Religious identities and religious pluralism in Central/Eastern Europe

Abstract

Religious identities and the way religion is present in the social life of Central and Eastern European countries have long been described by researchers as specific. Many researchers point to the specificity of the state-Church relationship in this part of Europe, multireligious heritage, cultural religiosity, the authority of the religious tradition. Religion for Central Europeans is also important in the context of national identity and is perceived as expression of moral judgments and collective identity in political disputes. In this chapter, we present the specificity of the meaning of religion in the societies of selected CEE religions in Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine. On the basis of qualitative research, we show the socio-cultural rules of the religion-politics relationship, which seem to be largely based on historical patterns dating back to the Habsburg Monarchy. We argue that these societies develop their own patterns of manifesting ties with religion, which seem to be largely based on cultural religion and historical schemes. The latter locate religious identity on specific continuum with civic identity. A particularly important observation is the conceptualisation of religious pluralism which is based on negotiating historical pluralism with contemporary pluralism ideas brought with democratisation and Europeanisation during the last decades. In the researched regions the historical diversity is endorsed as “traditional pluralism” where “the prevailing” and “national” is expected to be supported by the state and also visibly dominant in terms of professed values and public and media display. Enhancing equality and tolerance is largely considered unnecessary. It is a perspective that may harmonize with the perceptions of more conservative and national circles and some populist sentiments