Influence Of The Orthodox Church On The Development Of Education Of Ukraine

Throughout history, the development of Ukrainian primary, intermediate and advanced education has been accompanied by the Orthodox Church. Orthodox Church has become a pioneer of national education in Ukraine, giving it vitality and energy.The thesis presents the analysis of the influence of Eastern Orthodoxy on the development of higher education in Ukraine, by using literature research method, inductive method,deductive method and experience summary method. This study selected the Orthodox Church and the higher education of Ukraine as the research object, trying, through the theoretical analysis, analysis of the laws, to explain the relations between religion and higher education in Ukraine, prove the influence of religion on the higher education in general; through the historical analysis, to learn the fundamental influence, caused by the orthodox education on the society of Ukraine, point out its characteristics and significance, find out the origin of the Ukrainian Universities, the present status and the development direction of the orthodox education in Ukraine. These questions have formed the framework of this study.This study selected the relationships between religion and education as the research object, in order to show the inner essence of relationship between them. The historical analysis and summarization of the main lessons of the history of Ukraine have proved, that religion and education are not two unconnected, opposite things. The relationships between them consist not only of the using, rejection or control, in some sense, religion can be helpful for the development of education.From the period of Kievan Rus to the Russian empire period, institutions of higher education in Ukraine directly developed from the church schools and seminaries, so the church was the fundamental founder of the schools. Throughout history, except of the Soviet era, Ukraine from the top to the bottom has provided encourage and support to the Orthodox Church. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Eastern Orthodox religion has rapidly revived.This fact proves, that the people of Ukraine have never really lost their religious culture and the Orthodox Church has never lost its educational function.In recent years, Ukrainian Orthodox Church not only actively participates in various social activities, but also continuously puts forward the requirements to revive the religious education in schools. This makes the Orthodox once again become the focus of people’s attention. In the current situation, we can state, that strengthening of the religious education is an important direction of Ukrainian higher education reforms. Under this trend, strengthen the researches of theory and practice of the religious education, will be beneficial to the development of higher education in Ukraine.