New/Old Idea of Man in Urban Religious Communities of a New Type

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to establish the specificities of the formation of ideas about a person within the framework of the activities of the new urban religious communities of the Kama region, namely the Intercession Monastery and the Family of God. These communities combine features of folk religiosity, new religious movements, and the so-called historical sects. Such eclecticism makes it impossible to apply to the communities the established research apparatus for new religious movements (NRMs), formed by Western (B. Wilson, D. Stone, A. Barker) and Russian (L. N. Mitrokhin, E. A. Balagushkin, I. Kanterov and others) researchers and substantiates the need for this study conducted from both a different perspective and involving new research methodology. Both communities act as a closed community, which is expressed in the territorial and communication isolation of the residents of the communal estate, the practice of internal labor duties, and the idea of the group as a family. The study is based on interviews and correspondence with former members of both communities, analysis of materials from a closed group on a social network, and recordings of classes conducted by one of the group leaders. The theoretical basis of the work was K. Dobellard’s concept of the so-called patchwork religiosity, characteristic of an individual’s attitude towards religion in modern culture. The image of a person in both communities is constructed at two levels: through making changes to the traditional Christian idea of a person and at the level of religious and near-religious activities. It has been shown that innovations related to faith include the idea of a special status of community members compared to other people, as well as provisions about their special role in the struggle to save the world. The religious activities of the groups involve conducting adjusted Christian rituals (baptism, wedding), elements of mystical experience (mental struggle with evil and enemies in the Intercession Monastery), training seminars and sermons justifying the special role of followers of the teaching in society. Social interaction within communities is built on a strict selection of monks, leader control over the behavior of group members, a system of specific penalties, including ignoring offenders, public repentance, burial alive and expulsion from the brotherhood. The study concludes that the so-called new religious movements are in reality examples of traditional religious sects observed in Russia over the centuries. Their values, behavior, and the image of the person are archaic, however they also include additional external elements of secular culture.