Reshetnuk O. Interpretative-spatial Approach to the Study of the Church Schism in the Field of Religion.

The dissertation is devoted to the study of the church schism of 1992 in Ukrainian Orthodoxy through the lenses of an interpretive-spatial approach. The approach is based on the conceptualization of social space and the nature of its structure. Based on the theoretical perspectives by A. Lefebvre, M. Foucault and P. Bourdieu, the author develops a conceptual vision of religious (church) schism as a process of structural transformation of the field of religion that ensues from the competition of its agents and their interaction with agents of other fields of social space. Following this, the approach reveals the key mechanisms - sociostructural, discursive, material - of the church schism, which in particular revealed themselves in the schism between the UOC (MP) and the UOC-KP. It is argued that the socio-structural mechanism manifests itself in the forming of alliances between political groups and schismatic church structures. In its turn, the discursive mechanism of the schism is represented through the competing strategies of legitimization of church images and relationships between the church and state in the discourses of the church leaders (the strategies of "universalization" and "nationalization"). Lastly, the conflicts over the church buildings and demesne as a manifestation of the struggle for material resources, can be regarded the mechanism of the church schism on the material level. It is concluded that it sparks negative influence over the social relations between representatives of different confessions.