Religion and identity: Political conditions [1 ed.] 9783666302206, 9783525302200

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Ryszard Michalak (ed.)

Religion and identity Political conditions

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Ryszard Michalak (ed.)

Religion and identity Political conditions

VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

The printing of this book was made possible with support provided by University of Zielona Góra.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: https://dnb.de. © 2023 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Robert-Bosch-Breite 10, 37079 Göttingen, Germany, an imprint of the Brill-Group (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Germany, Brill Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria) Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Typesetting: le-tex publishing services, Leipzig Cover design: SchwabScantechnik, Göttingen

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Table of Contents

Ryszard Michalak Preface: Political factors in processes of forming religious identity................

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Rafał Prostak Chapter 1: The call for toleration. Non-normative religious identity in a confessional state and in a secular state ............................................... 19 Joanna Kulska Chapter 2: Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool .......................................................... 41 Dorota Szaban Chapter 3: The role of religion in the process of building social trust: An empirical study ............................................................... 63 Stefan Dudra Chapter 4: Autocephalization of the Orthodox Church as an element of Ukraine’s identity ................................................................... 77 Waldemar Rogowski Chapter 5: Traditionalist identity as a determinant of action. The policy of the Society of Saint Pius X towards the Holy See with special reference to the pontificate of Pope Francis and his policy of the “present” ......................................................................................... 91 Arkadiusz Tyda Chapter 6: Political and social determinants of the relationship between identity and religion of “Metropolia” believers in the United States of America until 1970 ......................................................... 113 Ryszard Michalak Chapter 7: Tidöavtalet. A new phase of Sweden’s program to contain Islamism ................................................................................... 131

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Paweł A. Leszczyński Chapter 8: Legal, political and ethical aspects of the Evangelical Military Ministry within the Bundeswehr structure.................................... 155 Tytus Jaskułowski Chapter 9: The image of the Catholic Church in the Polish People’s Republic in East German Stasi weekly reports, 1981–1983 .......................... 177 Anna Ratke-Majewska Chapter 10: Who Suffered the Most? Religion and nationality as tools for constructing narratives of memory in politics: The case of Poland after World War II ....................................................................... 193 Piotr Pochyły Chapter 11: Christian identity of the Polish state in the content of the exposé of the foreign ministers of Poland in 2016–2019 ......................... 207 Beata Springer Chapter 12: The idea and model of support of religious identities by local government in the Republic of Poland .............................................. 219 Stefan Dudra Chapter 13: The Polish autocephalous Orthodox Church in the face of the ethnic identity of the Lemkos ......................................................... 241 Marcin Pisarski Chapter 14: The myth of the Pole-Catholic and the contemporary Polish far right....................................................................................... 255 Ryszard Michalak Chapter 15: Political conditions of identity changes in the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland. Is Polish Lutheranism moving towards the Swedish model?......................... 271 Authors ............................................................................................... 283

Ryszard Michalak

Preface: Political factors in processes of forming religious identity

Religious policy as an exemplification of a political factor The task that the authors of this volume of collected papers have set for themselves is to show the significance of political factors in processes of shaping religious community identity. This shaping (in the form of both influence and impact) consists in some cases of reinforcing solutions, in others, of discouraging factors that lead to problems. This can be clearly seen, for example, when the political factor in question is religious policy.1 This example can serve to illustrate the situation precisely, since it allows us to show quite clearly the dual role that shaping processes take. In almost every model of state in relation to religion, religious policies materialize dichotomously. On the one hand, such policies support and strengthen a given religious environment (for various reasons); on the other hand, they aim to weaken or annihilate certain religious entities (also motivated by a variety of reasons). Such situations can be found in both democratic secular states and non-democratic religious states. Let’s trace this phenomenon with regard to Europe. The largest group among the European countries are democratic, secular and friendly to religious associations. These countries follow the principle of soft separation.2 They include: the Republic of Austria, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Republic of Bulgaria, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Republic of Lithuania, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of Romania, the Republic of Moldova, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Kingdom of Spain, the Principality of Andorra, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Portugal, the Slovak Republic, the Republic of Slovenia, the Republic of North Macedonia, the Republic of Croatia,

1 Ryszard Michalak: Polityka wyznaniowa. Zakres zjawiska, in: Annales Universitatis Mariae CurieSkłodowska. Sectio K, Vol. XXVI, 2019, no. 1, pp. 23–35 DOI: 10.17951/k.2019.26.1.23-35; Dariusz Góra/Krzysztof Łabędź/Piotr Pochyły: Polityka wyznaniowa. Perspektywa III RP, Kraków 2019, pp. 156; Stefan Dudra: Religious policy in Poland after 1989, in: Dorota Szaban/Magdalena Zapotoczna/Piotr Pochyły (eds.): Designing and Implementing Public Policy in Contemporary Society. New Perspectives, Göttingen 2023, pp. 99–110. 2 Radosław Zenderowski/Ryszard Michalak: Polityka wyznaniowa. Aspekty teoretyczne i egzemplifikacje, Zielona Góra 2018, pp. 195.

