engleski

Religious Life After Communism: One Europe-Two Faces

After the times of communism and socialist rule in the former Eastern Europe and after opening towards the Rule of Law and Democracy, observers of the religious life faced strong paradox of having two Europe - one in the ‘West’ which has been open and free for decades, but where religious life, although free to exercise, became less practiced ; and ‘East’ where religious life flourishes, although been penalized and suppressed. In the West religion became less popular for the two reasons, one is concept of conformity and other is evident secularization. At the same time in the East, religion was and still perceived as label of being free, even if that was the case just in more folkloristic and not spiritual sense. All major religions in the fragmented Eastern Europe retained specific role in the society as a consequence of the fact that during communist regime only religious practices provided sense of freedom and belonging to the free world - even in the catacombs. It is the fact that in the countries where there was strong suppression on religious life, stronger sense of belonging to particular religious groups was maintained even more. It looks like those repressive regimes kept religion alive and even stronger. As a consequence, Western Europe in freedom which it possessed, developed itself more ‘freely’, but departed from spirituality while Eastern part remained more traditional and spiritual. Despite particular differences it seems that Eastern Europe share one unique identity – post-communist one which became strongly both, religious and traditional.

Law, Religion, Communism, Communist State, Soviet State, Europe

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