But Who's Going to Win? National and Minority Religions in Post-Communist Society
But Who's Going to Win? National and Minority Religions in Post-Communist Society

Summary/Abstract: With the dramatic collapse of atheistic socialism at the end of the 1980s, it was widely assumed that religious freedom would immediately spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe and that new democratic and pluralistic states would replace the oppressive regimes of the past. Soon, however, it became apparent that neither democracy nor pluralism were without their own inherent difficulties, and that religious freedom was not as easy to implement ? or even, perhaps, as desirable as had once been thought. This paper examines some of the problems that faced the Mother Churches of Eastern and Central Europe once they were allowed to function without State interference in their own societies, and how their problems were intensified by the competition from other religions that emerged in their own countries and, more particularly, came from the West. Especial attention will be paid to the characteristics of the wide variety of new religious movements or 'cults', and the reception that missionaries and converts have been receiving. One process to be examined is the extent to which the rhetoric of nationalism has become increasingly used to define heresy as treason. The paper will conclude with a brief discussion of the importance of objective research and scholarship as a contribution to the understanding of the new and alien religious movements if an extremely delicate situation is not to become exacerbated still further.

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