Abstract
AbstractFollowing the collapse of the Communist system in the early 1990s, past decades have witnessed the re-institution of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia and the Polish Catholic Church in Poland. As a crucial part of these developments, both churches have significantly increased their presence throughout several areas of public life and established ever-closer relations to their respective states and political establishments. This paper applies Jose Casanova’s conception of public religion to frame how these tendencies are perceived and experienced by the present young adult generation in Poland and Russia. The analysis of the Russian and Polish young adults’ views on the present-day role of religion in the wider society and public life reveal several concerns about the current church-state relations in both countries. Without necessarily taking a negative stance towards religion or religious traditions as such, respondents mostly expressed their views on the public role of religion in society through three interrelated main discourses: a discourse of differentiation, a discourse of diversity and plurality, and a discourse of tradition and modernity. In general, narratives are built upon the prevalent discursive formations on individual rights and freedoms as the natural and taken-for-granted states of affairs in modern democratic societies.
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