Framing the Russia-Ukraine War in the Discourse of Ukrainian Church Leaders
Framing the Russia-Ukraine War in the Discourse of Ukrainian Church Leaders

Summary/Abstract: The article investigates the representation of the Russia-Ukraine war in statements of the heads of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The study reveals stark differences in the discourse of Ukrainian Church leaders regarding their portrayal of the invasion. Thus, Metropolitan Onufriy resorts to the framing model of backgrounding by personifying the war and minimizing direct references to Russia as responsible for its commencement. Instead, Metropolitan Epiphanius and Patriarch Sviatoslav unequivocally condemn Russia as the aggressor state, apply derogatory labels to the Russian army and resort to hyperbolization, thus foregrounding the guilt of the enemy. Furthermore, they both tend to construct an extremely positive image of the Ukrainian nation and warriors, with many allusions to biblical heroes. They attribute the sacral meaning to the Russia-Ukraine war projecting it onto the eschatological dimension as the war between good and evil, where the good is destined to win. In contrast, Metropolitan Onufriy does not mention the idea of Ukraine’s victory at all but mostly envisions the advent of peace as achieved by means of negotiation or mediation. In conveying their communicative intentions, all three heads make extensive allusions to biblical events, but even in case of the same biblical plots (the story of Cain and Abel, the apocalypse, etc.), there are significant differences in the aspects they choose to highlight.

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