a modern state is to guarantee freedom of conscience to citizens and provide conditions for free functioning of religious organizations. Church also assumes certain responsibilities to the state and society. The article provides an overview of the attitude of the Catholic, Greek Catholic and Orthodox Churches to power. Referring to the practice of state-church relations and church-state relations in Ukraine, the authors deduce that the subjects of these relations do not yet demonstrate the appropriate level of culture of this relationship, and do not follow the rules of partnership between Church and State. The authors admit a possibility to constructively criticize each other’s positions and make mutual demands, contextualizing their interests and needs while forming this culture. At the same time, State should get rid of the remnants of Soviet totalitarian control over the activities of Church, and Church should renounce patronage and servility. For both State and Church, in the sphere of mutual relations, taking into consideration world models of civilized relations between them and referring to their own history of these relations and existing experience of communication with each other, there should be established a high culture of dialogue between State and Church, between secular and spiritual authorities.

A Lifetime in Error: Helena P. Blavatsky and the Immaculate Conception

Maciej B. Stępień — 2021-06-17

This article presents the cognitive error made by Helena P. Blavatsky concerning the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Blavatsky’s error consisted in ascribing the term “Immaculate Conception” to the content of one of the basic tenets of the Christian faith, which is the Incarnation of the Lord. An additional mistake in connection with this error was the observation that it was only in the middle of the 19th century that the Church elevated this truth to the rank of dogma. The confusion of the conception of the Mother with the Incarnation of the Son, and the association of the latter with the term “Immaculate Conception” gave rise to further difficulties, when the new verse of the Litany of Loretto pointed to Mary as “immaculately conceived.” The doubled cognitive problem that H. P. Blavatsky had to face because of this led her to announce further fantastic theories about the Immaculate Conception, which were not challenged by anyone for the next 150 years. Her grave cognitive error is now widespread and responsible for the functioning in contemporary Western culture of popular expressions such as the “Immaculate Conception of Christ,” where the “immaculateness” of the conception means the absence of sexual intercourse leading to the conception of a child. As a result of the widespread use of expressions of this type the authentic content of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary remains unknown to many people. In the article, this issue is presented based on the sources, which testify to the agency of H. P. Blavatsky as regards the spread of this cognitive error in the Western culture.

Confessional Polyvariance of Christian Apocalyptic: Common and Distinctive Features

Maria Bardyn — 2021-06-17

The twentieth century was a time of active expansion of Christian culture throughout the world. The Catholic and some Protestant churches resorted to this. This culture, becoming global, accommodated, and united a large number of cultural and religious minorities. At the same time, promoting its uniqueness, it could not always confirm her identity.

One of the characteristic features of the development of the modern world is an increased scale of events, greater internationalization of social processes, and their tendency to become global. Based on all modern problems, in the sense of their understanding and solution, Christian globalism were formed as a component of the doctrine of Christian denominations, which includes a full range of different concepts and ideas that reflect the typical human problems of modern civilization.

Since Christian eschatology is confessionally multivariate, it makes sense to explore both the characteristics common to all denominations and specific to some of them, as well as to identify transformational models and forms of adaptation of eschatological ideas to today's realities.

The actualization of the problem of moral-ethical and social aspects of Catholic eschatology, Christological-apocalyptic visions of Orthodox eschatological teaching, and the apocalyptic-prophetic character of Protestant eschatology in their transformational manifestations was designed to impart on the paper both theoretical and socio-practical significance.

Main Vectors of International Activity of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Volodymyr Verbytskyi — 2021-06-17

During the 1950s and 1980s, the Eastern Catholic Church (sharing the Byzantine tradition) was maintained in countries with a Ukrainian migrant diaspora. In the 1960s, this branched and organized church was formed in the Ukrainian diaspora. It was named the Ukrainian Catholic Church (UCC). The Galician Metropolitan Department was headed by Andriy Sheptytskyi until 1944, and after that Sheptytskyi was preceded by Yosyp Slipiy, who headed it until 1984. In addition to the Major Archbishop and Metropolitan Yosyp, this church included two dioceses (in the United States and Canada), a total of 18 bishops. It had about 1 million believers and 900 priests. The largest groups of followers of the union lived in France, Yugoslavia, Great Britain, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia. Today, the number of Greek Catholics in the world is more than 7 million.

The international cooperation of denominations in the field of resolving historical traumas of the past seems to be quite productive. An illustrative example was shared on June 28, 2013. Preliminary commemorations of the victims of the 70th anniversary of the Volyn massacres, representatives of the UGCC and the Roman Catholic Church of Poland signed a joint declaration. The documents condemned the violence and called on Poles and Ukrainians to apologize and spread information about the violence. This is certainly a significant step towards reconciliation between the nations.

The most obvious fact is that the churches of the Kyiv tradition—ОCU and UGCC, as well as Protestant churches (All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Churches—Pentecostals, Ukrainian Lutheran Church, German People’s Church)—are in favor of deepening the relations between Ukraine and the European Union. A transformation of Ukrainian community to a united Europe, namely in the European Union, which, in their view, is a guarantee of strengthening state sovereignty and ensuring the democratic development of countries and Ukrainian society.

