Faith and Freedom: Religions and Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe

OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES VOLUME II

Faith and Freedom: Religions and Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe

Faith and Freedom Religions and Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe

An initiative of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame, in conjuction with the Ukrainian Catholic University Symposium to Mark the Bestowal of the Notre Dame Award on Bishop Borys Gudziak, L’viv, Ukraine.

June 29, 2019

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Table of Contents Preface

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Religions and Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe: Research and Advocacy in Dialogue

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William Collins Donahue Director, Nanovic Institute for European Studies Faith and Freedom, or How Persons of Faith Confront Political “Disintegration�

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Clemens Sedmak Professor of Social Ethics, Keough School of Global Affairs Concurrent Professor, Center for Social Concerns and Theology Faih and Freedom in Ukraine: The Perspective of Metropolitan Borys Gudziak

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Myroslav Marynovych Vice-Rector for University Mission, Ukrainian Catholic University

Faith and Freedom: How Religious Organizations Influence the Political Agenda of Cross-Border Collaboration

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Dmytro Sherengovsky Director, Office of International Academic Relations, Academic Department Senior Lecturer, Political Science Department, Ukrainian Catholic University

Educating for Freedom: The Role of Academia in Promoting Civil Society

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Volodymyr Turchynovskyy Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ukrainian Catholic University

Mapping the Minefield: Religions amd Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe

Oleh Turiy Director, Institute of Church History, Ukrainian Catholic University

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Preface

The short papers gathered here were given at a symposium to mark Archbishop Borys Gudziak’s receipt of the Notre Dame Award on June 29, 2019, at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine.

Speaking of Gudziak’s role in establishing the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), Rev. John Jenkins, C.S.C., President of the University of Notre Dame, said: “You have put moral integrity at the core of UCU’s mission, and you have founded it on the courageous witness of martyrs and the honesty and trust of your friends at the Emmaus Center.

In this you have shown that the aspiration of Catholic education is not simply the imparting of knowledge and skills, as important as that is, but the transformation of lives and ultimately the healing of a broken world.”

This laudatio captures precisely the paradox at the heart of Gudziak’s efforts as educator and pastor: for in the very process of nourishing a specifically Ukrainian Catholic identity, he strongly and unmistakably affirms the dignity and value of all human beings. His work as a religious leader to create a more open, tolerant, and respectful civil society within and beyond Ukraine is the inspiration both for this symposium and for the larger research and advocacy project this symposium is meant to introduce.

I am grateful to all the contributors, but I owe a special debt of gratitude to Professor Oleh Turiy. I got to know Oleh during his research stay at the Nanovic Institute (fall 2018). Were it not for his kindness, openness, and infectious sense of humor—not to mention his impressive erudition in the field of church history—I would not have understood the ways in which both UCU and Ukraine function as microcosms for the potential of religion to do good in the construction and maintenance of civil society.

August, 2019

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Religions and Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe Research and Advocacy in Dialogue

William Collins Donahue Director, Nanovic Institute for European Studies

The Faith and Freedom project that we launch today embodies the central mandate of any Catholic university. It is motivated by faith— by the conviction that we are called to serve a higher purpose: to bring diverse people together to deliberate the human condition, and to do so with mutual respect, curiosity, joy, and, of course, love: love of wisdom (philo-sophia) and of each other. That is our prior conviction, an irreducible article of faith.

That faith impels us outward to embrace the rough and tumble world of religious, social, and ethnic diversity that characterizes many of central and eastern European societies today. It nourishes our commitment to investigate the ways in which religions of all kinds either enhance or hinder the prospects for a truly civil society. Our hypothesis is simple: we believe that “authentic religion” (to use the somewhat contested term of Talil Assad) can indeed strengthen the institutions of civil society. At their best and most authentic, contemporary religions possess the potential to enrich civil society by respecting the inviolable dignity of every individual and by refusing to accede to a purely transactional, materialist view of human relations.

But we are not naïve, I hope, about the failure of religions and religious leaders—failures that too frequently reduce the enterprise to narrow-minded, parochial, and even xenophobic exclusion of outsiders; failures that indeed may feed a nationalist identity motivated by fear and characterized by demonizing rather than welcoming the stranger, as Pope Francis has repeatedly urged us to do.

Borys Gudziak, as we have heard several times today, stands unequivocally for the former—for what I have in short-hand form referred to as “authentic” religion. He draws from the deep wellsprings of Greek Catholicism in a manner that at once nourishes Ukrainian identity while simultaneously defining it as open and welcoming. In honoring the martyred and in serving the marginalized, he does not make victims out of Ukrainians at the expense of others, but rather makes us all—whoever we may be—aware of the dignity owed to every human being. In his

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William Collins Donahue

commitment to the particular he perceives the transcendent, the universal. It is a rare gift, and an inspiring example.

