STATE AND RELIGIOUS POLICY OF THE RUSSIAN AUTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT REGARDING THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN VOLYNIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIXth – THE BEGINNING OF THE XXth CENTURIES

Abstract

The Purpose. Based on archival sources the article analyzes the interfaith processes in Volynia in the second half of the 19^th – the beginning of the 20^th centuries, specifies the nature of ethno-confessional transformations carried out by the Orthodox clergy and the Russian autocracy in the South-Western region. The Methodology of the Research. The research objectives have been solved on the principles of historicism, systematics, objectivity, verification, narrative constructivism, on historical and genetic, historical and typological, historiographical and biographical methods, as well as on general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis and generalization. The Scientific Novelty. The article, based on previously unknown archival sources and scholarly research, found out that Volyn accession into the Russian Empire was accompanied by significant transformations of the region's religious and ecclesiastical complex. The mechanism of the state-Orthodox mission was aimed primarily at neutralizing Catholic proselytism through large-scale propaganda work and means of force regulation. The Conclusions. The state and religious policy of the Russian autocracy in Volhynia in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries was aimed at instilment of Orthodoxy and extirpation of Catholicism, elimination of the activity of the Roman Catholic Church. This policy was pursued in close alliance between the state and the Russian Orthodox Church, since the mission of the “militant” Catholic confession was perceived as the danger for strengthening of national, in particular Polish, separatism. The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, resisted political pressure, mostly for patriotic reasons. The Roman Catholic mission in the Ukrainian lands was not imbued with a spirit of widespread hostility to the Orthodox. The prevailing opinion in the society was that the intolerance of Orthodoxy came from the Roman Catholic clergy, and not from the folk lower classes of the Roman Catholic faith, that were characterized by a friendly attitude to both Orthodox parishioners and the clergy. The analysis of interfaith relations in the South-Western region at the beginning of the twentieth century suggests that, despite the elimination of economic independence of the Roman Catholic Church, this denomination maintained a tendency to increase the number of followers.

Key words: Volynia, confession, clergy, Roman Catholic Church, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Orthodox proselytism.