“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). The Geopolitics of Spiritual Securitization: Christian Denominations in the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/subbhist.2024.1.06Keywords:
Spiritual Securitization, Russia, Ukraine, Orthodox Church, Catholic Church, Protestantism, WarAbstract
The evolution of international relations have often found religion, (geo)politics and war at a crossroads. If this is not necessarily a novelty, what gained attention within the international relation and security studies literature is a major conventional conflict on European territory between two states belonging to the same religious denomination: Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The current study seeks to identify, describe and explain the narratives of spiritual securitization in the discourse of political and religious leaders and the discourse of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christian believers, towards the threat of spiritual and dogmatic values, but also of religious communities in the context of the war between Russia and Ukraine. In this regard, the research uses as data collection method the selection of documents and narrative analysis to interpret the data. The results highlighted the presence of several types of spiritual securitization processes, specifically for the analyzed religious communities.
Rezumat: Evoluția relațiilor internaționale a găsit adesea religia, (geo)politica și războiul la intersecția intereselor cercetătorilor din științele sociale. Dacă aceasta nu este neapărat o noutate, ceea ce a atras atenția în ultimii ani în rândul cercetărilor de relații internaționale și studii de securitate, este un conflict convențional major pe teritoriul european între două state aparținând aceleiași confesiuni religioase: Creștinismul Ortodox Răsăritean. Studiul de față urmărește identificarea, descrierea și explicarea narațiunilor securitizării spirituale prezente atât în discursul liderilor politici și religioși, dar și discursul credincioșilor creștini ortodocși, catolici și protestanți, față de amenințarea valorilor moral-spirituale și dogmatice, dar și a comunităților religioase, în contextul războiului dintre Rusia și Ucraina. În acest sens, cercetarea de față propune un design de cercetare calitativ, bazat pe selecția documentelor ca metodă de colectare a datelor și analiza narativă ca metodă de interpretare a datelor. Rezultatele au evidențiat prezența mai multor tipuri de procese de securitizare spirituală, particulare comunităților religioase analizate.
Cuvinte-cheie: Securitizare spirituală, Rusia, Ucraina, Biserica Ortodoxă, Biserica Catolică, Protestantism, Război
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