Influence of New Religious Movements from Russian Federation on the Religious Landscape of the Republic of Belarus

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the analysis of the influence of the new religious movements of the Russian Federation on the religious landscape of the Republic of Belarus. The study has shown the following results: (1) the country of origin was determined for the alleged general population of 1113 new religious movements, the activities of which are documented in the Republic of Belarus. A significant part of them were founded in Russia, and the group of Russian new religious movements is in the lead among the foreign new religious movements almost twice exceeding the group of new religious movements created in Western countries. (2) The article represents the distribution according to the structural and substantive characteristics of the new Russian religious movements operating in the Republic of Belarus in comparison with the totality of new religious movements created in the United States and (3) shows the dynamics of migration of Russian new religious movements to Belarus. (4) Based on the analysis of Belarusian print media the main indicators of advertising and criticism of Russian and Western new religious movements are revealed. To represent the research results the author uses a matrix of non-traditional religiosity as tool for monitoring, recording and visualizing the whole variety of its forms and varieties for a specific area in a given period of time. In conclusion, the author proposes a number of promising directions for further analysis of the stated topic.