And he is not alone. Two weeks ago, at a Nanovic-sponsored conference in Berlin, I had the privilege to speak with Fr. Rafal Pastwa, a young journalist and social activist at the John Paul II University in Lublin, Poland. I teased him about being in such great shape –when does he find time to hit the gym? It was then that he spoke about his work with innercity youth in Lublin, where he runs an open gym and teaches boxing to underprivileged kids of all religious backgrounds. He told me also about his work with Polish school children, many of whom have never laid eyes on a Jew, at the site of the former Majdanek Concentration Camp. There he leads site restoration projects, helping young Poles to commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust and thus to remember a major demographic group that is all but gone.

I asked him how it is that he is able to embrace others so generously in a country where Catholicism is frankly not always associated with welcoming the outsider. He did not hesitate for a moment with his answer. “Bill,” he said, “I know who I am. And that frees me to be open to others. I am not afraid.” It is a profoundly simple message. And an inspiring one. It is his faith that gives him the freedom to be there for others, especially the social outcasts, the poor, the unwanted. That is “faith and freedom” in action. * All of which is to say that the “Faith and Freedom” initiative we announce today is a perfect fit with the mission of the University of Notre Dame, with the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs, and with our Catholic University Partnership (CUP). As a Catholic university, we come to this proposition, as I have said, with a prior set of convictions and commitments; but we come also ready to roll up our sleeves and listen openly and objectively. We will pose with exemplary academic rigor a whole set of questions about the role of various religious groups—Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, and others—in Central and Eastern European societies.

We will launch an academic study into the ways contemporary religious actors affect civil society. And at the same time, we will sponsor an advocacy project that invites these same actors into a variety of conversations and interactions that may strengthen the fabric of civil society by

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deepening mutual understanding and respect among and across diverse groups. Precisely as Catholic institutions, and in collaboration with many others, we will seek to articulate and advance our vision of mutual respect while we pursue a deeper understanding of the social determinants that may frustrate that very ideal.

While this initiative resonates deeply with our own mission, we recognize that much of the expertise will need to come from our academic collaborators at UCU and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe.

We believe that the Nanovic is particularly well poised to launch and manage this project; yet we cannot, and will not, conduct this alone or in isolation. We enter into this challenge with ambition, curiosity, but fundamentally with a sense of humility about how much we have to learn about the region’s complex religious, social, and political landscape. And we will temper our ambitions with modest, prudent measures that will commence only where we can reasonably hope to make a difference, and then expand gradually, as resources permit.

Step one will be a major academic conference next year in L’viv. Our task at this stage will be to carefully review the scholarly literature to determine precisely where and how we might best intervene. This will mean establishing a clearer, country-by-country (or even region-by-region) mapping of religious actors with regard to their socio-political impact, attending both to historical and contemporary trends and prospects. We are keenly aware that other scholars are working in this area as well, and that similar research projects are being launched simultaneously with our own. This preliminary phase will serve to define the gaps in scholarship that need to be filled, and to assess how best to assemble an academic team of researchers equal to the task, without overlap or redundancy. Simultaneously, we will explore during this initial phase concrete measures we might take within the next several years to actively promote our vision of a durable civil society that respects and defends the civil rights of all. In this way we hope to extend and enhance the legacy of Archbishop Borys Gudziak.

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Faith and Freedom Or How Persons of Faith Confront Political “Disintegration”

Clemens Sedmak Professor of Social Ethics, Keough School of Global Affairs Concurrent Professor, Center for Social Concerns and Theology

It is timely to think about the connection between faith and freedom in the context of Central and Eastern Europe. Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev describes the phenomenon of “disintegration” as a defining sign of the times in contemporary Europe in his essay After Europe.

Europe is facing new forms of nationalism, a new culture of secured inner-European borders with corresponding control mechanisms, and new forms of inner-European competition. Krastev observes, that the European project is threatened once interdependence is seen as a source of insecurity. We are confronted with competing forms of solidarity and competing versions of the common good. The drama of “Brexit” is but one indication of the dynamics of disintegration. Another one would be the sad lack of a collaborative and consistent European way of responding to migration and immigration. Populism, as the most rewarded way of doing politics, feeds on dynamics of disintegration.

At the same time, we observe what Rosa Balfour, Nicolas Bouchet, and Joerg Forbrig (in a March 2019 report for the German Marshall Fund, entitled Improving EU-U.S. Cooperation in Civil Society Support in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans) have termed the phenomenon of “closing civic space,” the phenomenon that the possibilities to occupy spaces to express political opinions and to come together with the intention to change politics are shrinking. This undermines the vitality of civic society. Italy, Hungary, Austria, Poland – four examples of European countries where freedom of press and freedom of opinion have been clearly reduced in the past three years. What is particularly worrisome is the tacit acceptance of these developments by large segments of society.

Given the challenges of “disintegration” and “closing space” we are in need of a new culture of maidan, of agora, of pentecoste – in short, a new culture of “togetherness.” A new culture of togetherness can lead to, and can be based on, a new understanding of freedom. And faith can play a major role in supporting the freedom needed for integration and the opening of space.

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Clemens Sedmak

With regard to the question “What is the relationship between faith and politics?” I would like to offer two simple thoughts that would have, however, major implications: (1) Persons of faith do not expect final answers from politics or business; and (2) Persons of faith ask sincere questions vis-à-vis politics.

