scholarly journals Tolerization of Religious Relations as a Factor in the Development of Social and Political Life of Communities (the Case Study of Zhytomyr Region)

Author(s):  
Olha Bilobrovets ◽  
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Victoria Vengerska ◽  
Oleksandr Zhukovskyi ◽  
◽  
...  

The objective of this article is to determine the conditions and factors contributing to interreligious and state-confessional tolerance, development of partnerships, and harmonization of social and political life by means of examining the religious situation in Zhytomyr region. Methodology. The principles of systematicity and objectivity have sustained the analysis of the religious situation in the region within the general context of the church-religious relations in Ukraine in the system of social and political life and insured objective and impartial attitude to the activities of different confessions. The historical-typological, problem-chronological and comparative methods have allowed to identify problematic issues of contemporary religious life and trace the dynamics of the population’s religious preferences in terms of relations between the state and the church, particularly in the regional context. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that the research presents the model of partnership relations between the regional authorities and religious associations and determines the factors contributing to social tolerance. Conclusions: From the analysis of the religious situation in Ukraine and Zhytomyr region and the overview of the main trends in the state-religious and interfaith relations, it is possible to conclude that the most essential factors and conditions that promote religious, social, and political tolerance include constructive cooperation between authorities and religious associations, resolving property, political and personal issues of religious organizations, involving them in the activities on the state, regional, and city levels, supporting initiatives aimed to solve social development problems, promote interfaith dialogue, and create platforms for interreligious relations.

Author(s):  
Michael P. DeJonge

Chapter 3’s discussion of kingdoms and orders in the context of political life leads naturally into the topic of this chapter: the church, the state, and their relationship. The present chapter locates the state (or, better, political authority in general) in relationship to Chapter 3’s categories by presenting it as one of the orders by which God’s structures the world. It is an important actor in the temporal kingdom, where God has ordained it to preserve the world through law. The church in its essence is an agent of the spiritual kingdom, bearing God’s redemptive word to the world. The themes of preservation and redemption, the kingdoms, and the orders find many of their concrete expressions in themes of the church, the state, and their relationship.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 335-365
Author(s):  
Shanthini Pillai

Abstract In this paper, I focus on the influence of the Société des Missions étrangères de Paris (MEP) on the performative poetics of Christian faith and citizenship among Malaysian Catholics. Using the central trope of the house, both in its general context of home and dwelling, and its Christian context of the church as a house of worship, I specifically show how cross-border movements, through intersections of individual, material, and cultural mobility stretching across centuries have led to synekistic practices of subject formation in the religious sphere. In this way the paper interjects into discourses on conflict between Christianity and the state and highlights alternative notes of interdependencies and creative synergies.


2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Landman

Dullstroom-Emnotweni was the site of protests against the lack of service delivery by local government in 2009. The local leadership of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa was confronted with challenges when its members got involved in acts of violence both from the side of the community and from the side of the police. Viewing itself as an asset to the community and an agent in its development towards health and wellbeing, the church was challenged by the situation in its prophetic capacity as well as in its relationship with the �state�. In an attempt to negotiate answers to the church�s relationship with the �state� in situations of violence, the uprising in Dullstroom-Emnotweni is used as a case study, and Calvin�s notion of the church as a world-transforming agent, the views of African women theologians on nonviolence, the practical piety of local religiousness, and the memory of systems of governance as �evil� are used as intertexts to define the church�s position vis-�-vis violence as an option for development. A position of caution is taken, a position in which the church retains both its political distance and its prophetic voice, remains true to its calling as an asset to community development, and condones violence cautiously when development is at stake.


2020 ◽  
pp. 83-91
Author(s):  
Ivan Suslov ◽  

The article analyzes the data of a sociological survey conducted in the spring of 2020 of the Bottom Volga area by the research team of the Department of history, political science and sociology of the Saratov state law Academy. Primary sociological information was collected using the Internet survey of respondents using the Google forms service. The sample size was 1,100 people. Representatives of the Astrakhan region (184 respondents), Volgograd region (307) and Saratov region (609) were interviewed. The empirical study allowed us to determine the influence of respondents' religion on the perception of religious threats, as well as problems of interfaith dialogue. The regional specifics of the quality of interfaith relations were revealed, and the levels of religious tension in the Astrakhan, Volgograd and Saratov regions were compared. The survey revealed hidden tensions in the region's interfaith relations (including among the Orthodox majority). Representatives of the Muslim community showed an optimistic attitude in their responses. A potentially dangerous predisposition to politicizing religion has been identified among those groups that are under pressure to identify with their faith. The study revealed: there is a high level of concern about issues of faith among representatives of the Muslim community; a positive attitude towards increasing the role of religion in socio-political life, increasing the level of secularization of society. Atheists of the Lower Volga region showed open dissatisfaction with the state of religious relations in the region. Atheists of the Lower Volga region showed open dissatisfaction with the state of religious relations in the region. This group appears as an object of the religious security system, which under pressure is transformed into a subject protesting against secularization processes. The author concludes that the main strategy should be to study and solve the internal problems of religious minorities, and a complementary strategy can be to counteract external (foreign) religious threats.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-210
Author(s):  
Edyta Włodarczyk

