Interview with Professor Anatolii Kolodnyi on the 25th Anniversary of the Publication of Academic Religious Studies

Abstract. The interview with Professor Anatolii Kolodnyi is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the publication of the textbook Academic Religious Studies – a foundational work that became an important milestone in the formation of religious studies as a distinct field of humanities in independent Ukraine. The conversation addresses the historical background of the textbook’s creation, the role of the Department of Religious Studies of the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Association of Researchers of Religion in consolidating the scholarly community, as well as the innovative structure of the textbook, its methodological foundations, and its differences from previous approaches to the study of religion. Special attention is given to the relationship between religious studies and theology, the reception of the textbook in Ukraine and abroad, and the challenges faced by the study of religion amid contemporary social transformations and the Russian-Ukrainian war.