Key Models of Religious Institutions’ Interaction in the Context of the State-Church Relations in Russia and Egypt

The article reveals and comparatively analyses the peculiarities of the state-church relations in Russia and Egypt. Currently, the role of religion and religious institutions in world politics is actively increasing, as well as the process of secularization of public life is being redefined. Religion still often becomes the cause of discrimination, persecution of certain groups of society; the level of Islamophobia in Western countries and Religiophobia in the whole world is not decreasing. In these conditions, the importance of state-church relations within key international actors is also growing. The purpose of the study is to provide comparative analysis of the specifics of the state religion policy of Russia and Egypt in order to develop recommendations for the use of Russian religious institutions to strengthen Russias position in the Middle East. Russia and Egypt were chosen as research objects, since these countries have a rich history of interaction in the religious sphere, which could become a basis for the future cooperation between religious institutions of the two countries. In addition, Egypt is one of the key states in the Middle East, where Russian influence has never been dominant, but where exactly religious organizations such as the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) most actively and successfully pursued Russias interests. Methodologically, the article is based on historical and empirical institutionalism, as well as comparative analysis and historical-genetic method. The study is quite novel, as it identifies four models of interaction between religious communities, which are based on two criteria: a) presence of religious institutions representing the interests of a particular community; b) status of religion in the state (dominant / minority religion). The practical significance of the study lies in its attempt to make recommendations for improving the use of religious organizations in Russia to promote state interests in Egypt on the basis of the highlighted features of state-church relations in Egypt.

The Universality of Palliative Care Philosophy

The modern hospice movement, which is the origin of what is now known as palliative care, derived strong inspiration from Christianity. Given this original Christian inspiration, the global spread of palliative care even to countries where Christianity is only a minority religion may look surprising. In line with the theory of the “secularization of hospice,” it could be argued that palliative care has spread globally because its underlying philosophy has become secular, allowing it to become universal. However, given the continuing importance of religion in many areas of palliative care, we could wonder how secular contemporary palliative care really is. This article argues that the universality of palliative care philosophy resides in its susceptibility to contextualization. Palliative care has become a global success story because people all over the world committed to palliative care’s principles and ideas have contextualized these and developed models of palliative care delivery and even philosophy that are adapted to the local socio-economic and cultural-religious contexts. This article analyzes palliative care in India to illustrate this point, describing contextualized models of palliative care delivery and showing that palliative care physicians and nurses in India draw inspiration from their local context and religiosity.

Interfaith Dialogue and Today’s Orthodoxy, from Confrontation to Dialogue

Orthodoxy has a long experience of cohabitation with other religions and Christian denominations. However, this experience has not always been a peaceful and easy one, especially when molded by the rise of nationalism during the second half of the 19th century and global geopolitical forces throughout the 20th century. A series of historical events, from Russia to the Middle East, from the Balkans to Central Europe, have shaped the Orthodox relationship to religious pluralism, redefining the religious landscape through movement of populations and migrations. These many conflicts and historical events have proved the multifaceted reality of Orthodoxy, from its role as a state religion, such as in Greece, and a majority religion, such as in Russia, to a minority religion with limited rights, such as in Turkey, or, more generally speaking, in the Middle East. It is in this very complex context that interfaith relations unfold, too often in a very violent and traumatic way.

Islamophobia and the ECtHRA Test Case for Positive Subsidiarity for the Protection of Europe’s Long-term Migrants?

A reflection on the human rights of migrants in Europe cannot avoid the issue of racism. Resistance to immigration in Europe is fuelled to a large extent by resistance to the ‘otherness’ of migrants. More specifically, the ‘otherness’ that is most central to today’s debates on migration and integration in Europe is Islam. Thus, racism is commonly expressed as Islamophobia, and Islamophobia is both expressed in, and fuelled by, rights-restrictive rules that specifically target Islamic practices. The focus of the analysis in this chapter is on the messages the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is sending to national authorities regarding their approaches to multicultural conflicts over Islamic minority practices. This is situated in the framework of ‘positive subsidiarity’. It is argued that, even when the margin of appreciation is a wide one, the Court has a responsibility to offer guidance to states parties on three levels: substantive, procedural, and discursive. The chapter then explores the messages sent by the Court to states parties in the field of the restriction of Islamic minority practices. First it does so by comparing what is widely considered the Court’s ‘worst practice’ in this field—the face veil cases—with its ‘best practice’ in a different, but comparable field—the ‘gay propaganda’ cases. After that, the chapter continues the analysis on the basis of a broader case law corpus that includes all cases regarding the accommodation of Islamic practice in countries in which Islam is a minority religion.