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the Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Albania, Ukraine, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Poland, the Italian Republic, the Swiss Confederation, the Kingdom of Sweden (until 31 December 1999 a de jure religious state), and the Kingdom of Norway (a de jure religious state until 31 December 2016). These states intentionally pursue a religious policy that results in the licensing of all religious associations—without one religious organization being favored over others. Naturally, this is based on the proviso that these are not extreme in their goals and practices, nor are destructive sects or religious organizations that advocate violence or provide a base for terrorism. A model example of such a religious policy currently exists in the Federal Republic of Germany, which includes dozens of religious associations and “ideological communities” in its concession of approval. At the same time, Germany implements certain restrictive measures, including a policy of liquidation against two types of entities: the Church of Scientology,3 specifically, and generally, Muslim Salafist organizations.4 Moreover, rationing solutions apply to Muslim and Judaic organizations with regard to ritual slaughter of animals and circumcision of boys for religious reasons.5 Parallels can be found in the democratic policies of de jure religious states in Europe, which include: the Kingdom of Denmark, the Republic of Finland, the Republic of Iceland, the Republic of Malta, the Principality of Monaco, the Principality of Liechtenstein, the Republic of Greece, the Republic of Cyprus, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. On the other hand, slightly more liquidationist and rationing solutions can be observed in certain democratic and secular countries, such as the French Republic, the Republic of Ireland, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, countries that are distanced from the phenomenon

3 See: Hanna Karp: Maski sekt. Strategie sekt i nowych ruchów religijnych w obliczu komercjalizacji rynku religijnego na przykładzie Kościoła Scjentologicznego, in: Kultura – Media – Teologia, 2010, vol. 3, pp. 21–32. 4 See: Artur Ciechanowicz: Państwo Islamskie w Niemczech, Niemcy w Państwie Islamskim. RFN wobec rodzimych dżihadystow, in: Raport OSW, no. 12, 2016, pp. 5–26; Barbara Pasamonik: Fenomen europejskich dżihadystow, in: Multicultural Studies, no. 2, 2016, pp. 13–30 DOI: 10.23734/mcs. 2016.2.013.030; Mariusz Sulkowski: Polityczne konsekwencje kryzysu migracyjnego w Niemczech, in: Chrześcijaństwo–Świat–Polityka, No. 20, 2016, pp. 59–72; Małgorzata Świder/Sylwia Góra/Beata Springer: Muzułmanie i islam w Niemczech – perspektywa polityczna, prawna i kulturowa, Kraków 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12797/9788381381024 5 Ewa Tuora-Schwierskott: Wolność sumienia i religii – aspekty prawnomiędzynarodowe oraz konstytucyjne na przykładzie regulacji prawa polskiego, niemieckiego i czeskiego, in: Małgorzata Sosnowska/ Piotr Szymaniec/Ewa Tuora-Schwierskott (eds.): Przestrzeń wolności religijnej w Polsce, Czechach i Niemczech. Analiza prawna, Wałbrzych 2017, pp. 92–96.

