Religious Identity in the System of Civilizational Values

Abstract

The article defines religious identity. It is noted that this is a form of collective and individual self-awareness, built on the awareness of one’s belonging to a certain religion and forms an image of oneself and in the world with the help of relevant religious dogmas. It is the fixation of the subject’s identity in the sense of acquiring one’s own existential experience with the help of religion, with the subjective awareness of one’s belonging to one or another religious community. It is noted that historically religious identity was one of the first forms of identities. Rites, religious rituals, practices in ancient and traditional communities are important structural elements of the functioning of social systems. At the same time, other types of ethno-cultural identifications have come to the fore today. Attention is focused on four types of Orthodox identity, which manifest themselves in the public space and outside the institutional space, group, individual-personal and social-personal. The article also mentions the anthropological essence of religious identity. Modern Orthodox teaching about man, based on tradition of the Holy Scriptures, has three main components, in other words, three lines of development of the problem of man: the composition (structure) of man, the image and likeness of God in man, the purpose of man. it is also emphasized that religious identity is connected with the system of civilizational values. Any civilization arises on the basis of culture, and its core is values, primarily religious.