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Studying Pope Francis' influence on public opinion in European Union countries in the context of national resilience is a pressing research question. Although the Pope enjoys high moral authority among Europeans, a comprehensive analysis of his role in shaping societal positions, particularly on security and defense issues, is lacking. Investigating this problem enables a deeper understanding of the religious factor's role in strengthening European unity, countering destructive influences. The research materials include Pope Francis' public speeches and statements, primarily those circulated through mass media and social networks, as well as sociological survey results on the EU public's perception of the pontiff's position on crucial socio-political issues. Content analysis methods are used to examine the content and tone of the Pope's messages, while comparative analysis of sociological research data identifies correlations between the Pope's rhetoric and shifts in public sentiment regarding national resilience. The results show that despite Pope Francis' high popularity in EU countries, where the vast majority of the population approves of the pontiff, his public statements have a limited and short-lived impact on public opinion. Empirical evidence indicates that most Europeans do not consider the Pope a decisive factor in shaping their views on various socio-political problems, such as nuclear disarmament, migration, pandemics, or basic income. The Pope's pacifist stance on war, a topic of discussion in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war, is not a determining factor that risks critically undermining the personnel and motivation of EU countries' armed forces. The population's willingness to defend their homeland militarily varies significantly among EU states and is influenced by a complex interplay of historical, geopolitical, and socio-cultural factors that outweigh the pontiff's religious rhetoric. In conclusion, while papal pacifism somewhat resonates with the anti-war sentiments of some Europeans, it does not pose major challenges to ensuring the defense capabilities and resilience of EU countries. Pope Francis' high moral authority does not automatically translate into a dominant influence on public opinion and societal attitudes regarding national security in European Union member states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study is devoted to the coverage of the territorial organization of the modern confessional space of the regions of Western Ukraine, which was formed under the influence of complex historical and geographical factors, namely the formation of Ukraine, socio-political life of individual regions, the influence of Western civilization, national liberation movements, ethnic composition and more. The Western Ukrainian region, to which we include 8 oblasts, namely: Zakarpattia, Lviv, Volyn, Rivne, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi and Khmelnytskyi, is distinguished by a high level of religious mosaic and activity of the population, which is manifested in high rates of provision with religious communities and organizations, a high proportion of those who consider themselves believers and attend worship services weekly or at least once a month, and other indicators. It is interesting that in the territory of Western Ukraine such historical and geographical lands are separated as Volyn, Zakarpattia, Halychyna, Northern Bukovina, Southern Bukovina, part of Dorohoishchyna and Podillya, which certainly emphasizes this region as special for studying the geographical features of the formation of confessional space. Orthodoxy in the study region predominates in Chernivtsi, Khmelnytskyi, Volyn, Rivne, and Zakarpattia oblasts, and Greek Catholicism predominates in Halychyna (Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, and Ternopil oblasts). It is interesting that Roman Catholics are quite prominent in the confessional structure in the Khmelnytskyi oblast, where Poles occupy a significant share in the ethnic structure. Protestantism is present in all regions, but it is most concentrated in Volyn and Northern Bessarabia. In Zakarpattia oblast there is a separate denomination - the Transcarpathian Reformed Church, which is mainly professed by Hungarians. It is established that the confessional space differs not so much by administrative-territorial boundaries as by historicalgeographical regions, which confirms the idea of the main influence on the process of its formation of historical-geographical features of territory formation, ethnic composition, demographic processes and other socio-political factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most of Christian traditions embrase the notion of sacrament (Latin: sacramenta). This notion deals with the church directives in a narrow meaning. According to Saint Augustine, the sacrament is a visible action of an invisible grace thus the Church, the Christ, the Bible, being material phenomena where two natures combine (Divine and human), are also considered to be sacraments. Therefore, the author of the article presents the Bible as the most outstanding and the most visible example of a sacrament in a broad meaning. Using the examples of the attitude change to the Bible in the Catholic tradition, the author studies themove from the sacral perception of the text in the decisions made at the Council of Trent to its open sacramental understanding in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and