Mythological Components in Roman Paganism Tradition

Andrianna Roma — 2021-06-17

The culture of ancient Rome is impressive with its uniqueness, so scholars have always been interested in it. In ancient societies religious component always plays a great role, so studying it becomes key in understanding the depth of human feelings. The ancient perception of the world is clearly represented in mythology, the first type of human consciousness, whose reflections manifest itself in all the following stages of human development. The article seeks to identify the mythological components in Roman paganism tradition that facilitates deep understanding of the religion of ancient Rome. At the same time, the cornerstone of the study is the relationship between the religious and the human—what role in the process of social and cultural transformations the religious component played, how deeply mythological components intertwined with religious doctrine, what was the nature of the relationship of the Romans with their gods, and how the features of mentality transformed universal human aspirations as seen by the ancient Romans. A comprehensive analysis of this issue opens up further prospects for research, which can be considered a broader layer of the culture of ancient Rome.

Cracks in Education: Alternative Schooling in Cultic Groups

Piotr T. Nowakowski — 2021-06-17

The breakdown of cross-social values characteristic in a cult, expressed in limiting its members’ contacts with people from outside their own community, manifests itself in its critical attitude towards the common education system, and therefore in establishing its own schools, with a formula of education that is different from that found in traditional educational institutions. Some groups also use legal provisions enabling the implementation of home education, which allows them to protect children against the harmful, in their opinion, impact of the external environment. All this leads to a kind of gap in the cult’s relationship with the education system, causing it to lose both external and internal control mechanisms to limit potential abuse, making children from cultic milieu more vulnerable and defenseless than their peers growing up in a society equipped with the mentioned mechanisms, even if they are sometimes insufficiently implemented. Pupils taught in the mainstream school system maintain regular contact with their peers from different families and social groups. Similarly, teachers and other employees of the education system are embedded in different social contexts, which provides them with a perspective that lets them notice an occurring problem and offer help to the child.

Health Issues in the Guidelines of Christian Churches in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Traditions and Innovations

Оlgа Nedavnya — 2021-06-17

The article examines the guidelines of Christian Churches on human health problems in the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Attention is focused on those Churches that operate in Ukraine and the countries of the Euro-Atlantic circle: the Roman Catholic Church, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Orthodox and Protestant Churches. The documents and practical actions of these Churches, as well as reasoning of their representatives related to this topic are analyzed, in particular: organizing of church life in the conditions of COVID-19, peculiarities of the sacraments, an attitude towards vaccination and more. Orthodox approaches and innovations, which some clergy of different Churches consider incompatible with church doctrine, have been revealed. The innovations discussed concern various forms of online participation in liturgies and other types of church life, administrating of the sacraments, determining whether vaccination against coronavirus is moral, and so on. It is noted that right now and in the near future all Churches will have to clarify and supplement their guidelines according to the challenges of today’s life. And the survival and authority of the Churches among contemporaries and future generations depend on the relevance of the corresponding evolution of church doctrines.

Christianity in China: Past, Present and Future

Wiktoria Karpińska — 2021-06-17

Christianity reached China relatively late — the earliest confirmed information about the presence of Christianity in this area dates back to the 8th century AD. For centuries, Chinese culture has been shaped by other philosophical and religious systems, so Christianity has not always been understood and accepted in China. Nevertheless, it has survived and is gaining more and more followers.

The article presents the history of the appearance of the Christian religion in China and the way Christianity has fared there over the centuries. It also shows the plight of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China. The article shows what made Christianity survive and put down roots in China, how it found itself in Chinese culture, the number of its followers, and the role Christianity plays for them. The author also reflects on the future development of Christianity in a country where religions are understood differently than in Western culture.

The Sacred in the Symbols of Ukrainian Painting at the Turn of the 21st Century

Iryna Baltaziuk — 2021-06-17

Contemporary art as a measure of social consciousness becomes a reference point for finding the boundary between the sacred and the anti-sacred, the aspect that acting as a mirror becomes a reflection of reality, and only at first glance, it speaks of identity but is not true in its essence. Through the semantic key of the symbols of mirroring and reflecting, in the knowledge of the true picture, from divine emptiness to holy fullness, a dialogue of contemporary Ukrainian artists with Kazimir Malevich is formed. The most powerful example of this dialogue is created in the works of Ukrainian classics Oleksandr Dubovyk, Oleksandr Roitburd, and Oleksandr Klymenko. On this path, artists are helped by the heritage of the Ukrainian ethnos, which harmoniously combines the memory of Trypillia culture, national symbols, traditions of icon painting, the school of Mykhailo Boychuk and much more. This article focuses on the sacred in the symbols of contemporary Ukrainian painting that absorbs the most characteristic signs, codes, and ciphers of the previous centuries, transferring spirituality into the 21st century. The transformation of religious symbols into contemporary ones, in consequence of building a discourse with mass culture, generates them into a new cultural code. The semantics of mass culture gives the visual material that forms the sacredness of the 21st century, which exists on the border of the material and the spiritual, as a reflection of the myth. The works of art by Nina Murashkina, Andriy Tsoy, and Mykyta Tsoy are a striking example of that. The sacred in which the mystery of real life is concentrated can endow thinking with a true, rather than an imaginary essence and provide a tool for solving the problem of individuality, freedom, and existence, which the new century is filled with.