Introduction: Sites and Politics of Religious Diversity in Southern Europe

Abstract

In 2003, a significant debate erupted regarding the religious heritage of Europe. Valery Giscard d'Estaing and the European Commission were debating the possibility of producing a European Constitution with a specific reference to Christianity as its core value and cultural heritage. In this chapter, the main ideas under discussion are those related to the increasing visibility and political importance of transnational religious flows. These include: religious ideas, concepts and ideologies, fostered by media channels, press and other global agents; transnational missionary movements; and migrant networks through which certain ceremonial practices acquire an eminently transnational dimension. Here, what is at stake is the relationship between transnationality and pluralism, beyond traditional theories of syncretism, hybridization and creolization, and how they are mediated by certain exercises of 'imagination', here understood as the intersection between 'experience' and 'effect'. Keywords: Christianity; cultural heritage; religious diversity; Southern Europe