Political factors in processes of forming religious identity

of religion through a form of an antagonistic separation between religion and state. Still more complicated is the policy of the European Union towards religion.6 Within the continental borders of Europe, there are also states that are de facto non-democratic, while being de facto religious. In these cases, dichotomous and extreme solutions prevail, such as maximum concession and support for some religious communities and restrictive policies towards others. This characterization applies to the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Turkey, and the Republic of Kazakhstan. The first of these countries unreservedly supports the Orthodox Church, and has a policy of liquidation for virtually all other churches and religious associations if elements competing with Orthodoxy are perceived in their activities.7 Particularly persecuted in Russia of the Vladimir Putin era is the Jehovah’s Witness community, whose organization was banned in 2017 and its assets confiscated.8 There is also a clear antipathy directed at the Roman Catholic Church, which, like Muslim organizations,9 is subject to rationing policies. The religious policy of Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko is in practice an imitation of the Russian scheme.10 Related to this is Turkey of the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan era, which is undergoing systematic “resunnification.” Its foreign policy is accompanied by numerous religious tensions (particularly with Austria11 and Germany,12 among others). One feature in Turkey’s foreign policy is to look after the interests of Sunnis around the world as part of its “mosque policy”— based on Ahmet Davutoğlu’s doctrine of Turkey dominating the Muslim world. One part of this policy involves Turkey funding the construction or renovation of Sunni mosques in Islamic countries. A second pillar of this policy is the construction of mosques in non-Muslim states, 6 Michał Gierycz: Chrześcijaństwo i Unia Europejska. Rola religii w procesie integracji europejskiej, Kraków – Warszawa 2008, pp. 440; Piotr Mazurkiewicz/Patrycja Laszuk/Urszula Góral: Unia Europejska wobec religii, Warszawa 2021, pp. 203. 7 Ryszard Michalak: Państwo, Cerkiew i Kościół Rzymskokatolicki w Rosji w 2002 roku. Tajny raport “O ekstremizmie religijnym w Federacji Rosyjskiej,” in: Wiesław Hładkiewicz (ed.): W kręgu historii, prawa i nauki o polityce, Zielona Góra 2004, pp. 231–256. 8 Radosław Zenderowski/Ryszard Michalak: op. cit., pp. 105–107. 9 Ryszard Michalak: Religijne uwarunkowania radykalnego rosyjskiego nacjonalizmu. Tożsamość rosyjsko-prawosławna a islam – kwestia sprzężenia zwrotnego, in: Athenaeum. Polskie Studia Politologiczne, no. 33, 2012, pp. 23–35. 10 Jerzy Waszkiewicz: Identyfikacja religijna i państwowa polityka wyznaniowa Białorusi, in: Studia Białorutenistyczne, vol. 10, 2016, pp. 77–89. DOI: 10.17951/sb.2016.10.77 11 Wioletta Husar Poliszuk/Bartłomiej Secler/Piotr S. Ślusarczyk: Polityka wyznaniowa. Konteksty innych polityk publicznych. Austria, Katalonia Polska, Zielona Góra 2018, chapter I, pp. 13–34, chapter II, pp. 35–80. 12 Gérard-François Dumont: Germany. Geopolitics of Migration: The Chancellor Merkel’s Tragedy in Five Acts, in: Christianity – World – Politics. Journal of the Catholic Social Thought, no. 25, 2021, pp. 34–49. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21697/CSP.2021.25.1.03

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with investments managed by Turkey’s Directorate for Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı). A third policy direction is to directly strengthen pro-government Sunni organizations on Turkish territory and systematically restrict the activities of Yazidis, Shiites, Alevis and Christians.13 Many similarities to this third direction can be found in the religious policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan under President Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev. This Sunni-dominated authoritarian state has begun a series of planned eradication and rationing measures targeting Christian churches and other religious circles deemed to be in competition with Hanafi Sunnism.14

“I am an Orthodox Lemko,” “I am a Basque-Catholic,” “I am Saam-Laestadian” The relevance of political factors as tools for influencing religious circles has gained particular importance in recent years in the face of questions regarding identities of individuals and collective groups. These questions have been posed by representatives of the scholarly community in relation to many disciplines and areas of life.15 Despite the increasing popularity of ideologies hostile to religion and processes of secularization, religion remains an important component of human identity. Sometimes religion is the most important element of identity. This can be seen in how people self-identify themselves: “First of all, I am a Buddhist, then a Sinhalese and a Sri Lankan”16 ; or “First of all, I am a Muslim belonging to the Ummah, then a Syrian and a Damascene”17 ; etc. A popular category of self-identification has also long been the combination of religious identity with ethnicity or nationality18 : “I

13 Ryszard Michalak: The significance of the religious factor in the internal and external policies of Turkey, in: Review of Nationalities, vol. 9, 2019, pp. 165–174. 14 Kazakhstan. International Religious Freedom Report for 2021 United States Department of State, in: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/KAZAKHSTAN-2021-INTERNATIONALRELIGIOUS-FREEDOM-REPORT.pdf [last accessed: 31.10.2022]. 15 Matthew R. Miles: Religious Identity in US Politics, Boulder 2019, pp. 190. 16 Piotr Kłodkowski: Fenomen polityzacji buddyzmu w XXI wieku. Buddyzm jako narzędzie budowania ideowej tożsamości narodu w Birmie (Mjanma) i na Sri Lance oraz realizowania polityki zagranicznej w kontekście współzawodnictwa indyjsko-chińskiego w Azji, in: Studia Religiologica 50 (1) 2017, pp. 25–51. DOI: 10.4467/20844077SR.17.003.6523 17 Fuad Jomma: Wpływ podziałów religijnych, narodowych i etnicznych na procesy polityczne w Syrii, Szczecin 2018, pp. 641. 18 Radosław Zenderowski: Religia jako fundament i rdzeń tożsamości narodowej, in: Ryszard Michalak (ed.): Polityka jako wyraz lub następstwo religijności, Zielona Góra 2015, pp. 103–122.

