Formation of Religious Studies in Post-Soviet Belarus (original) (raw)
Related papers
2015
Construction of a cross-confessional model for studying religiosity is proposed based on a widened definition of religion and its interpretation as a two-part phenomenon including experience (inner part) and a system of presentation of the experience (outer part). The system of religion is understood as a three-dimensional unity of beliefs, activity, and institutions; religiosity as involvement into the system of the named dimensions. Each dimension of involvement is marked with empirical features. Each feature is scaled in a range from formal (outer) involvement to transforming (inner). The combination of involvement into each dimension (set by the features) gives a degree (index) of individual religiosity. Individual degrees form into types characterizing the range of society’s religiosity.
Religion and higher education in Central and Eastern Europe / ed. by Gabriella Pusztai
By studying the place for religious cultures in higher education through spatial and temporal dimensions, we met a broad range of concepts. During the two decades of the transition, remarkable alterations occurred in this area in the post-communist countries. Even the most notable higher education researchers in the West consider yet this change only as a quantitative growth in one segment of the private sector and do not perceive the qualitative change of the situation (Altbach 1999). As we decided to prepare our recent volume, in the post-communist context, we had to handle the outlined dimensions in a flexible way but it seemed that the following dimensions are determining and they grip the most important areas of institutional cultures: the role establishing (Church and civil actors) and professional academic actors in organisational development, social and religious background of admitted students, relation to ethnic and regional identity, influence and function of clergy, religious contents of education (curriculum and co-curriculum) as well as institutional commitment and the academic achievement of faculty. In the first 11 chapters, we present the country-based interpretations of the investigated type of higher education to offer a chance to understand the speciality and the common features of faith-based institutions in this region. In order to show the status of Churchrelated higher education and reveal their local meanings, we aimed to find researchers with experience and special sensitivity on issues of higher educational research and on research in sociology of religion. We asked them to interpret the question of the role of churches in higher education within the context of a particular country or region.
2018
Religious education in Russia remains the subject of sharp public debates. The paper briefly observes the history of religious education in the country. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, religious instruction was an essential part of the primary school curriculum; the imperial system of religious instruction ended up with the Bolshevik revolution, and the subsequent Soviet decree of January 1918 that separated church from state and school from church. In Soviet times, religion had no place in the moral education of children. The fall of the Soviet Union, including its socialist ideals and educational prerogatives, led to uncertainty and confusion in the educational sector. Today, however, religious education is becoming increasingly important. By introducing Foundations of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics in public schools and Theology in higher education institutions, the Russian Federation has asserted the state's vested interest in ensuring the moral and spiritual development of its citizens.
Religion in Communist Lands, 1982
Significant information about religion and atheism in the Soviet Union may be derived from the published reports of Soviet sociologists who carry out surveys and other forms of data collection concerning religious attitudes and activities. On the one hand, all information gained from s~ch sources must be carefully interpreted, for the Soviet sociologists are part of the "scientific atheist" establishment which is devoted to stimulating and encouraging the "overcoming of religion" or the "withering away of vestiges of religion in the consciousness of the people". Such ideological goals cannot but cause a bias in the way in which the sociologists see the religious situation and interpret it. 1 On the other hand, however, because sociological information about religion is gathered in order to affect the further secularization and "atheization" of Soviet society, the authorities are aware that it must be at least accurate enough to serve the purposes of planning action against religion and religious "vestiges". Even though many non-communists reject such action as unacceptable for states to support, or repugnant on simple moral grounds, the information which goes into planning anti-religious activities may be used, as well, to help in sympathetically understanding the situation of believers. 'Tpere is no doubt that Soviet. sociologists of religion are devoted to the task~ of facilitating the militant struggle against religion in their country. Virtually every book or article begins with a recitation of the Communist Party's latest directives concerning the creating of the "new Soviet person" or the encouragement of a scientific materialist worldview among Soviet citizens. Even though the highest political leadership seldom refers to the struggle against religion per se, references to the "development of the socialist form
In 2016 the policy of state control over the religious sphere continued, the authorities rarely used brutal pressure and repression against religious communities, limiting the activities of religious organizations primarily in bureaucratic ways. In early 2016 there was a traditional conflict of the Commissioner for religious affairs with the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church because the government was not satisfied with the personnel policy of the latter. In the Orthodox Church, especially concerning the Minsk diocese, staff and structural changes continued, and a large organization, the Publishing house of the Belarusian Exarchate, was closed down. In February there was a meeting of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in Havana, and in June there was the Sacred and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church on Crete.
Philosophy of religion in Ukrainian and Western science
Skhid
Philosophy of religion is one of the most popular philosophical disciplines at Western and American universities. The concept "philosophy of religion" is also presented in Ukrainian educational system. Nevertheless the essence of the concept in Ukrainian and Western scientific environment is not identical. The exploration of the differences constitutes the relevance of the issue. The main research method is comparative analysis: the work is based on textbooks' analysis from philosophy of religion written in the West in comparison to the national works of religious studies. The main pioneering result reached in the issue is to highlight the conceptual differences of "philosophy of religion" in Ukrainian and Western scientific traditions. In Ukraine philosophy of religion is a philosophic discipline that studies a phenomenon of religion, as in Western and American scientific environment the subject of philosophy of religion is God. The presented difference in approaches depends on the difference of ideological bases. Soviet science of religious studies which dominated in Ukraine for the decades and has still remained impact on the most part of scientific environment was built on Marxist atheism and considered religion not according to human interrelationships with the Highest Being, but as a result of social relationships. In other words religion is a social phenomenon for Marxist religious studies, namely social generated reality. In the West, where philosophy of religion has never been in service to totalitarian ideology, God has remained a subject of the discipline. Western philosophy of religion is close to theology owing to the subject of study which is also explores God. The difference between them is in the research method: philosophy of religion explores God via intelligence, and theology via revelation. Western challenges of philosophy of religion are to explore God via human intelligence. The European tradition endeavors to separate knowledge about God that can be explored by human mind from the knowledge which is presented to human via revelation.