(1) Persons of faith do not expect final answers from politics or business

Persons of faith live in a horizon of the penultimate, as German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer had described this condition. People of faith accept the idea that they are creatures and as such a product of a power that is not the same as “the world.” People of faith believe that the first word and the last word over the world are not spoken within the world or from the world. Whatever happens in terms of earthly power is limited, restricted to the second and the penultimate. There is a particular freedom that comes with this lower expectation. One is freed from the pressure to find first words and final answers within the “Here” and “Now,” and within the power plays of politics.

Archbishop Borys Gudziak has described the Ukrainian journey as a journey from fear to dignity; I would like to take these two keywords and characterize a person of faith by her “freedom from fear” and by her “freedom to dignity.”

There is the freedom not to be overly anxious about political matters since the first and final, the ulterior and the ultimate, cannot be taken away from politics. People of faith do not look for Pseudo-Messiahs in politics and will always see even the most powerful persons as creatures.

Persons of faith will not accept the popular or populist politician as a savior. People of faith will also know that politics cannot take away what is of ultimate importance. And this allows for a particular inner peace when deliberating political matters; they may be a matter of life and death, but not a matter of salvation. This fundamental fearlessness opens new possibilities for “togetherness” and “encounter,” since the freedom from fear allows for the kind of risk necessary for building trust. And trust is probably the most important currency of a common good-orientation of personal and public lives.

There is also the freedom to see the human person in her dignity that transcends the sphere of tangible politics, that touches upon a dimension of a “Magis,” that goes beyond what can be measured and reported on.

A concrete example of a new faith-inspired sense of the dignity of the

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person and the freedom to embrace this dignity is the year 368 where Cappadocia was hit by a harsh draught which led to a severe famine. The moral paradigm at the time was indifference; Basil of Caesarea preached a sermon ”In time of famine and drought” and organized famine relief activities making it very clear that the starving person is “your brother, your sister.” This new way of seeing the person and community was described by Peter Brown as “a revolution of social imagination,” based on a new freedom to see the dignity of the person. The freedom to dignity will be committed to an ideal of the common good that does not allow to leave anyone behind.

In short, persons of faith can be seen as citizens of a reign of twofold freedom: freedom from fear and freedom to dignity.

(2) Persons of faith ask sincere questions vis-à-vis politics One way to look at the moral quality of political decisions and measures is to ask two questions, namely: a) to which human concerns, needs, desires, and question does the political measure respond? b) what is the moral status of these questions and concerns?

Questions are windows into priorities, preferences and beliefs about the good life. Political measures are responses to explicit or implicit questions. The former minister of Interior Affairs in Austria decided to put up a sign at the Migration Reception Center in Traiskirchen, Lower Austria, that said: “Departure Center.” This can be seen as a response to the question: how can we make persons feel not welcome? The status of this question can be assessed on its own.

People of faith will ask sincere questions, especially questions about the common good. Archbishop Oscar Romero used to analyze political decisions and suggested legislation by asking the question: how does this measure or decision contribute to the common good, i.e. the flourishing of the entire community with all of its members? Or are the questions concerned with privileges of certain interest groups? Persons of faith may also ask questions like: how does politics contribute to the condition of the possibility of personal integrity?

One important source of questions is not to be found in institutions and the establishment, but in civil society and its youth. Archbishop Gudziak has expressed his hope in young people during a June 2019 conference on the future of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in North America at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

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Clemens Sedmak

Pope Francis, in his post-synodal exhortation Christus vivit, has pointed out that young people have the special and much needed gift to ask questions (37, 65). It may worthwhile remembering that the Albanian author Ismael Kadare has written a novel (“The Palace of Dreams”) where he describes hell as the place where people are not allowed to ask the question “why?”

We need persons who ask sincere questions, thus developing a sense of possibilities, especially if the status quo seems threatening. We need to ask sincere questions and we need to create spaces where these questions can be asked. Persons of faith are encouraged to ask sincere questions – also with regard to their own religious communities and traditions.

Given the challenges of disintegration and the closing of civic space we need to identify new sources to encourage, energize, motivate and inspire a commitment to the common good, understood in terms bigger than nationalism. Faith with its commitment to “the ultimate” goes beyond any commitment to “the national.”

It will be a worthwhile research project to explore the link between faith and freedom with regard to political institutions, civic society, and religious communities and structures. It may be particularly rewarding to explore the wisdom and concerns of young people of faith.

The connection between faith and politics can be aptly summarized in a quotation from the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes. It is a passage that was quoted by Oscar Romero in his very last homily, minutes before he was shot on Monday, March 24, 1980. It stands for Saint Oscar Romero’s commitment and his martyrdom give new depth to this section 39 from Gaudium et Spes with its key message: “the expectation of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for cultivating this one. For here grows the body of a new human family.”