The Ministry of Public Administration was established pursuant to the Act of 31 December 1944 on the appointment of the Interim Government of the Republic of Poland. The matters arising from the relations between the State and the Churches and religious denominations were handled by Department V, which in 1946 consisted of two sections addressing Christian and non-Christian denominations, respectively. The Socio-Political Departments in the Provincial Offices, which employed officials responsible for matters relating to religious denominations, were subordinate to Department V. The same held true in Starostwa Powiatowe [County Offices]. In 1947, Department V was divided into three units addressing matters of the Catholic Church, Christian Denominations and Non-Christian denominations, respectively, and one year later still one more department, i.e. the Department of General Matters, was established. Since 1947 matters relating to religious denominations fell within the competences of Department IV. The Department of Religious Denominations in the Ministry of Public Administration from its beginnings was responsible for shaping the policy of the State towards religious denominations. The aforementioned policy was supposed to be concordant with the directives and principles of the communist party. The socio-political reforms conducted by the Ministry of Public Administration in relation to the Churches and religious associations were one of the means of repression, which within the years 1944-1950 was in its initial phase based on the trial-and-error method. However, it was the cooperation of the Ministry with Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego [Public Security Office], and later the establishment of Urząd ds. Wyznań [Office in charge of Religious Denominations] in 1950 which changed and regulated actions of the communist authorities towards the Churches and religious associations in Poland regarding the matters concerning the relations between the State and the Church and religious associations. From then on the competences to date of Department IV of the Ministry of Public Administration were transferred onto the Office in charge of Religious Denominations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-94
Author(s):  
Wiktoria Saracyn

The main focus of this paper is an analysis of Novella XVII issued by Valentinian III, with the aim of giving a general idea on the religious policy of the Emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III. The edict titled De episcoporum ordinatione is a great example of a legislative act falling between ius sacrum and ius publicum. It shows a rather extraordinary imperial intervention provoked by a conflict between Pope Leo and Hilary, bishop of Arles. The latter was accused of various ignoble deeds which corresponded with some of the definitions of crime as described in Lex Iulia de Maiestate from the 1st century BC. Other deeds that Hilary was accused of, however, cannot really be understood as a public offence aimed at the Emperor or the State. Under the influence of Leo, Valentinian officially acknowledged the preeminence of the Church of Rome in the Western Empire, giving grounds for further emanation of the papal power.


Author(s):  
Antonino Crisà

This paper presents a new set of archival records from Rome on the discovery of a Roman Republican denarii hoard, found by the brothers Birsilio and Luigi Simonazzi on their lands at Calvatone (Cremona, Italy, 1911). Local police forces seized the hoard and alerted the Coin Cabinet of Brera in Milan, where the numismatist Serafino Ricci (1867–1943) evaluated and finally acquired selected coins to increase the museum collections. The “Calvatone (1911) hoard” is an essential case study in the history of Italian numismatic collections, museum studies, and archaeology. These records are particularly worth studying for two main reasons. They show how local and regional authorities dealt with casual archaeological discoveries in northern Italy during the post-Unification period (1861–1918). They also help us to better understand how the Italian government acted to safeguard antiquities according to contemporary law, and how the state collections could be increased by judicial seizures and fresh acquisitions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Budi Sirait

This article is based on research in Gereja Kristen Indonesia (GKI, Indoensian Christian Chruch) Yasmin Bogor as a case study. It has been years for the community to struggle for gaining permission to legally build the church. Court has decided to allow the community to use the building for religius activities. However, practically, the court's decision cannot be implemented because there was pressure for some parties, including from the local government, to refuse the operation of the church. The study is aimed to identify the dynamics and difficulties of being minority in a nation-state, called Indonesia. This lengthens the list of acts of intolerance and violence on minority within a democratic government, in which majority is still preferred. There is a celar need for changing the mindset of the state and society to resolve conflict based on religious belief, to enable equality in economy, politics and religious life.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Avanesová

This text, conceived as an interpretative case study, deals with the role that the Belarusian Orthodox Church plays in the contemporary Belarusian regime. In light of the fact that the Belarusian Orthodox Church is an exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, the author will also look at whether the Belarusian Orthodox Church can actually be considered an instrument of Russian in Belarus. Within the research, the author will show that on the one hand, there are favorable conditions for the development of the Belarusian Orthodox Church. But on the other hand, although the state declares the de facto independence of the Belarusian Orthodox Church, any opposition activity on its part is seen as a threat to the state, which allows the state to interfere with its policy. This leads church organizations in such systems to become significantly weakened within this “cooperation with the state”, even though they have an influence on society and thus a legitimizing potential. As a result, the church is strongly dependent on the state and limited as an actor in civil society within the Belarusian regime. In addition, the author will also conclude in the study that it is difficult to consider the Belarusian Orthodox Church to be a tool of the Kremlin’s influence.


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