Religious Safety Practices in Normative Conflicts in Modern Russia

• Main Authors: Yulia V. Gavrilova, Yulia A. Gorbunova
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Transbaikal State University 2020-04-01
• Series: Гуманитарный вектор
• Subjects: religious safety; authoritarian practices; humanistic practices; religions; religious consciousness; normative conflicts
• Online Access: http://zabvektor.com/wp-content/uploads/080420110435-Gavrilova.pdf

The paper deals with the system of authoritarian and humanistic religious safety practices in modern Russia. The authors focus on the fact that normative conflicts are the base of the destruction of the present religious safety system. The essential features of normative conflicts consist in the contradictions between the parts of a separate system of norms and values, or between normative and value systems of different nature, which are included in one dominant culture. The authors claim that it is necessary to minimize destructive effects of normative conflicts through the removal of contradictions in order to ensure religious safety in modern Russia. The authors suggest the classification of practices that make it possible to relieve the normative conflicts, including those in the “secular” – “religious” segments, and thereby facilitate to the establishment of religious safety in modern Russia. Based on the principles of an anthropological approach, conflict functionalism, marginal anthropology and the principles of case analysis of a number of normative conflicts taking place in modern Russian society, the authors identify a system of authoritarian and humanistic practices of religious safety. The authoritarian type of practices include stigmatization, legal protection of the feelings of believers, taboo, censure, correction of behavior in accordance with the traditional system of norms and values. The humanistic practices include tolerance, non-violence, calls for a peaceful resolution of conflicts. The classification of religious safety practices is based on the interpretation of the concept of “norm”, presented by classical (Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, G. Hegel and others) and non-classical (Z. Freud, F. Nietzsche, M. Foucault) paradigms. The authors conclude that both types of religious safety practices are actively realized in modern Russia. The role of the Russian Orthodox Church in authoritarian and humanistic practices of ensuring religious safety is considered in detail.