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Faith and Freedom in Ukraine: The Perspective of Metropolitan Borys Gudziak

Myroslav Marynovych Vice-Rector for University Mission, Ukrainian Catholic University

At the end of the seventies Borys Gudziak, at the time a student at Harvard, participated in a demonstration supporting Ukrainian political prisoners. I was one of those prisoners. Luckily, history has a sense of justice. It is now my turn to pay tribute to my defender who, since that time, has become my Rector and academic partner, my inspiration, a spiritual leader to many in Ukraine and abroad, and, finally, my dear friend.

I will speak predominantly about Ukraine, its challenges, and its failures. And each time, we will see how they were refracted through the prism of our Metropolitan’s mind and soul.

Faith and Freedom in Retrospective In 1989, the 43-year ban on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church ended. Faithful communities, which had survived for years underground, suddenly enjoyed the religious freedom they long awaited. The entire Christian landscape started to rearrange itself, and changes took place more rapidly than people and society could follow.

It was necessary, in this moment, to document reality as it faded into history, to grasp the experience of the martyrdom of the underground Church that, according to Tertullian, would become the seeds of a newly reborn Church. Then a historian, Gudziak met this need with the Oral History Project. This Project collected memoirs of clergy and laity who carried on the experience of the underground Church. It became the core mission of the Institute of Church History established by Gudziak.

The Church met an unexpected and novel reality as the Soviet Empire collapsed. There was no way to return to the pre-Communist conditions in which the Church had existed. To live in a “country in transition” presupposed the existence of restraining phenomena such as post-Communist stereotypes and practices, including corruption, regional cultural and confessional divisions, and lack of experience of how democracy functions.

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It was hopeless to wrestle with these weaknesses directly. We needed to establish and strengthen an alternative: the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU). As a “corruption-free zone” with a model of education based on faith and reason, UCU became a meeting point for religious and secular segments of Ukrainian society. It became a place for the “soft” evangelization of those who had never had contact with a religious tradition.

Serving as a meeting point is a thankless job. The clergy often criticize us for not being“religious enough,” while secular society claims that we are “too close to the Church.” However, it is truly missionary work to be a corruption-free zone in a society with low resistance to corruption, or to be a value-based institution in a society where too many people regard honesty and fidelity to values as naïveté.

UCU is, in a sense, a group of missionaries who follow the example of Archbishop Borys Gudziak, whose mission is to transform society by transforming human souls. Regional diversities, too often, become the national fate of Ukrainians. Egos and mistrust often lead to tensions and, consequently, to our historical failures. Archbishop Gudziak’s answer to this issue was simple: to be welcoming.

He invented the slogan that could serve as a second mission statement of UCU: “To witness. To serve. To communicate.” The first words, to witness, are key for our deeply diverse and divided society. The University proves that witnessing our values and living according to them—not simply imposing or declaring them—can transform human relations.

The University proves that: • being a religion-based University does not prevent us from being a modern University, as many suggest; more and more, UCU has been considered by others to be at the top of the modern phenomena of the country; • being a Catholic University does not hamper our relations with Orthodox or Protestant partners; the ecumenical potential of UCU is confirmed by many common projects and mutually beneficial contacts; • being a value-based University does not prevent us from being an effective institution; instead of losing our chances, as many people suggest, we multiply them.

The answers of Archbishop Gudziak did not change when he organized the prayerful procession in Paris – a city that brings to mind pagan

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Rome at the time of St. Peter. The answers did not change either when we saw Archbishop Gudziak at the Maydan Square in Kyiv during the Revolution of Dignity. It was a time when great ideas were legitimate, and Christian faith authentic.

Faith and Freedom as a Task for the Future In all his roles, Borys Gudziak has inspired people to witness Christian faith and to serve the needs of others. Now His Excellency, Borys Gudziak, has started to serve as an Archbishop and Metropolitan, and I am fascinated by the perspective opening before him.

After the fall of the “iron curtain,” Ukraine did become part of this world. This inclusion meant that we not only benefit from its achievements, but that its ulcers also infect us. Recent elections show that we are susceptible to populism—the wave that has swept the European continent. As developed democracies did, we have lost the ability to produce great ideas, and this leads to wandering in lowlands. We concentrate on peddling things and events. We opt for national egos and personal distrust. Consequently, we are unable to embrace the greatness of God and all of His Creatures.

What is especially dangerous today is the increasing inability of people to distinguish between good and evil, between truth and lies. The former communist regime—the crimes of which were not punished or repented—has been reincarnated into Putin’s regime, which has created an anti-culture of aggressive deception. Unable to be globally significant in technologies or culture, Putin’s Russia tries to be significant in lies, hatred, and violence. Its advance, so far, is triumphant.

The world cannot find an antidote for this challenge. Cajoling an aggressor looks preferable, though this only encourages new acts of aggression and makes the eventual conflict even harsher. On the other hand, the confrontation with evil may put the world on the edge of self-destruction.

My friendly ask, Your Excellency: how can we assist the Lord in redeeming nations? In the Christian perspective, all three elements – lies, hatred, and violence – are simply the different names of Satan because God is truth, love, and peace. How do we distinguish the truth between multiple faces of lies, fake news, and alternative facts? How do we stop the chain-spreading of hatred that infects more and more people? How

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do we stop the violence that, more and more, appears to be the only way to stop evil?

