This article examines the determinants of trust in religious institutions in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia — three countries with low levels of religiosity as measured by attendance, prayer and fasting, yet high levels of trust in religious institutions. The analysis employs individual-level survey data and uses ordinary least squares regression to show that while religious practices do not determine trust in religious institutions, the importance of religion in one's daily life is a strong indicator of trust in religious institutions in each country. The results also show some differences among these countries with regard to two types of control variables — trust in secular institutions and socioeconomic factors. In Georgia, interpersonal trust is a significant indicator of trust in religious institutions. Residence in the capital is only significant in Azerbaijan. Finally, both education and age are significant in Armenia. Additionally, two theories of trust in institutions are tested. First, a cultural theory of interpersonal trust proves ambiguous in the region. Second, the presence of both low religious practice and high trust in religious institutions in these countries challenges reformulated secularization theories that consider declining religious authority — measured by trust in religious institutions — as a form of secularization.

Attitudes about religion in Polish society have scarcely changed since 1989, in spite of radical political and economic transformation over the past 20 years, as survey data show. The question is why? In the following article, the author develops five alternative hypotheses to explain this phenomenon. Each of the hypotheses relates to some function of religion that is relevant in contemporary times. Among other things, historical circumstances, the role of Catholicism as a civil religion, security, and hidden privatization form the context in which one may explain the continuing vitality of religion in Poland.

This article explores the social origins and consequences of Orthodox-Muslim tensions surrounding the attempts to find a place for religion in Russia's state schools. It demonstrates that the Orthodox-Muslim tensions are an inevitable outcome of what we define as Russia's pattern of “desecularization from above.” The attempts to restore religious education are carried out by alliances of top religious and political elites, which almost by default focus on the state-run schools. These attempts run into serious social and institutional constraints, and generate considerable Orthodox-Muslim tensions and controversies spilling over to public opinion. On the surface, the Orthodox-Muslim tensions often appear in the form ironically resembling “culture wars” between religious traditionalists and secularists in the West. Our survey data indicate that public support for religious instruction in state-run schools has reached high levels and is infused with a noticeable element of religious intolerance. We predict that further attempts to desecularize Russia's state schools “from above” may have destabilizing effects in society and fuel ethno-religious tensions.

This article explores the current and probable future challenges faced by the Hungarian-speaking religious communities in northern Serbia as they try to navigate two worlds: the past and the present; cultural identification with Hungary and with Serbia. The mostly Roman Catholic and in smaller number Protestant Hungarians living in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina differ in both language and religious affiliation from the majority Serbian (by and large Orthodox Christian) population. The use of the Hungarian language and the strengthening of a sense of Hungarian identity is an important aspect of the activities their churches perform. By analyzing the socio-political and demographic situation of the Hungarians in Vojvodina, I will explore whether there is a middle road between complete assimilation and hermetical isolation in the religious-cultural-linguistic sense, which is of critical importance regarding the survival of these religious communities.

Many countries today face the challenges posed by their ethnic and religious diversity. This article comparatively analyzes how defining nation in Russia and Turkey affects what groups constitute religious minorities and what their prospects of integration into the Russian and Turkish societies are. It conceptualizes religious minorities as those religious groups that are excluded from the prevailing and institutionalized definitions of nation. This article studies what role religion, comprising Orthodox Christianity, and Sunni Islam, respectively, has played historically and until nowadays in Russia and Turkey in the definitions of their national identities and what kind of religious minorities each of these definitions created. It argues that a position of religious minorities depends not only on the informal association of national identity of the majority with certain religion, but also on the institutionalized support for the dominant religion by the ruling political forces.

The Khrushchev era brought a policy of religious repression in response to a resurgence of religious adherence after WWII. But a close evaluation of archival sources reveals distinctive features to its implementation in the Baltics, compared with other parts of the USSR and with the Orthodox Church. The study richly describes the erosion of church institutional interests, such as maintenance of registered churches and clergy, legal and financial autonomy, publications and theological education. But having adapted to their national context, republic-level state officials often pursued the campaign disproportionately against non-national churches, such as Catholics and so-called sects, thereby provoking bureaucratic tensions with party hardliners, both in Moscow and at the republic level. Motivated by its heightened anti-Vatican stance, Moscow's foreign policy opening—to the World Council of Churches, Lutheran World Federation, and the German churches—brought the Lutheran churches limited leverage against reluctant local and republic officials.

The aim of this article is to test two hypotheses on the relationship between religiosity and war-related distress in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The article is based on a representative survey (n = 3,313) in Bosnia and Herzegovina during 2003–2004. The questionnaire included 15 items on war-related distress and 13 items on war experiences. From these items we developed a war-related distress scale, a war experiences scale, and several measures of religiosity. Regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between the war-related distress symptoms on the one hand, and religiosity and war experience on the other hand, controlling for a range of other variables. Religious beliefs and religious stability seem to protect against war-related distress, but religious activity works in the opposite direction to increase war-related distress. In conclusion, we found weak support for the first hypothesis, although the effects of religiosity on war-related distress seem more complex than expected. Our second hypotheses, that religiosity may work as a buffer to dampen the effects of war experiences on war-related distress, found no support.