Prisma Ukraïna
2022/ 2023

Tetiana Kalenychenko

Monitoring the Dynamics of Migration Practices in Religious Communities During the War in Ukraine

Tetiana Kalenychenko is the executive director of the European Center for Strategic Analytics. She holds a PhD in Sociology of Religion and her dissertation work was titled “The Religious Component in Socio-Political Conflict in Ukraine, 2013–2017”. Her research includes the topics of religion and conflict and religion and peace. Tetiana Kalenychenko, located in Bucha, is a 2022/2023 non-resident Prisma Ukraïna Fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien.

Monitoring the Dynamics of Migration Practices in Religious Communities During the War in Ukraine

Tetiana Kalenychenko and Denys Brylov’s project considers the current changes in migration within the frames of the full-scale Russian invasion of the country. Religious communities and their infrastructures are influential and important actors in the current situation as opinion leaders, sources of spiritual and psychological support, effective communicators, and humanitarian hubs, not only for their communities but also for entire regions. Their active social services have helped to evacuate many citizens, established shelters, and contributed to effective work, even abroad.
The research project will provide a systemic, comprehensive collection and analysis of data about events, cases of migration, and new narratives in religious communities. This analysis will help in understanding the specifics of these networks and their role and participation in current processes, and will identify the emergence or support of links between religious initiatives and aid groups. It will also look at the recent cases of Protestant networks of evacuation, the open-minded parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) and their negotiations, refugee hubs created by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and ongoing evacuation by both Greek-Catholic and Roman-Catholic churches, among other things.