It is natural that we expect the answers from the Church. However, I agree with William Collins Donahue, the director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame, that “the failure of religions and religious leaders too frequently reduces the enterprise to narrow-minded, parochial, and even xenophobic exclusion of outsiders, and which thus collaborates in a nationalist identity motivated by fear and characterized by demonizing rather than welcoming the stranger, as Pope Francis urges us to do.”

It is possible to avoid these failures through the conceptual reloading of basic ideas that lay at the foundation of modern European civilization, and through the spiritual metanoia of people.

We must come out from the mist of the lowlands to see clearly the peaks of big ideas. New ideas should become magnetic to us again, and regain our trust. We have to “launch out into the deep,” as Archbishop Gudziak often says. To go ad fontes, to our fundamental cornerstones: truth, love, and mercy.

It was grand to accomplish such pilgrimages with Metropolitan Borys Gudziak in the past. Be sure, Your Excellency, that the University is ready to continue its way with you to meet the new challenges of the future.

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Faith and Freedom: How Religious Organizations Influence the Political Agenda of Cross-Border Collaboration

Dmytro Sherengovsky Director, Office of International Academic Relations, Academic Department Senior Lecturer, Political Science Department, Ukrainian Catholic University

It is a great honor and privilege to speak to such a distinguished audience and on such a notable occasion. Being a political scientist, I was asked to contribute to this symposium a few ideas that illustrate how the Faith and Freedom Project can influence the political agenda of cross-border collaboration in Eastern Europe. This was quite challenging for a young scholar and practitioner in the field of international education, but there is reason.

In his remarks, William Collins Donahue mentioned a Nanovic Institute-sponsored conference in Berlin that I also attended. During those sessions, one of the speakers quoted Angela Merkel about the memory of living “with walls and without walls�— referring to the Berlin Wall. I do not remember how to live with walls, and that has helped me avoid emotions of the past, and to concentrate on contemporary issues. I must admit, though, that modernity has built even more walls since the Berlin Wall. They are non-material walls, and they are not making our lives better.

Refugees and illegal migration, the rise of far-right politics and populism, military conflicts and hybrid threats, energy security and climate changes; these are among the biggest challenges we face today in Europe that require not only ample resources but also confidence in the common good, social development, and trust in each other. Academic literature in general recognizes the important contribution of religious organizations in the processes of social integration, and highlights their potential as agents for social change. Their influence, often excluded from political discourse, is something that differentiates rather than unites.

Moreover, many policymakers insist that if we exclude religion from the political process, social tensions will vanish. Contrary to theories that forecast a world with less religion, contemporary societies around the world are returning to the religious conscioussness.

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Dmytro Sherengovsky

Peter Berger, an American sociologist and theologian, once mentioned an example of how avoiding religious constituents distorts perceptions of reality. At the end of the seventies, a group of American social scientists visited Iran for a conference. Their delegation could not miss people with green flags in the streets. Scholars asked their well respected, yet mostly secular, Iranian colleagues who those people were and if there were some social transformation taking place? The Iranians assured the Americans not to worry, and that these were just commoners from the countryside. At that time, Iran was a secular republic without any ambitions of a regional leader, and the title ‘Ayatollah’ was unknown.

Religion is a blind point for contemporary political science. We do not understand how, or why, comparable religious factors can act differently in similar situations. We can observe that religious communities are more active political players now than they were a few decades ago. The rise of religious communities’ influence on political processes is partially due to the crisis of contemporary secular political ideologies, especially the crisis of liberalism. Refusal from religion is no longer a competitive advantage that helps to avoid social tensions, heighten civic activism, increase economic development, or streamline state bureaucracy. Instability and violence are not the attributes of a particular faith or of faith itself. For many policymakers in the world and in Europe, this is what should be revisited, taking into account the many speculations on the migration issues.

Religion’s political importance is often due to identity rather than belief, and Ukraine serves as a good example. In 2017, Pew Research Center published results from a survey, “Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe,” that illustrated Ukraine as the only country among those with a predominantly Orthodox population that does not recognize the supremacy of the Russian Orthodox Church in protecting the religious rights of Orthodox communities. In general, two-thirds of the population of dominantly Orthodox countries in Central and Eastern Europe believe that Russia has such sovereignty.

Aside from Russia, major proponents include Armenia, Serbia, Belarus, and even Georgia and Romania. In Ukraine, only one-third of society believes this. Religious practice in Ukraine is a decision based on politics more than theology. It is often a matter of “who you are” rather than “what you believe.” That is why Crimean Tatars, being of Muslim faith, find no exclusion from Ukrainian communities when they left Crimea

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after Russian annexation due to fear of persecution. Around 3,000 Crimea Tatars moved to Lviv in from 2014 to 2015. The UCU School of Sociology presented a report on internally displaced peoples in 2015, studying their strategies of resettlement and problems of adaptation. An answer from one older Crimea Tatar man on the question of why he decided to choose Lviv as his destination point is notable: People are very nice here, they are polite and most importantly, religious. It’s just that it is easy to communicate with religious people. It’s like we speak the same language: we are Muslim, they are Christians. But they are faithful, they are not atheists. They believe in their own way.

