This is a survey of some of the consequences of the recently introduced congruences on the theory of connectednesses (radical classes) and disconnectednesses (semisimple classes) of graphs and topological spaces. In particular, it is shown that the connectednesses and disconnectednesses can be obtained as Hoehnke radicals and a connectedness has a characterization in terms of congruences resembling the classical characterization of its algebraic counterpart using ideals for a radical class. But this approach has also shown that there are some unexpected differences and surprises: an ideal-hereditary Hoehnke radical of topological spaces or graphs need not be a Kurosh-Amitsur radical and in the category of graphs with no loops, non-trivial connectednesses and disconnectednesses exist, but all Hoehnke radicals degenerate.