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am an Orthodox Lemko”19 ; “I am a Basque-Catholic”20 ; “I am Saam-Laestadian”; etc.21 In some cases, self-identification based on religion can be quite complex, as for example, in the United States, the category of “white, evangelical, born-again Protestants,”22 who form the base of the religious-political movement of the New Religious Right.23 It is worth noting here another truism: indeed, self-identification that negates a religious component is a de facto reference to religion, as for example, the 72 percent of Czech adults who include “atheism,” “agnosticism” or “irreligion” in their identity.24 Increasingly, religion is also becoming an object of political influence, as well as the converse, with religion determining various phenomena in the political sphere.25 All this means that studying the relationship between religion, identity and politics has become an important and timely task faced by political scientists. Among the most recent monographs that have appeared in Poland as part of this research current, it is worth noting the volumes by Stefan Dudra on the Orthodox community,26 Rafał Prostak on the Baptists,27 and Andrzej Dwojnych and Rafał Łętocha on the Mariavites.28

19 Arkadiusz Tyda: The consequences of the 1989 changes in the socio-political activity of Lemkos in Poland and the United States of America, in: Review of Nationalities, vol. 11, 2021, pp. 81–91. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pn-2021-0007 20 Wioletta Husar-Poliszuk: Dios leyes viejas – religia w działalności politycznej Sabino de Arana y Goiri, in: Ryszard Michalak (ed.): Polityka jako wyraz lub następstwo religijności…, pp. 241–250. 21 Anne Heith: Laestadius and Laestadianism in the Contested Field of Cultural Heritage. A Study of Contemporary Sámi and Tornedalian Texts, Umeå 2018, pp. 249. 22 Rafał Prostak: Russell Moore jako recenzent udziału białych, ewangelikalnych, ”nowonarodzonych” protestantów w amerykańskich wyborach prezydenckich w 2016 roku, in: Stefan Dudra et al. (eds.): Polityczne uwarunkowania religii—religijne uwarunkowania polityki, Zielona Góra 2017, pp. 257–271. 23 Marcin Pomarański: Współczesny amerykański fundamentalizm protestancki, Lublin 2013, pp. 351. 24 Neha Sahgal/Alan Cooperman et al.: Religijność i przynależność narodowa w Europie ŚrodkowoWschodniej Przenikanie się tożsamości narodowej i religijnej w regionie dawniej zdominowanym przez ateistyczne reżimy, in: Raport Pew Research Center, 10.05.2017, p. 9. 25 Jeffrey Haynes (ed.): The Politics of Religion. A Survey, London and New York 2006, pp. 296. 26 Stefan Dudra: Polski Autokefaliczny Kościół Prawosławny w obszarze polityki wyznaniowej oraz polityki narodowościowej Polski Ludowej i III Rzeczypospolitej, Warszawa 2019, pp. 958. 27 Rafał Prostak: Ogród murem oddzielony od pustyni. Relacje Kościół-państwo, wolność sumienia i tolerancja religijna w myśli pierwszych baptystów, Warszawa 2020, pp. 251. 28 Andrzej Dwojnych/Rafał Łętocha: W stronę Królestwa Bożego na ziemi. Myśl społeczno-polityczna mariawitów polskich, Kraków 2021, pp. 422.

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The contents of this volume and its authors This volume consists of fifteen chapters, which take into account both theoretical issues and various case studies. The research perspective is guided primarily by the determinants of the political science of religion,29 understood as a subdiscipline of the political sciences, with its essence above all the political analysis of the phenomenon of religion or any of its components (doctrine, cult, religious organization), as well as the analysis of religion in relation to issues that are part of the political world. What makes this volume unique is that it contains, with one exception, explanations based on political science analysis in relation to current affairs. The individual chapters also reflect unique examples. Among the issues addressed here are religious policy of the state in each of its facets—concession, rationing, liquidation, instrumental actions of political actors to strengthen or limit ethno-religious orientation; the problem of tolerance in relation to religious identity; religious identity as a political tool; the role of religion in the process of building social trust; negation of identity shaped by religion from the position of political movements; confrontation of identity factions within a religious association; the policy of church authorities regarding the self-described identity of believers; theological proposals and ecclesial social teaching motivated or conditioned by politics; traditionalist identity as a determinant of action; autocephalization of the church as an element of identity; religion and nationality as tools for constructing narratives of memory in politics; and finally, legal, political and ethical aspects of military pastoral services. Considerations include global and regional situations, as well as issues occurring in specific countries. The narrative features, among others: Ukraine, Russia, Germany, the United States, Canada, Poland, Hungary, Vatican City and Sweden. Among religious entities, the authors highlight, among others: the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Patriarchate of Moscow and All-Russia, the Greek Catholic Church, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Orthodox Church in Poland, the Lutheran World Federation, the Evangelical Augsburg Church in Poland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, the Church of Sweden, the Hungarian Reformed Church, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Union, and the Muslim Council of Sweden.

