This book examines the social and political mobilisation of religious communities towards forced displacement in relation to tolerance and transitory environments. How do religious actors and state bodies engage with refugees and migrants? What are the mechanisms of religious support towards forcibly displaced communities? Religion and Forced Displacement in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia argues that when states do not act as providers of human security, religious communities, as representatives of civil society and often closer to the grass roots level, can be well placed to serve populations in need. The book brings together scholars from across the region and provides a comprehensive overview of the ways in which religious communities tackle humanitarian crises in contemporary Armenia, Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Victoria Hudson is a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. She completed her PhD at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Birmingham, submitting a thesis on contemporary Russian soft power in Ukraine, with a particular emphasis on the contemporary role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russian foreign policy.

Lucian N. Leustean is a Reader in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom. He is the Founding Editor of the Routledge Book Series on Religion, Society and Government in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet States.

Acknowledgments
List of Tables
Abbreviations
1. Religion and Forced Displacement in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. An Introduction (Victoria Hudson and Lucian N. Leustean)
2. Humanitarian Action, Forced Displacement and Religion. Contemporary Research Perspectives (Ansgar Jödicke)
Section I: Eastern Europe
3. Religion and Forced Displacement in Modern Bulgaria (Daniela Kalkandjieva)
4. State, Religion and Refugees in Serbia. Responses of Faith-Based Organisations, 1991-1996 (Aleksandra Djuri. Milovanovi. and Marko Vekovi.)
5. Asylum and Migration System Reform: A New Role for the Orthodox Church of Greece? (Georgios E. Trantas and Eleni D. Tseligka)
6. Responding to Mass Emigration amidst Competing Narratives of Identity: The Case of the Republic of Moldova (Andrei Avram)
7. The Roman Catholic Church and Forced Displacement in Poland (Maria Marczewska-Rytko)
Section II: Russia and Ukraine
8. My Strength is Made Perfect in Weakness’: Russian Orthodoxy and Forced Displacement (Roman Lunkin)
9. Forced Displacement, Religious Freedom and the Russia-Ukraine Conflict (Dmytro Vovk)
Section III: The Caucasus
10. Forgotten by Many and Remembered by Few’: Religious Responses to Forced Migration in Georgia (Tornike Metreveli)
11.Welcoming Refugees? The Armenian Apostolic Church and Forced Displacement (Jasmine Dum-Tragut)
Section IV: Central Asia
12. The Response of the Metropolitan District of the Russian Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan to the Emigration of Ethnic Russians from Independent Kazakhstan (Victoria Hudson)
13. Community Intolerance, State Repression and Forced Displacement in the Kyrgyz Republic (Indira Aslanova)
14. Migration within and from Uzbekistan: The Role of Religion (Rano Turaeva)
Index