Whitepaper: War & Peace

In the war in Ukraine, religion plays an important role. Not only because of the role of Patriarch Kirill, but because it highlights the process of the ideologisation of religion that took place in the Russian Orthodox Church. Yet, not only in the ROC but also in other denominations. Suffice it to think of the role the evangelicals played in recent American politics and we can recognise a pattern in which religion is not about faith and community, but about nationalism, hegemonism and so on. This ideologisation comes down to forging a narrative in which nationalistic and religious elements are merged into a new story about the uniqueness of a certain culture. That is the changing narrative, the narrative that once again wakens the old dream of one faith, one reign, one law. Unfortunately, this religious aspect is also one of the elements of surprise the Western countries met in the case of this war.

This whitepaper is based on the outcomes of two virtual round table meetings on the topic of War & Peace. Participants to the round tables included Dr. Tornike Metreveli (Lund University), Dr. Marietta van der Tol (Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford), Maike Domsel (University of Bonn), Muhammad Faisal Khalil (University of Oxford), Marko Pavlović (KU Leuven), Ryszard Bobrowicz (Lund University), and Prof. dr. Matthias Smalbrugge (VU Amsterdam).

Download the free whitepaper below.