SOCIAL AND SEMANTIC CONTEXTS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH: ESSENCE AND FEATURES

Abstract

B a c k g r o u n d . The period of Ukraine's independence, spanning more than three decades, has been a time of profound sociocultural changes that have significantly affected the religious situation in the country. In the conditions of post-totalitarian emancipation, social pluralism, and gradual democratization, religion ceased to be a marginalized phenomenon and returned to the public sphere as an important social, cultural, and moral factor. In this context, religious faith appears not only as an element of personal worldview, but also as an indicator of profound social transformations.

M e t h o d s . The study uses an interdisciplinary approach that combines such basic methods as historical-chronological, sociological, comparative-analytical, phenomenological, and systemic.

R e s u l t s . The study revealed that the religious revival of the 1990s in Ukraine led to new forms of religious belief, its secularization, and individualization. During periods of crisis (revolutions, the Russian-Ukrainian war), religious faith acquired, on the one hand, special significance as a source of support, national identity, and moral resistance, and on the other hand, as a factor of ideologization and politicization. In modern conditions, faith is increasingly seen as a factor of religious identity, a resource for social stability, existential meaning, and resilience.

С o n c l u s i o n s . Religious faith is a complex sociocultural system that combines individual beliefs with collective meanings, forming and realizing itself in the context of religious community and culture, promoting social cohesion, especially in conditions of social and political crises, which confirms its role as a security resource for mobilization. The social and meaningful contexts of religious faith are the meanings it acquires for the individual, for society as a whole, and in communication between them, creating a single space of moral, cultural, and identity landmarks.