29 Miroljub Jevtić: Political Science and Religion, in: Politics and Religion Journal, vol. 1, 2007, pp. 59–69; Ryszard Michalak: Politologia religii, in: Joanna Marszałek-Kawa, Danuta Plecka (eds.): Leksykon wiedzy politologicznej, Toruń 2018, pp. 344–348; idem: History of Politology of Religion in Poland. A Research Overview, in: Politics and Religion Journal, 2020, Vol. XIV, No. 2, pp. 219–262; Maria Marczewska-Rytko: Politologia religii jako subdyscyplina religioznawstwa i/lub nauk o polityce, in: Maria Marczewska-Rytko/Dorota Maj (eds.): Politologia religii, Lublin 2018; Maciej Potz: Political Science of Religion – Theorising the Political Role of Religion, Cham (Switzerland) 2020, pp. 187.

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The authors represent five academic institutions in Poland: the University of Zielona Góra (Stefan Dudra, Tytus Jaskułowski, Ryszard Michalak, Marcin Pisarski, Piotr Pochyły, Anna Ratke-Majewska, Beata Springer, Dorota Szaban, Arkadiusz Tyda); the University of Opole (Joanna Kulska); Cracow University of Economics (Rafał Prostak); Father Jerzy Popiełuszko Academy of Democracy in Grudziądz (Waldemar Rogowski); and the Jacob of Paradies University in Gorzów Wielkopolski (Paweł Leszczyński). This volume is another result of research in the political science of religion being conducted at the Institute of Political Science and Administration at the University of Zielona Góra in cooperation with other research institutions. Earlier multi-author volumes30 have appeared in cooperation with scholars working at, among other places: the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, the Ignatianum Academy in Cracow, the Pedagogical University in Cracow, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, the University of Warsaw, the University of Szczecin, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Maria CurieSkłodowska University in Lublin, the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Pomeranian University in Słupsk, the University of Rzeszów, the University of Łódź, the University of Silesia in Katowice, and the Institute of National Remembrance in Katowice. Still other monographic publications have appeared in cooperation with scholars from the United States,31 Great Britain,32 Spain,33 Sweden,34 Slovakia,35 and

30 See: Ryszard Michalak (ed.): Religijne determinanty polityki, Zielona Góra 2014, pp. 218; idem (ed.): Polityka jako wyraz lub następstwo religijności, Zielona Góra 2015, pp. 410; idem (ed.): Implementacja zasad religijnych w sferze politycznej, Zielona Góra 2016, pp. 239; Stefan Dudra et al. (eds.): Polityczne uwarunkowania religii. Religijne uwarunkowania polityki, Zielona Góra 2017, pp. 313. 31 Stefan Dudra: Lemko identity and the Orthodox Church, Higganum, Connecticut 2018, pp. 150 (in cooperation with Prof. Paul J. Best – Southern Connecticut State University). 32 Ryszard Michalak: The Methodist Church in Poland Activity and Political Conditions, 1945–1989, London – New York 2021, pp. 210. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003187417 (in cooperation with Prof. William Gibson – Oxford Brookes University). 33 Stefan Dudra/Jan Iwanek/Eduard Tarnawski: Situación politica de Espana a finales del siglo XX y a principios del siglo XXI, Zielona Góra 2020, pp. 181 (Eduard Tarnawski held professorships at the universities of Granada, Barcelona, Murcia and Valencia). 34 Stefan Dudra/Piotr Pochyły (eds.): From political and historical studies, Stockholm 2014, pp. 157 (in cooperation with Dr. Khoushnaw Tillo of the Swedish Institute for Strategic Studies and Academic Research in Stockholm). 35 Michal Šmigel’/Bohdan Halczak/Roman Drozd/Stefan Dudra/Olena Kozakevych (eds.): Lemkovia, Bojkovia, Rusíni: dejiny, súčasnosť, materiálna a duchovná kultúra. T. 7, č.1-2, Banská Bystrica 2018, pp. 366 (vol. 1), pp. 332 (vol. 2). (Michal Šmigel’ is Professor of history at the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica; Olena Kozakevych holds a PhD and is a research fellow at the Folk Art Department of the Ethnology Institute of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Lviv).

