Shchetinin O. Interconfessional relations in the Right-Bank Ukraine under the rule of the Russian Empire in 1793–1917.

The relevance of the research topic is due to the fact that religious issues in scientific discourse are attracting increasing attention not only of scholars but also causing considerable public interest, since the church as a social institution enjoys one of the highest levels of trust among citizens. In Ukraine, additional interest in religious issues in general and the study of interconfessional relations, in particular, is related to the development of the Ukrainian church and the need for the state to implement an effective policy in the field of state-confessional and interconfessional relations. Modern Ukraine is a multi-religious state, which further contributes to the growth of interest in the problem of interconfessional relations. Aspects of interconfessional relations, such as changes in religious affiliation (interconfessional conversions) and interconfessional conflicts in Ukraine are a phenomenon not only of the past but also of the present. State policy in the field of interconfessional relations requires the study of the historical experience of these phenomena, as well as the experience of policy in the field of interconfessional relations, especially on the Right-Bank Ukraine, as this region was multi-religious and multinational. The study of the religious and confessional identity of representatives of religious communities of Right-Bank Ukraine, their attitude to each other, the factors that caused it today remain relevant. Such aspects of interconfessional relations like public policy, interconfessional conversions and interconfessional conflicts have been already studied but the historical aspect of the confessional identity problem remains virtually unexplored by the Ukrainian community scholars because of the difficulty to study due to the narrow specificity of this issue.