Religious Assimilation: Forced Conversion to the Metropole's Religion

As part of religious assimilation, aggressors may apply physical, administrative, or economic coercion to convert members of the colonized society to the colonizer's confession. Depriving the local population of freedom of religion under threat of repression, deprivation of rights, or confiscation of property ensures the accelerated erasure of cultural and religious boundaries.

ID: T0116.001
Sub-technique of:  T0116
Tactic: Persistence
People: Ukrainians
Contributors: decolonial.ist project
Version: 1.1
Created: 21 April 2026
Last Modified: 9 August 2026

Procedures Carried Out


January 1839
C0059 Liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church (1839)
G0009 Russian Empire
S0011 Moscow Patriarchate

The forced transfer of the Uniate faithful of the Right Bank into the empire's state church (the Holy Synod; the patriarchate in Russia was abolished until 1917) for the spiritual assimilation of the population: the Basilian monasteries – the mainstay of the Union – were liquidated throughout the empire by the mid-19th century[1].

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