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Ukraine.36 Numerous articles in the field of political science of religion have also been published by scholars from countries around the world in Review of Nationalities,37 a journal published by the Institute of Political Science and Administration of the University of Zielona Góra. More recently, a number of monographs published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage have served to make Polish research in the field of political science of religion more widely known, especially research being done at Zielona Góra.38

Bibliography Ciechanowicz, Artur: Państwo Islamskie w Niemczech, Niemcy w Państwie Islamskim. RFN wobec rodzimych dżihadystow, in: Raport OSW, no. 12, 2016, pp. 5–26. Dudra, Stefan: Religious policy in Poland after 1989, in: Dorota Szaban/Magdalena Zapotoczna/Piotr Pochyły (eds.): Designing and Implementing Public Policy in Contemporary Society. New Perspectives, Göttingen 2023, pp. 99–110. Dudra, Stefan/Iwanek, Jan/Tarnawski, Eduard: Situación politica de Espana a finales del siglo XX y a principios del siglo XXI, Zielona Góra 2020. Dudra, Stefan/Pochyły, Piotr (eds.): From political and historical studies, Stockholm 2014. Dudra, Stefan et al. (eds.): Polityczne uwarunkowania religii. Religijne uwarunkowania polityki, Zielona Góra 2017. Dudra, Stefan: Lemko identity and the Orthodox Church, Higganum, Connecticut, 2018. Dudra, Stefan: Polski Autokefaliczny Kościół Prawosławny w obszarze polityki wyznaniowej oraz polityki narodowościowej Polski Ludowej i III Rzeczypospolitej, Warszawa 2019. Dudra, Stefan/Jaskułowski, Tytus/Michalak, Ryszard (eds.): Religious policy. Between theory and practice, Göttingen 2022. Dumont, Gérard-François: Germany. Geopolitics of Migration: The Chancellor Merkel’s Tragedy in Five Acts, in: Christianity – World – Politics. Journal of the Catholic Social Thought, no. 25, 2021, pp. 34–49. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21697/CSP.2021.25.1.03 Dwojnych, Andrzej/Łętocha, Rafał: W stronę Królestwa Bożego na ziemi. Myśl społecznopolityczna mariawitów polskich, Kraków 2021. Gierycz, Michał: Chrześcijaństwo i Unia Europejska. Rola religii w procesie integracji europejskiej, Kraków – Warszawa 2008.

36 Piotr Pochyły/Roman Sapeńko (eds.): Wojna/pokój. Humanistyka wobec wyzwań współczesności, Zielona Góra 2017, pp. 682 (in cooperation with researchers at Zhytomyr Ivan Franko State University and Rivne State Humanitarian University). 37 http://reviewofnationalities.com 38 Stefan Dudra/Tytus Jaskułowski/Ryszard Michalak (eds.): Religious policy. Between theory and practice, Göttingen 2022, pp. 184.

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Góra, Dariusz/Łabędź, Krzysztof/Pochyły, Piotr: Polityka wyznaniowa. Perspektywa III RP, Kraków 2019. Haynes, Jeffrey (ed.): The Politics of Religion. A Survey, London and New York 2006. Heith, Anne: Laestadius and Laestadianism in the Contested Field of Cultural Heritage. A Study of Contemporary Sámi and Tornedalian Texts, Umeå 2018. Husar Poliszuk Wioletta/Secler, Bartłomiej/Ślusarczyk, Piotr S.: Polityka wyznaniowa. Konteksty innych polityk publicznych. Austria, Katalonia Polska, Zielona Góra 2018. Husar-Poliszuk, Wioletta: Dios leyes viejas – religia w działalności politycznej Sabino de Arana y Goiri, in: Ryszard Michalak (ed.): Polityka jako wyraz lub następstwo religijności, Zielona Góra 2015, pp. 241–250. Jevtić, Miroljub: Political Science and Religion, in: Politics and Religion Journal, vol. 1, 2007, pp. 59–69. Jomma, Fuad: Wpływ podziałów religijnych, narodowych i etnicznych na procesy polityczne w Syrii, Szczecin 2018. Karp, Hanna: Maski sekt. Strategie sekt i nowych ruchów religijnych w obliczu komercjalizacji rynku religijnego na przykładzie Kościoła Scjentologicznego, in: Kultura – Media – Teologia, 2010, vol. 3, pp. 21–32. Kazakhstan. International Religious Freedom Report for 2021 United States Department of State, in: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/KAZAKHSTAN-2021INTERNATIONAL-RELIGIOUS-FREEDOM-REPORT.pdf [last accessed: 31.10.2022]. Kłodkowski, Piotr: Fenomen polityzacji buddyzmu w XXI wieku. Buddyzm jako narzędzie budowania ideowej tożsamości narodu w Birmie (Mjanma) i na Sri Lance oraz realizowania polityki zagranicznej w kontekście współzawodnictwa indyjsko-chińskiego w Azji, in: Studia Religiologica 50 (1) 2017, pp. 25–51. DOI: 10.4467/20844077SR.17.003.6523 Mazurkiewicz, Piotr/Laszuk, Patrycja/Góral, Urszula: Unia Europejska wobec religii, Warszawa 2021. Michalak, Ryszard: Państwo, Cerkiew i Kościół Rzymskokatolicki w Rosji w 2002 roku. Tajny raport “O ekstremizmie religijnym w Federacji Rosyjskiej,” in: Wiesław Hładkiewicz (ed.): W kręgu historii, prawa i nauki o polityce, Zielona Góra 2004, pp. 231–256. Michalak, Ryszard: Religijne uwarunkowania radykalnego rosyjskiego nacjonalizmu. Tożsamość rosyjsko-prawosławna a islam – kwestia sprzężenia zwrotnego, in: Athenaeum. Polskie Studia Politologiczne, no. 33, 2012, pp. 23–35. Michalak, Ryszard: Polityka wyznaniowa. Zakres zjawiska, in: Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska. Sectio K, Vol. XXVI, 2019, no. 1, pp. 23–35 DOI: 10.17951/ k.2019.26.1.23-35. Michalak, Ryszard: The significance of the religious factor in the internal and external policies of Turkey, in: Review of Nationalities, vol. 9, 2019, pp. 165–174. Miles, Matthew R.: Religious Identity in US Politics, Boulder 2019. Marczewska-Rytko, Maria: Politologia religii jako subdyscyplina religioznawstwa i/lub nauk o polityce, in: Maria Marczewska-Rytko/Dorota Maj (eds.): Politologia religii. Lublin 2018. Michalak, Ryszard (ed.): Religijne determinanty polityki, Zielona Góra 2014.