At the same time, according to Russian legislation, (the so-called “Yavorova’s package”), massive gatherings of religious organizations could be considered a form of extremism and propaganda. There is a number of cases when members of Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox communities in Crimea are accused of, with the exclusion of the Russian Orthodox Church.

If religion is used as a form of identity, it could cause social tensions, especially in Eastern Europe with limited space for transnational identity.

On the other hand, if religion is used as a form of faith, there is ample space for inclusion and understanding. Therefore, one of the significant questions for contemporary political science is how to integrate believers into the structure of decision making in modern liberal democracies to secure cross-border collaboration? We should find a way to build more bridges, not walls, as Pope Francis urges us to do.

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Educating for Freedom: The Role of Academia in Promoting Civil Society

Volodymyr Turchynovskyy Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ukrainian Catholic University

I am convinced that our “Faith and Freedom” Symposium will inspire us—the University of Notre Dame and the Ukrainian Catholic University—as well as our partner universities, for a longstanding, fruitful, and mutually rewarding cooperation. At present, our future success is dependent upon our current capacity to come up with a set of questions sufficient enough to steer our continued collaboration. I approach our theme from an “educating for freedom” perspective. Allow me to share a few questions with you.

Let me begin by referring to New York Times columnist David Brooks’ article, entitled The Organization Kid, in which he covers the current student profiles of leading American universities with Princeton University students as his focus group.

Brooks went to Princeton “to see what the young people who are going to be running [the United States] in a few decades are like.” This is an essential point of view, and a fascinating question to me. I think it goes straight to the very heart of what education is: knowing the potential of your students, envisioning the role this generation might play in the future, and contributing to their integral development.

Brooks’s point of inquiry is becoming increasingly vital for us at UCU, given that this year, 46% of our freshmen came from the top 5% of Ukrainian high school graduates. It certainly makes us proud of what we have achieved thus far. It is also clear to us that this is only the beginning.

The possibility for a higher societal impact is growing but so should our responsibility.

Top ranking universities are for the most advanced and capable students. Is there something to worry about assuming how a university team has managed to keep a “happy balance” of the best faculty teaching the best students? Let me ask this question differently to connect it with the theme of our symposium: how much are faith and freedom relevant within a university setting where students are now educated to assume responsibility for their country in the not-so-distant future?

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In his acceptance speech as the 2016 Templeton Laureate, entitled Rediscovering Our Moral Purpose, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks reminded us of the idea that a free society is a moral achievement. He said: “without self-restraint, without the capacity to defer the gratification of instinct, and without the habits of heart and deed that we call virtues, we will eventually lose our freedom.”

Recent Ukrainian history confirms that statement. Think of the Revolution of Dignity. I am convinced that the Revolution of Dignity has taught us a profound and powerful lesson, captured by the Lord Sacks’ insight, that a free society is a moral achievement.

Let me emphasize a “moral achievement” moment by citing a few sentences from the December 13, 2013 UCU Public Statement, entitled UCU Students Stand Firm for Freedom and Dignity in Ukraine, discussed and elaborated by the UCU executive team, and signed by UCU President Archbishop Borys Gudziak and Rev. Bohdan Prach, UCU Rector.

These words are endowed with a particular gravity, given the fact that the statement was issued at the time when the special forces were violently and brutally attacking peaceful protesters in Kyiv, and the actual outcome of the Revolution of Dignity was unpredictable: Our experience at UCU convinces us that it is imperative to defend moral principles resolutely and live according to the social teachings of the Church, and teach others by our example and witness. By hiding, we would never reach our goals. If the authoritarian regime of Yanukovych becomes firmly established, UCU will no longer be able to fulfill its mission. Therefore, adherence to our principles and moving forward with faith and trust in God is the most effective plan of action for today.

It’s essential to have a University Strategy for the years to come, yet we should remain aware that “the most effective plan of action for today” is “adherence to our principles and moving forward with faith and trust in God.” Without this awareness, the seeds of a moral achievement would never be planted.

A question I’m asking myself today is this: how do we make a transition from the Revolution of Dignity to Education in Dignity? It certainly has a national audience in terms of Ukrainian universities, but it addresses itself to UCU as well.

Faith and Freedom

“Education in Dignity” implies a particular anthropology that acknowledges humankind’s quest for the transcendent and the freedom to pursue it along, and in solidarity with, fellow human beings. Such anthropology defines our vision for what education is or should be, if it has to be respectful of the dignity and service to the students.

In my view, another service we are called to provide at universities consists of cultivating students’ commitments to moral achievement in building, sustaining, and defending a free society. A free society is not something established at some point in history that is inherited by the next generations for their everlasting enjoyment and consumption. A free society is every generation’s challenge and responsibility, particularly with its inherent immediacy.

What happens if we are unwilling to commit ourselves to a free society project? What if we decide to outsource this project to someone or something so that we can concentrate on our career, or on something that brings us pleasure, enjoyment, and keeps us happy within our bubbles?

