Introduction

Abstract

Although we trace the beginnings of national religious thought in the time of Kievan Rus, its first secular professional appearances in the individual writings of public figures and in the lectures of some of the university professors of Kiev, however, socialism interrupted the process of becoming Ukrainian religious studies. Although ideologically incomplete and scientifically grounded in considering religious phenomena of the work of some Ukrainian scholars appeared during these years, in general, researchers of that era used Marxism's opiate religion in their work, sought to determine the ways and even times of dying, as then of the judgments. It is this orientation of religious studies in Ukraine that has been dominant, if not the only. Therefore, if colleagues from Russia at this time wrote fundamental works on the history of religion, its individual confessional manifestations, which have not lost much of their scientific significance in our time, then in Ukraine such works appeared only occasionally, because, according to the communist - Party installations, it was necessary to study not what religion is, but how to overcome it.

In Search of Deeper Identities Neopaganism and "Native Faith" in Contemporary Ukraine

“…It now includes between seven and eleven congregations in Ukraine, the largest being in Vinnytsia. 43 Though espousing a monotheism similar to RUNVira, Bezverkhyi has criticized the artificiality of RUNVira and argued for a greater emphasis on mysticism and the development of an "authentically Ukrainian" theology. 44 The SRUV considers Podillia, a province of right-bank Ukraine, to be the "heart" of Ukraine, as it was the place where the largest Scythian temple was located, where the famous Zbruch "Svitovyd" Pagan image was found, and where Ukrainian Paganism was defended the longest, ostensibly as late as 1620 by the Bolokhivs'ki princes.…”