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Michalak, Ryszard (ed.): Polityka jako wyraz lub następstwo religijności, Zielona Góra 2015. Michalak, Ryszard (ed.): Implementacja zasad religijnych w sferze politycznej, Zielona Góra 2016. Michalak, Ryszard: Politologia religii, in: Joanna Marszałek-Kawa, Danuta Plecka (eds.): Leksykon wiedzy politologicznej, Toruń 2018, pp. 344–348. Michalak, Ryszard: History of Politology of Religion in Poland. A Research Overview, in: Politics and Religion Journal, 2020, Vol. XIV, No. 2, pp. 219–262. Michalak, Ryszard: The Methodist Church in Poland Activity and Political Conditions, 1945–1989, London – New York 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003187417 Pasamonik, Barbara: Fenomen europejskich dżihadystow, in: Multicultural Studies, no. 2, 2016, pp. 13–30. DOI: 10.23734/mcs. 2016.2.013.030 Pochyły, Piotr/Sapeńko Roman (eds.): Wojna/pokój. Humanistyka wobec wyzwań współczesności, Zielona Góra 2017. Pomarański, Marcin: Współczesny amerykański fundamentalizm protestancki, Lublin 2013. Potz, Maciej: Political Science of Religion – Theorising the Political Role of Religion, Cham (Switzerland) 2020. Prostak, Rafał: Russell Moore jako recenzent udziału białych, ewangelikalnych, “nowonarodzonych” protestantów w amerykańskich wyborach prezydenckich w 2016 roku, in: Stefan Dudra et al. (eds.): Polityczne uwarunkowania religii—religijne uwarunkowania polityki, Zielona Góra 2017, pp. 257–271. Prostak, Rafał: Ogród murem oddzielony od pustyni. Relacje Kościół-państwo, wolność sumienia i tolerancja religijna w myśli pierwszych baptystów, Warszawa 2020. reviewofnationalities.com Sahgal, Neha/Cooperman, Alan et al.: Religijność i przynależność narodowa w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej Przenikanie się tożsamości narodowej i religijnej w regionie dawniej zdominowanym przez ateistyczne reżimy, in: Raport Pew Research Center, 10.05.2017. Sulkowski, Mariusz: Polityczne konsekwencje kryzysu migracyjnego w Niemczech, in: Chrześcijaństwo–Świat–Polityka, no. 20, 2016, pp. 59–72. Świder, Małgorzata/Góra, Sylwia/Springer, Beata: Muzułmanie i islam w Niemczech – perspektywa polityczna, prawna i kulturowa, Kraków 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12797/ 9788381381024 Šmigel‘, Michal/Halczak, Bohdan/Drozd, Roman/Dudra, Stefan/Kozakevych, Olena (eds.): Lemkovia, Bojkovia, Rusíni : dejiny, súčasnosť, materiálna a duchovná kultúra. T. 7, č.1–2, Banská Bystrica 2018. Tuora-Schwierskott, Ewa: Wolność sumienia i religii – aspekty prawnomiędzynarodowe oraz konstytucyjne na przykładzie regulacji prawa polskiego, niemieckiego i czeskiego, in: Małgorzata Sosnowska/Piotr Szymaniec/Ewa Tuora-Schwierskott (eds.): Przestrzeń wolności religijnej w Polsce, Czechach i Niemczech. Analiza prawna, Wałbrzych 2017.