Something we may not be fully aware of outsourcing is captured by Michael Sandel’s observation in his book, entitled What Money Can’t Buy. He writes that we “drifted from having a market economy to being a market society.” What we used to think of as a useful tool has become our internalized attitude and way of life. By introducing and making operative market assumptions and principles into spheres other than our economies (such as politics, education, family, personal relationships, etc.), we transformed ourselves into a market society.

The extent to which the idea of outsourcing a free society project embeds itself in the texture of our current public culture is proportionate to the risk of democracy evolving into a kind of totalitarianism. The road to totalitarianism is not necessarily marked by a brutal repressive power of one ruler, but can also be a way of a much softer despotism that softly deactivates civic responsibilities and disqualifies civic virtues. The much discussed “post-truth” world seems to be one of the manifestations of a silenced civic life, dulled sense of duty, and blurred perception of values.

It may well be, that the “post-truth” is a symptom of the “pre-totalitarian,” as was once mentioned by historian Timothy Snyder.

At any rate, the truth about post-truth is that whenever we decide to outsource our families, religious commitments, moral convictions, values, civic responsibilities, education, community life, and even death,

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we end up confining ourselves to the pleasures as well as emergencies and fears of the “now”. And if this is so, then our political, social, economic, cultural, and also individual ambitions and motives shrink, become self-centered, and with it, our sense of civic responsibility fades.

By the way, it’s a perfect season for populism to flourish.

This is why I ask myself: will we resist the temptation of outsourcing our freedom while revitalizing public culture in Europe? Do we acknowledge and agree that a constitutive element of such a revitalization project is a shared understanding that each generation’s mission is to responsibly confront a moral and spiritual challenge of sustaining a free society? Will we agree that the universities have a role to play in this process, by accepting the challenge of fostering integral human development through cultivation of students’ competencies, character, attitudes, commitments, and aspirations for the transcendent?

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Mapping the Minefield: Religions and Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe

Oleh Turiy Director, Institute of Church History, Ukrainian Catholic University

It is not incidental that this project is spearheaded in Lviv, Ukraine, and not only because the Ukrainian Catholic University is engaged in it. Rather, it is because Ukraine’s religious life – its history, its present state, and its prospects – have some important features that are not only an interesting research subject but that also provide important insights regarding wider contexts and global trends.

What I mean is the following: 1. Central Eastern Europe is a borderland or, to use a popular term, a frontier between different cultures or even civilizations. Very often this peculiar geopolitical, cultural, and religious situation of Ukraine is characterized with an almost proverbial phrase: “Ukraine is a country between East and West.” Indeed, right from the beginning of its documented history, dating back to the baptism of the Kyivan Rus’, Ukraine was an area where Eastern and Western Christian (and non-Christian) influences met and competed with each other. In fact, when dealing with this earliest period, one should rather talk about a location “between North and South” on the famous route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The very name of Rus’, as well as its ruling elite, were of Scandinavian origin.

Its integration into the civilized Oikumene was connected with the introduction of Christianity that came here from Constantinople, in its Byzantine liturgical form. In any case, this “in-betweenness” of Ukraine should not be construed in the sense of a separation wall or demarcation line.

Rather, it should be seen as a wide contact zone where different forms of interaction take place, massive and prolonged, if not always peaceful.

Over the centuries, different parts of modern Ukraine were under the influence of either “East,” which could mean the Byzantium, the Golden Horde, the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, or “West,” which meant Lithuania, Poland, the Habsburg Empire and its successor states. On the margins, one can also mention the Crimean Tatar state in the South.

Today in Ukraine, these regional differences, which also have a religious dimension, are very conspicuous, and sometimes they are even artificially blown up. What’s more, today the young Ukrainian state finds itself not just on the borderline, but on the literal battlefront between the so-called

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“Russian world” with its allegedly distinctive “Orthodox civilization” and what remains or seeks to be Europe and “the Western civilization.”

2. There’s no doubt that Christianity is the predominant element of the Ukrainian spiritual heritage. However, Ukrainian Christianity, too, is far from monolithic. It displays a wide variety of confessions and jurisdictions. Also, there has always been a prominent presence of Jews and Muslims who formed in Ukraine their own cultural traditions, rich and influential. Ukraine is, perhaps, the only country in Europe where the majority of Catholics are Eastern-rite. Among the Orthodox, most numerous are religious communities subordinated to the Moscow Patriarch, but the majority of individual faithful can’t even say to which of the several Orthodox Churches in Ukraine they belong. Another prominent feature of Ukraine’s spiritual life is religious pluralism which is safeguarded on the legislative level. Unlike many other European countries – and unlike its two largest neighbors, Russia and Poland, that both have historically and legally established Churches – Ukraine, according to Jose Casanova, a prominent sociologist of religion, has developed the American type of pluralistic denominationalism. Its model of Churchstate relations is characterized by – at least declarative – equality and free competition of all religious groups. However, in the latest history of Ukraine one can also find many cases when public authorities of national or regional level or even individual oligarchs, guided by their own political interests, favored or pushed forward particular religious denominations.

