Authors

Discussion

The Soviet period has been in the center of heated debates about national and religious identity in the various post-Soviet states. The religious attitudes toward it vary from condemnation in the form of New Martyrs' cults to rehabilitation. Ukraine also struggled to cope with its Soviet past and Ukrainian churches were prone to condemn the Soviet period framing the state commemorations of the Soviet victims. This paper analyzes how churches shape cult of victims of the Soviet mass killings; how ecclesiastical actors attempt to appropriate “secular” narratives about victims and restructure its in “religious terms” employing cults of New Martyrs. It argues that churches driven by entwining national and religious identities establish the framework allowing to commemorate as Christian martyrs all Ukrainians executed by Bolsheviks. It contributes to the discussions about sacred and national in post-colonial discourses, cooperation between churches-state-NGO in redressing “historical injustices.”