its post-council decisions. Due to the fact that Ukrainian scholars and local clergy theologically poorly interpreted the Bible as a Word of God in the Catholic tradition, the goal of this article is to make a diachronic comparison of the results of the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council, which allows to show the change dynamics in the attitude of the Catholic Church to the Bible. TheCouncil of Trentwas a reaction of theCatholic Church to the emergence and achievements of the Reformation and its important principle Sola Scriptura. The Council approved two doctrinal documents on the Sacred Scripture: the first one deals with the Scripture canon and the relations between the Scripture and the Sacred Tradition, and the second one defines which text of the Scripture is to be considered sacred and official and how to interpret this text. The author concludes that the Council limited the Sacred Tradition only with faith and moral issues, meaning spheres of doctrines and piety, and recognized Latin translation of the Bible - Vulgate - to be the only official version to have a sacred meaning and "a sacred book per se". The Bible is admitted to be a closed book, separated fromthe readers and receivers of the Gospel, which is prohibited for an autonomous interpretation. On the contrary, the Second Vatican Council and its documents (Lumen Gentium - Light of the Nations and Dei verbum -Word of God), in their essence, had a pastoral task, manifested in an attempt of giving a comprehensible overview of the Catholic Church doctrine for the world community. Therefore, the author asserts that the last 400 years of the history of the Catholic doctrine show serious changes in its attempt of contextualization and mark its main peculiarity: reaction to the modern society challenges and needs. The task of the Second Vatican Council was to clarify the nature of the Sacred Scripture, which had to balance the Tradition and a newapproach to the Scripture. Based on the analysis of the documents of the mentioned Councils and the commentaries of the authoritative Catholic preachers (Pope Benedict XVI, r. RobertMurray, r. Josef Ratzinger, Scott Hahn), the author concludes that the new approach to the Sacred Scripture essentially points to the open sacral and sacramental character of the Bible. The author emphasizes the modern approach to the sacralityof the Bible notonly as to a "sacral book per se", but also in its sacral effect on the reader. The researcher asserts that new changes declared in Dei verbum and Verbum Domini, which emphasize the pastoral effect of the Bible as a way of knowing Jesus Christ, are crucial for the building relations between various Christian movements, especially for the Catholic and Protestant traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kostomarov's scientific activity has begun from the theme of the Church Union of Berestia proclaimed in 1596. Since then began the history of scientific searches of the talented historian, publicist, ethnographer, poet, polemicist and publicman who got a rightfull place in the cultural and scientific expanse of Ukraine only recently. Potential of his work is so inexhaustible that inspite of amount materials devoted to his personalia a lot of problems that were posed by him remained inelaborate. His first thesis work is as an example. We are of the opinion that it is a unique work where an author expounded his views to the meaning of the folk history for the first time, being influenced by the prominent persons of the scientific world thought. The thesis work was forgotten by the scientists undeservedly because of the setted stereotypes in a historiography that refered it to the only one unsuccessful Kostomarov's work. The object of an article is a content's rethinking and meaning of M.Kostomarov's master thesis work "About reasons and character of the Church Union in Western Russia". It is an important task for us to revise records about de minimis of the master's thesis as a scientific work and to prove originality of the text's subject matter that is entitled to be alongside of the other author's accepted works. It is also necessary to determinate actual reasons of the master's thesis work liquidation, its content's analysing and concern of the thesis work. While analysing the content's thesis work we have found how the historian's scientific opinion became and disclosed his views' novelty. Also his retirement from the scientific standards of the problem's vision were closely associated with the official Russian historical doctrine. Political-ideological reasons gave rise for liquidation of the first author's scientific work. The Church Union of Berestia was the event werethrought an author disclosed the importance of religious aspect for historical science as the event of religious trend that caused radical changes in society's life. It is of interest that not only historical, political and social factors were examined by an author in union's history but he also added psychological and binded them with a mental unicity of the Ukrainian ethnos where nationality and religiousness are identical concepts. Only through a random coincidence the first Kostomarov's thesis work has been ignored by modernity scientists and it orientation on union has denied. In this research we were trying not only to prove work's historical value of the prominent historian but also value and unicity of the content-related filling for theological opinion of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]