The Outline of Constitutional Regulations on the Freedom of Conscience and Religion in Poland

Freedom of conscience and religion is one of the fundamental freedoms of person. This freedom is a constitutionally registered freedom and its exercise, like its constitutional guarantees, is the foundation of the modern concept of a democratic state’s rule of law. At the same time, the concept of a democratic rule of law is a source of limitations for this freedom, implemented in the spirit of European standards. The regulation of the freedom of conscience and religion under the Constitution of the Republic of Poland is a relatively extensive regulation, showing its own specificity, rooted in the experiences of the past, undemocratic political reality. Freedom of conscience and religion cannot be considered solely in the sphere of the psyche and in the sphere of privacy. On the contrary, it has an important public-law dimension. The issue taken up is closely related to the freedom of worldview, which determines both the behavior of the individual towards himself and the behavior of the individual towards other people and towards the community. The author presents and analyzes the regulation in question against the background of the principles determining the position of churches and religious associations in the state and their relations with the state.

MOSQUES IN POST-SOVIET KAZAKHSTAN: DISCOURSE INTERPRETATION AND REGULATORY PRACTICES

The authors have analyzed the dynamics of the growth of number of mosques built by religious associations in post-Soviet Kazakhstan and noted a transition from their unregulated and chaotic construction (proliferation) to their precise association with specific maddhabs, and their construction norms conceptualized by religious institutions represented by the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Kazakhstan (DUMK). The types of cultic facilities and the actors are discussed and ranked according to the type of their involvement and partnership. We should note that the participation of various actors adds weight to the status of mosques as important public facilities. The authors have paid particular attention to the religious communities’ revised registration realized under the Law of the RK on Religious Activities and Religious Associations of 2011, which optimized the religious space, consolidated the positions of traditional Islam and, hence, standardized the rules related to mosque construction. Keywords: mosque, public space, post-Soviet realities, re-Islamization, re-appropriation, “mosque diplomacy,” religious communities, traditional Islam, DUMK.

The Biblical Dimension of Religious Instruction in Poland

The article concerns the issue of religious instruction in Polish state schools, especially its inspiration from the Bible as the primary source of the transmission of faith. When religious education classes were introduced in schools, a confessional model of their performance was adopted, thus leading to establishing closer ties with churches and religious associations as well as developing personal faith. The methodology of my research was based on analysing the current anchoring of the teaching of religion in the Polish state law and the guidelines of the Catholic Church. Next, the 2018 Core Curriculum for the Catechesis of the Catholic Church in Poland, related to the reform of the Polish education system and the completely new situation resulting from the liquidation of the junior high school stage of education, was used to show biblical guidelines for religious instruction and a set of methodological tools that guarantee its effectiveness. Confessional religion classes are currently organized in all government-run schools in Poland, and according to recent statistical data they significantly contribute to their better functioning. Consequently, there is a need to appeal for the continuation of religious education in schools and its modification based on multimedia technology, and there is a necessity to overcome the tendency to remove classes of religion from Polish public schools.

Political Implications of Orthodox Identity: An Example of the World Russian People’s Council

The article examines the conceptual ideas of the World Russian Peoples Council, acting under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church, regarding the implementation of the right to freedom of conscience and the status of religious associations in Russia. Furthermore, the speeches of heads of the states at the Councils were studied for their attitude to the ideological content of the activities of this organization. On the basis of the data obtained, the author attempts to find a correlation between the proposals voiced at the Councils on changing certain aspects in the religious sphere and the reforms of the Russian legislation on freedom of conscience. As a result of this study, a striking coincidence was revealed between the two factors mentioned: the provisions discussed at the Councils, as a rule, after some time were reflected in Russian normative legal acts. Not having sufficient grounds for declaring an unambiguous causal relationship between conciliar ideas and legislative reform, one can, in any case, assume a significant impact of the activities of the World Russian Peoples Council on the state policy in implementation of the right to freedom of conscience in modern Russia.

Religion and Law in the European Union

All three major European supranational institutions—the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe (CoE), and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)—acknowledge the importance of religion within European history and culture and give special recognition to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. As has been argued elsewhere, the attitude of both the EU and the CoE to ‘religion’ is characterized by seven principles—the value of religion and of non-religion; subsidiarity; religious freedom; religious equality and non-discrimination; the autonomy of religious associations; cooperation with religion; and the special protection of religion by means of privileges and exemptions—principles that may be induced from their laws and other regulatory instruments. In doing so, they seek to maintain a balance between Europe’s religious, humanist, and cultural elements. How that balance and recognition operate in practice, however, is far from clear-cut and is highly sensitive to individual circumstances.

Russia: The Path to Secularism or the Clericalization of Society and the State?

Modern Russia shows an increasing interest in religion not just as an individual psychological phenomenon, but as a social institution that occupies a prominent place and actively participates in the life of the state and society. Against the background of the spiritual revival of the country, anticlerical trends appear, speculating on the constitutional principle of secularism and seeing its violation in almost any contacts of the state with religious associations. The main thesis of the paper is that the secular model of the state does not accept the interference of religious associations and authorities in each other’s affairs, but at the same time assumes their interaction, which should be outlined by the legislative framework.The author examines the semantics of the term “clericalization” and concludes that it means not just the rapprochement of the state with the most influential confessions in society, but also the process of promoting the church’s interests with the help of state power. Based on an analysis of the current legislation, the historical experience of Russia’s development, the current state of state-confessional relations, it is concluded that it is premature to talk about clericalization in our country. This is supported by the existence of strict legal prohibitions and restrictions on the direct participation of religious associations and their representatives in politics, as well as the formal distancing of the church and the state from each other in solving political issues. The state and church interaction in the field of education is quite clearly regulated. However, in other areas of public life, the boundaries of such interaction are conditional, so the author believes that certain prerequisites are emerging for the development of clerical tendencies. Legal, historical and ideological prerequisites are highlighted. The author proposes to improve the legal regulation of some problematic aspects of state-confessional relations.

