010361 SE Orthodox Christianity in Post-Soviet Europe: Sociological Perspectives (2008S)

Orthodox Christianity is the dominant religion in South-Eastern Europe and Russia with approximately 170 million adherents in the world. After the break of the Soviet system, Orthodoxy experienced dramatic changes and acquired great political and cultural powers. To understand the modern world, therefore, it is important to understand Orthodoxy. What made it possible for this traditional (some scholars say "pre-modern") religion to revive and attract followers? How does it interact with modern social institutions? What does Orthodoxy mean as a cultural identity, as a life style, as a form of belonging to the Church? Theoretical and empirical materials will serve as a background for analysing the challenges that Orthodox Christianity brought to modernity.

During the seminars we will discuss the basic sociological propositions about the nature of religion and modern society in applications to the religious contexts of the post-Soviet countries. While reading Emile Durkheim's chapters on religion and collective emotions, for instance, we will think how his theory helps us understand the revival of the mass interest to religion in the early 1990s. How does Victor Turner's theory of pilgrimages explain the meanings and social role of the contemporary Orthodox pilgrimages in Russia? We will also address the issue of state atheism and its impact on religious cultures: Why did the level of Orthodox identification during the Soviet period remind high in Rumania but felt down in Bulgaria? The results of the public opinion polls and surveys (particularly, the Aufbruch survey of religion and values) will be brought into discussions and placed within the theoretical frameworks of sociology of religion.