Religious Life in Western Ukrainian Lands from 1914 to 1918: The Situation of Confessions Under Conditions of War and Occupation

This article examines the religious life in Western Ukrainian lands during the First World War, amidst military operations and changing occupational regimes. It establishes that the Russian occupational authorities applied mechanisms of confessional control, previously tested in other captured Ukrainian and Belarusian territories, aimed at the forced imposition of Orthodoxy and the liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church. Particular attention is paid to the scale of religious persecution: the deportation of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, the arrests of Greek Catholic priests, pogroms against the Jewish population, and mass deportations of Protestants. The phenomenon of mass displacement (refugee crisis) is explored as a social catastrophe, accompanied by the destruction of established religious community life and the severing of spiritual ties with parishes. The article reveals the key role of religious institutions in providing humanitarian aid to refugees and war victims. It demonstrates the dichotomy between the brutal repressions of the occupational authorities and the remarkable resilience of religious communities, which continued to perform vital social functions even under extreme conditions. The historical memory of the resilience of religious communities, the solidarity of clergy and believers during the hardest of times, can serve as a source of inspiration for contemporary Ukrainian society and the international community.