Religion and Science in Russia: Religious Studies

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleReligion and Science in Russia: Religious Studies
3. Language term English
4. lemma author Tampakis, Kostas
5. Publication date 2013
6. lemma work Religion and Science in Russia: Religious Studies
7. lemma manifestations Oriental Studies
8. Keywords Russia - religious studies - meta-theology - religiovedenie
9. Lemma body

   1. This paper was initially presented in the 1st International Scholarly Conference of the Latvian Society for the Study of Religion, University of Latvia, Riga, October 6-8, 2012. The specific volume of Oriental Studies is devoted to presenting papers from the Conference. The paper is an alternative of draft of the 2013 paper “Religion, Theology and Science in Russia”. The paper ‘s goal is to chronicle the rise of religious studies in Russia, in the context of its specific sociopolitical history. There are seven periods identified: Traditional pre-church, Church, Philosophical and axiological, Positive-scientific, Militant-infidelity, Scientific atheism and Neutral religious studies. Initially, the paper discusses briefly early Russian beliefs, such as the 11th century ‘Sermon of Law and Grace” and the ‘Tale of Bygone Years” of 1113. The paper then traces the origin of the scientific study of religion in Russia into the 19th century and in Leo Tolstoy. It aubsequently discusses how, from a state of mutual cooperation between Russian and European scientists and priests, we move to the Soviet Marxist ideology of ‘militant infidelity’ in the 1930s. In this view, religion is inherently perfected and erroneous. However, after Stalin’s death in 1954, the propagation of scientific-atheist propaganda changed tenor and became more patient and less direct. Marxist religiovedenie, roughly translated to religious studies, sought to study religion to overcome it. After a new wave of persecutions in Khrushchev ‘s period, the advent of perestroika brought courses in religious studies in universities. Orthodox Christianity appeared again in the public sphere in force, and methodological considerations for a scientific religious study appeared. Finally, in the post-Soviet era, the article concludes that there is a proliferation of ways to study religion in Russia, such as Comparative Studies, Orthodoxy Religious Studies, Esoteric Religious Studies and Metatheological.