Proselytizing, Building, and Serving: Latter-day Saint Missionaries in Manitoba and Eastern Canada, 1897-1942

This article will consider missionary work performed in Manitoba and Eastern Canada, and how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints progressed toward integration into Canadian society as another established minority religion searching for potential new members. By navigating through their Canadian settings, Latter-day Saint missionaries adjusted themselves and their Church to local expectations and environments, and constructed a new home for Mormonism in Canada. Three ways that Latter-day Saint missionaries negotiated their place in Canada include evolving relationships with the Canadian public through missionary encounters, renting meeting spaces from fraternal organizations and then constructing their own meetinghouses, and organizing local, auxiliary organizations that aided non-members. The Canadian context, the Latter-day Saint missionary experience, and the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Canada, reveals a process of negotiation. There exists a tension between integration and otherness. Latter-day Saints balanced this tension by on some levels maintaining their distinctiveness, while at the same time blending into Canadian expectations. How the Latter-day Saint missionaries responded to these barriers, the challenges related to communicating with the Canadian public, finding spaces to congregate, local leadership roles, and participating in different aspects of Canadian society, tells a story of a new religion integrating into a new environment.

The Bundahišn

The Bundahišn, meaning primal or foundational creation, is the central Zoroastrian account of creation, cosmology, and eschatology and one of the most important of the surviving testaments to Zoroastrian literature and pre-Islamic Iranian culture. Touching on geography, cosmogony, anthropology, zoology, astronomy, medicine, legend, and myth, the Bundahišn can be considered a concise compendium of Zoroastrian knowledge. The Bundahišn is well known in the field as an essential primary source for the study of ancient Iranian history, religions, literature, and languages. It is one of the most important texts composed in Zoroastrian Middle Persian, also known as Zoroastrian Book Pahlavi, in the centuries after the fall of the Sasanian Empire to the invading Arab and Islamic forces in the mid seventh century. The Bundahišn provides scholars with a particularly profitable window on Zoroastrianism’s intellectual and religious history at a crucial transitional moment: centuries after the composition of the Avesta, the Zoroastrian sacred scriptures, and before the transformation of Zoroastrianism into a minority religion within Iran and adherents’ dispersion throughout Central and South Asia. However, the Bundahišn is not only a scholarly tract. It is also a great work of literature in its own right and ranks alongside the creation myths of other ancient traditions: Genesis, the Babylonian Emunah Elish, Hesiod’s Theogony, and others. Informed by the latest research in Iranian Studies, this translation aims to bring to the fore the aesthetic quality, literary style, and complexity of this important work.

Ashin Jinarakkhita

Chapter 4 situates Ashin Jinarakkhita’s life, ideas, and networks in the broader history of South China Sea Buddhism. The chapter argues that Ashin Jinarakkhita’s attempt to make Buddhism less Chinese was a calculated strategy to ensure the survival of Buddhism as a minority religion in the world’s largest Muslim nation. Unlike his contemporaries in Malaysia and Singapore who sought to spread ideas of Buddhist modernism among the Chinese community, Ashin Jinarakkhita’s vision of Buddhist modernism was to shatter the image of Buddhism as a religion and culture of the Chinese population in Indonesia. As this chapter reveals, Ashin Jinarakkhita founded the Buddhayāna movement that promoted nonsectarian doctrines and practices to be in line with the national discourse of “Unity in Diversity.” What emerged was a form of Indonesian Buddhism (agama Buddha Indonesia) for the modern Indonesian state.

Inevitably Comparative, but Not Inevitably Positive: the Study of Jews and Judaism within the Field of Religious Studies

This essay considers the study of Judaism within the framework of Lincoln and Freiberger’s calls for comparative studies. As a minority religion, Judaism usually requires comparative thinking, as scholars consider Judaism within the context of a majority religion. Study of post-WWII American Judaism, in particular, invites comparison, because it marks the high-tide era of “Judeo-Christianity,” in which Judaism was newly considered America’s “third faith,” on a purportedly equal status with Protestantism and Catholicism, thus inviting comparision between the three religions and other traditions outside the small circle of midcentury “American religions.” This postwar, tri-faith status of Judaism reveals some of the costs and benefits of thinking comparatively: when comparison is undertaken with an eye toward creating or maintaining equality among religions, the results may include erasure of distinctions between traditions. The study of Judaism demonstrates some of the politics and ideological motivations of comparative thinking about religion, as well as its potential risks and benefits as explained by Lincoln and Freiberger.

PENGARUH RELIGIUSITAS DAN KEGIATAN SPIRITUAL TERHADAP PERSEPSI TINGKAT KEAMANAN DI INDONESIA

Both religiosity and spiritual activities could improve security perceptions by reducing crime rates in Indonesia. However, this did not apply to minorities because of the possibility of religious discrimination. This study intended to determine the influence of religiosity and spiritual activities on the security perceptions of religious adherents in Indonesia, namely Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism using secondary data obtained from the Indonesian Family Life Survey of 32,466 individuals. The finding revealed that religiosity had a positive and significant effect on the sense of security of all adherents except Buddhist followers. Meanwhile, spiritual activities had a positive effect on security of adherents of Islam and Hinduism. In contrast, it negatively influenced Protestant, Catholic and Buddhist followers, since terrorism and discrimination against the worship places were frequently occured. Therefore, it was concluded that religiosity had a positive effect on security of the followers of the majority religions; however, it negatively affected to the followers of minority religion. It meant that being the followers of religion majority was still dangerous for the followers of religion minority. This evidenced that there were still lack of religious tolerance in Indonesia.