TERRITORIAL DOCTRINE OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH: STRATEGY OF EXPANSIONISM
Authors:   Research Institute of Ukrainian Studies of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Krysachenko Valentyn 
Published: February 2023

The study is devoted to the analysis of the geopolitical doctrine of the ROC, related in particular to its participation in the political redistribution of the world. The ideological basis for interfering in the internal affairs of independent states is the concept of canonical territory. The object of the study is the ROC as a structural part and organic component of the Kremlin regime, and the subject — its political activities, aimed, in particular, at violating the national interests of Ukraine. The purpose of this study is the problem of the origin and essence of this neologism, filling it with semantic content and use as an ideological narrative in the hybrid war of Russia against Ukraine. The ecclesiastical-legal, historical, ideological and political explication of its content as an integral part of the doctrine of the «Russian world» has been carried out. The foreign policy of the ROC is based on the expansionist ideologies of the «Russian world», aimed at establishing its own hegemony on potential objects of influence, of which Ukraine has traditionally emerged as the main direction of its influence. In the historical dimension, the formation and growth of the network of ROC structures on its territory took place by illegal means, both from the ecclesiastical and political point of view. The liquidation of Ukrainian statehood was accompanied by the simultaneous capture and leveling of its Christian identity: canonical affiliation, church infrastructure, national and cultural identity. In the conditions of the development of independent Ukraine, it became natural for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to acquire the status of a local autocephalous church, which corresponds to the current ecclesiastical and international law, its national interests. As a political trend, the notion of canonical territory was introduced by the ROC in 1989 as a means of preserving its own imperial ambitions. There was a targeted transformation of the idiom «territory of the state for the canonical church» into the ideology «state as the canonical territory of the church», which serves as a basis for the ROC to interfere in the internal affairs of international law. In modern conditions, the ROC is a direct participant in Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine. The dimensions of such participation are various: organizational (formation and support of terrorist organizations), repressive (prohibition of religious freedoms in the occupied territories), property (raider seizure and seizure of church property and territories), psychological (creating an atmosphere of fear and social tension), etc. The focus of the illegal policy of the ROC is its systematic attempts to discredit and oppose the activities of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as an expression of the spiritual interests of the Ukrainian people. This allows the final conclusions about a number of threats to public harmony and national security of Ukraine, induced by the activities of ROC structures in our country.