3. An important factor that has a direct influence on religious life in Ukraine are the tragedies of the 20th century, the century of war and terror. One can roughly estimate that in this country, which Timothy Snyder, an American historian, has called “bloodlands,” some 17 million people met violent death over the 20th century. Tragically, this human toll was caused not only by the two world wars and many civil conflicts but also by bizarre ideas of building a “paradise on earth,” a paradise without God. An integral part of this Ukrainian tragedy was the deliberate persecution of religion and the propagation of atheism. The sad “achievements” of the so-called “real socialism” include some thousands of destroyed churches and prayer houses, hundreds of thousands of murdered, imprisoned, or deported priests and the faithful of different denominations. Whole Churches were completely destroyed or forced

Faith and Freedom

into the underground, like the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the 1930s or the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Galicia and Transcarpathia in the 1940s. The religious communities that survived and were granted legal status in the USSR had to restrict their activities to a narrow private sphere, even though such a sphere hardly existed in the system of pervasive ideological control and indoctrination. Whole generations were deprived of religious freedom, which led to the decline of centuries-old traditions, spiritual impoverishment, and ever deeper demoralization of society. Analyzing the present state of religious life in Ukraine, one must consider this deep trauma caused by the totalitarian regime.

Another aspect of the Soviet religious policy, especially after a certain change of course made by Stalin during the Second World War, was the instrumentalization of legal church structures for the purposes of Soviet domestic and foreign politics, which were essentially atheistic. A special role was allotted to the Russian Orthodox Church that was supposed to “defend the socialist fatherland,” to engage in the construction of the “new historical community of the Soviet people,” and to re-translate abroad “the peaceful policies” of the Soviet Union. As witnessed by recently declassified archives of the Soviet KGB, an overwhelming majority of bishops, and a large part of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as of other legal denominations in the Soviet Union, were KGB agents or informants. To come to terms with this experience of collaboration is a task still not fulfilled by the post-Soviet religious communities, including those which were in opposition to the Soviet regime.

Unfortunately, the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church prefers to cherish the so-called “symphony” with the authoritarian regime of the present-day Russia and to remain an instrument of its policies, or even one of the pillars of a new imperial ideology.

4. However, the experience of the Soviet era has also a different dimension. The atheistic regime, despite all its efforts, could not crush the faith in God. What’s more, the struggle for the freedom of conscience and for the legalization of formally “banned” or “liquidated” religious communities was an integral part of the dissident resistance and of the process of Ukrainian national liberation. Speaking on the premises of UCU, one cannot fail to mention the thorny but heroic way made by the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. For almost half a century, it remained not only

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the largest underground Christian community in the world, but also the largest structure of mass resistance to the totalitarian Soviet regime. The staunchness of its priests and faithful, just like the struggle of other religious groups for their right to exercise their faith, became one of the factors that led to the collapse of the regime and helped to draw into active religious life many of those who had been made irreligious by atheistic pressure and propaganda. Prisons or places of exile were a kind of laboratory where new forms of interreligious dialogue and cooperation emerged in the spirit of the so-called “GULAG ecumenism.” This important experience also belongs to the spiritual treasury of Ukraine.

5. There is no doubt that this experience, along with the other factors I mentioned before, became the basis for a rapid revival and a dynamic development of religious life in Ukraine during Gorbachev’s “perestroika” and after independence. It is a real miracle that in today’s Ukraine some 75% of the population consider themselves believers and only 3 to 5% declare to be atheists. In 1985, there were only 16 formally registered denominations in Soviet Ukraine. Today there are more than a hundred.

The number of religious communities over the last 35 years has grown six-fold, from 6,000 to 36,000. Some could dismiss this religious boom as an example of purely declarative religiosity, as a kind of fashion or fad that has no deep roots in people’s values and convictions. But sociological surveys indicate that over the entire post-Soviet period the Church enjoyed invariably high levels of public confidence. The confidence in the Church was usually much higher than could be expected by any political leaders or public institutions. The role of religious communities and their leaders was especially prominent during the two recent Ukrainian revolutions, the last of which was named the Revolution of Dignity. On the other hand, high public confidence implies high expectations on the part of people, which is a big challenge for all religious denominations.

Another problem of the Ukrainian religious life are divisions and local conflicts between Churches caused not so much by dogmatic or ecclesiological differences, but rather by the issues of national and ecclesial identity, which are often instrumentalized by domestic and foreign political players.

By way of conclusion, it can be said that religion in Ukraine displays renewed vitality and one can hope that this will become a long-lasting social phenomenon. On a more personal level, religious engagement

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and religious motivations hold a prominent place in the lives of millions of Ukrainians. The current religious pluralism, though not devoid of conflicts, prevents the monopolization of the religious sphere by any particular Church and also serves as an indicator and a safeguard of religious freedom and other constitutional rights. In the eyes of many Ukrainians, Churches and other religious communities should not limit themselves to charity and social care. They are expected to assert ethical norms and develop cultural traditions. And they are also expected to help create a new national identity and to encourage civic activism which would be faith-based and consistent with the spirit of times.

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