Broken Ship, Dead Ship

While we think of ships as transporters and connectors, once they break, they become forgotten rejectamenta, removed from the human-social sphere. And yet archaeologists go to great lengths to reinstate their ‘authentic’ sociocultural statuses. This chapter identifies the longstanding metaphorical connections between ships and bodies and the religious associations of bodily failure and fragmentation as the driving forces behind archaeological resurrection. Because the Western academic tradition has developed alongside Early Modern Christian theology, and because archaeology developed out of its defense, there appear to be latent theological motivations behind the ways that nautical archaeologists approach wreckage, especially when located underwater. The sixteenth-century Yarmouth Roads Protected Wreck, of presumed Spanish origin located in English waters, helps flesh out arguments against exhumation.

-COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCONFESSIONAL RELATIONS IN KAZAKHSTAN AND UZBEKISTAN

The article examines the history of religions of the Turkic past, Islamic Renaissance, Tsarist imperialism, Soviet atheism, and nowadays. The author analyzes constitutional and special laws, describes religious diversity and cultural pluralism, examines the system and institutions of religious education, identifies the main reasons for the radicalization of the two countries. He pays special attention to the specifics of the manifestation of religious radicalism in each of the two countries, their approaches to this problem and ways of countering the terrorist threat, and systematizes the opinions of various scientists. The negative consequences of historical and political events on the religious life of the Uzbek and Kazakh societies are determined. The choice of these states is due to the similarity of their history, culture, and political system. A comparative analysis of the state of interfaith relations in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan is carried out according to the following criteria: historical stages, legislative and legal framework, religious associations, religious education, the problem of religious extremism and fundamentalism. The purpose of the article is to determine the features of the interaction of the authorities with religious and confessional structures, to identify the main problems of interfaith relations and the religious situation in general. This study contributes to a better understanding of ethno-confessional and inter-confessional politics in modern realities, as well as an analysis of the state and forecast of the prospects for the development of tolerant inter-confessional relations in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in the context of religious pluralism, globalism, and actual challenges of the postmodern era. It is necessary to gradually strengthen the legislative, political and socio-economic base, which will be aimed at the secular path of development of our countries, without prejudice to confessions and religious organizations, which are separated from the state by definition. In the Turkic period history of Central Asia, many concrete examples testify to the positive experience of historically peaceful coexistence of various religions in the Central Asian Turkic-Muslim region. These historical facts should and can positively influence the further strengthening of interreligious cooperation and harmony

State-Church Relations and the Religious Situation in a Provincial Town in 1997–2003 (On the Example of Tolyatti)

Introduction. The goal of the article is to investigate the nature and assess the results of statechurch relations in Tolyatti after the implementation of the Federal Law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations” of September 26, 1997. Materials and Methods. In order to implement the goal of the research, we used the materials of the municipal public institution “Tolyatti Archive” (orders and resolutions of the mayor of Tolyatti), data from periodicals, memoirs of contemporaries, materials of the current archive of the Samara diocesan administration closed to the public (reports of the ruling Bishop of the Samara diocese to the Moscow Patriarchate), materials from the author’s personal archive: reports of the assistant governors of Samara Oblast on religious issues reports of both secular and ecclesiastical officials on the religious situation in Samara Oblast and Tolyatti, other official and unofficial documents, many of which, due to their specificity, do not end up in Church or secular archives (correspondence between the heads of local religious organizations with Tolyatti Duma and City Hall officials; protocols of City Hall meetings on religious issues and the protocols of meetings in the religious organizations, which were conducted by the author). The research methodology includes the method of document analysis. Analysis. The construction of churches, the development of educational institutions, the opening of a monastery, guardianship and fraternities, and the publication of religious periodicals continued in 1997–2003. For Tolyatti’s clergy and believers, the preparation and celebration of the 2000th anniversary of the Nativity of Christ was an opportunity to express themselves in the media, increase the number of parishes and ask the authorities for assistance in solving various life issues including financial assistance. The Orthodox clergy also hoped to solve the problem of various religious organizations and sects functioning on the territory of Tolyatti, which they considered their canonical territory, with the help of the authorities. Results. With the celebration of the 2000th anniversary of Christianity, Orthodox religious organizations strengthened their position in society, established a dialogue with business and government, and gained advantages over other religious organizations in all matters. It was connected with both the allocation of land for temples and their subsequent financing.

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE STATE AND RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS IN THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN: CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS

This article attempts to comprehensively consider the social and legal nature of the relationship between the state and religious associations in the state, to determine their main constitutional ties, and to reveal the concept and content of the legal status of the religious associations. In this article, based on historical analysis, generalization, modeling, the study of the normative documents, regulating the public relations in this area, the development of the current state of the relations between the state and religious associations. Social science research in the religious studies area could be described as lacking many serious studies, regarding religious issues and relations between the state and religion. One explanation is inattention to the religious factors in public life for a long period of time. This inattention was displayed in political, social and judicial areas. Most studies twenty years ago were devoted to the explanations of the negative features of the religion or the disappearance of religion and state’s help. Today the spectrum of opinion on church-state relations is wider. The most popular point of view advocates the separation of state and church. The general opinion is that the state must be secular. The clericalization of the state and social life is considered as danger to the existing political and legal system. At the same time, some believe that religion must be under strict state control (so called, state-controlled religion). In this approach, state interests such as national security always dominate over the interests of religious organizations and believers.