On April 22, 2022, the Mogilev Center for Religious Studies, the Department of History and Philosophy of Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University held the XVI International Scientific and Practical Conference “Religion and Society”. The conference coordinators were Starostenko V. V., Dyachenko O. V. and Starostenko E. V., the secretary was Klimova O. P.
120 reports were presented at the conference and recommended for publication, the authors of which are researchers from Belarus, Russia and China.
Belarusian participants traditionally represent all regions of the republic, major universities and specialized scientific institutions. The participants of the conference are not only well-known and established scientists, but also young researchers — graduate students, undergraduates and students, as well as representatives of institutions of general secondary education.
At the plenary session, held online, reports were presented reflecting the diversity of areas of modern religious studies.
The fact that the division of Christianity in Europe into Orthodoxy and Catholicism reflected not only dogmatic contradictions and disputes about the supremacy of Constantinople and Rome, but also differences in the social structure of the continent, due to different options for organizing property and power in the west, east and southeast of the continent, was considered in the report “Confessional Differences of European Christianity as a Reflection of Civilizational Matrices in the History of the Continent” by Yakov Rier, Professor of the Department of History and Philosophy of Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University.
The report of Aleksey Cherneevsky, Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy of the Leningrad State University named after A. S. Pushkin (St. Petersburg, Russia) “Problems of Teaching the Basics of Religious Culture in Russian Schools” was devoted to cultural and methodological problems of teaching the basics of religious culture to junior schoolchildren in Russian schools.
In the report “Religious Activity in the Situation of the Prohibition of the Activities of a Religious Organization” by the Head of the Department of Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies of the Southern Federal University (Rostov-na-Donu, Russia) Sergey Astapov, using the example of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Russian Federation, legal conflicts related to the fact that the ban on the activities of a religious organization does not formally mean a ban on the religious activities of believers who were members of this organization. Since religious activity at the individual level, without activity in a community of fellow believers, is insufficient for the self-consciousness of a believer, there may be cases of illegitimate activity of religious communities.
In the speech of the head of the department of humanitarian disciplines of the Belarusian State University of Food and Chemical Technologies (Mogilev, Belarus) Yury Bubnov “Religiosity as a Safety Factor against Harmful Addictions of Young Students” on the basis of specific sociological data (questionnaire survey of 1634 respondents) quantitatively determined the degree of relationship between religiosity, expressed in the frequency of visits to places of worship, and exposure of young people to the risks of alcohol and tobacco addiction.
The specifics of the religious and political views of Jehovism, the conflicts of state-confessional relations in connection with the activities of the organization were considered in the report “Socio-Political Ideas in the Preaching Literature of Jehovah’s Witnesses” by Associate Professor of the Department of History and Philosophy, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs of Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University Oleg Dyachenko.
The report “The Image of a Clergyman on the Pages of the Soviet Press in the First Post-Revolutionary Years (on the example of Belarus)” by Alesya Melnikova, Associate Professor of the Department of History and Philosophy of the Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University, revealed a significant aspect of the formation of attitudes towards religion in the culture of everyday life at the beginning Soviet period of national history.
The report “Riga Catholic Theological Seminary and the Religious Life of Roman Catholics in Soviet Belarus in 1970–1980s.” by Associate Professor of the Department of Humanitarian Disciplines of the Belarusian State University of Food and Chemical Technologies (Mogilev, Belarus) Igor Pushkin was dedicated to the religious life of the Catholic population of the BSSR in the 1970–1980s and the training of priests for the Roman Catholic Church at the Riga Catholic Theological Seminary.
The features of the perception of beauty in religious art were the subject of consideration of the report “Aesthetic Aspects of Religious Art” by the head of the Department of Music and Aesthetic Education of Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University Yulia Alenkova.