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Tyda, Arkadiusz: The consequences of the 1989 changes in the socio-political activity of Lemkos in Poland and the United States of America, in: Review of Nationalities, vol.11, 2021, pp. 81–91. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pn-2021-0007 Waszkiewicz, Jerzy: Identyfikacja religijna i państwowa polityka wyznaniowa Białorusi, in: Studia Białorutenistyczne, vol. 10, 2016, pp. 77–89. DOI:10.17951/sb.2016.10.77 Zenderowski, Radosław/Michalak, Ryszard: Polityka wyznaniowa. Aspekty teoretyczne i egzemplifikacje, Zielona Góra 2018. Zenderowski, Radosław: Religia jako fundament i rdzeń tożsamości narodowej, in: Ryszard Michalak (ed.): Polityka jako wyraz lub następstwo religijności, Zielona Góra 2015, pp. 103–122.

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Chapter 1: The call for toleration Non-normative religious identity in a confessional state and in a secular state

Introductory notes Religious freedom, like the concept of human rights itself, is a product of Western civilization. Successive generations of participants in our cultural circle have experienced social rejection, political exclusion, legal restrictions and persecution for sharing unorthodox beliefs, for possibly participating in a cult incomprehensible to the majority, or for questioning the authority of a clergy that enjoys political support. The secular authority’s reaching for the sword in defense of unity and social peace, which were threatened by heterodox teachings and “bizarre” practices, was long an unshakeable and widely accepted norm. Religion, in addition to meeting spiritual needs, was seen as a support, if not the very foundation of social peace and social norms. With such an assumption, state religion was, in fact, seen as the only true religion. This order has been maintained since the days of republican Rome, where Roman state worship was described as religio, and any unofficial worldview positions as superstitio. Despite changes in the content of state religion in subsequent eras, religio has continued to set the norm for beliefs and, above all, rituals, while any nonnormative worship continues to be considered superstitio. Today, national constitutions as well as international human rights law point to religious freedom as one of the basic human rights. The legal guarantees associated with this affirm (1) the individual right to seek answers to ultimate questions, as well as (2) the right to take action in response to the content of those answers. The former right is supposed to be absolute, remaining beyond the reach of public authority; after all, “thoughts are tax-free,”1 as Martin Luther was once to remind us. In contrast, the latter right is subject to restrictions in the name of the need to safeguard the public interest; this is capable of outweighing the legal interest of the individual seeking a guarantee of freedom of religious practice. Placing religious freedom within the framework of the competition of these two legal interests is common today: the individual’s right (where the subject can be a single individual, but also a family, a religious association with a legal entity, or a civil law entity

1 Jene M. Porter: Luther: Selected Political Writings, Lanham/New York/London 1998, p. 62.

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affiliated to it), and the right of the public.2 Nevertheless, it is common to treat religious freedom in its internal dimension as a space in which a person makes an autonomous decision about the content of his or her beliefs without any restrictions: the promptings of conscience become a private matter for the individual. However, the conditions under which religious freedom functions is a thread or context that is being neglected today in our public discourse; likewise being neglected are the goals of that freedom. Significantly, these questions predate the establishment of religious freedom as a universal, fundamental right. What we have in mind is the call for tolerance of the beliefs and attitudes defining an individual’s identity, as well as the collective with which he or she identifies, if these are clearly and significantly separate from the worldview environment, which sometimes refers to such persons with open dislike. Although we are accustomed to aligning religious tolerance with religious freedom—that is, seeing tolerance as the legal and political consequence of recognizing the fundamental right to religious freedom—the two can be thought of as conceptual entities that function independently. To reiterate, the call for tolerating identities that meet general social rejection was articulated long before religious freedom was conceptualized in the sense of an inherent and inalienable right. The concept of religious freedom in the form recognizable by us today was the fruit of a process that lasted several centuries, despite the fact that we already find the notion of religious freedom (in essence, “freedom of conscience”) in the writings of Tertullian and in the Edict of Toleration of Constantine and Licinius of 313 CE. As a political demand, it appeared in the writings of the first English Baptists shortly before the English Civil War (1642–1652). But as a universal right,

2 The very distinction between private legal interest and public legal interest is also Roman in nature. In 212 CE (or 213), Emperor Caracalla issued the edict Constitutio Antoniniana (known as the Edict of Caracalla). This act of extraordinary importance in reforming the Empire required commentary. Among the most prominent commentators was Ulpian (170–223? or 228? CE), who gave a new meaning to the distinction “public law” and “private law.” Previously, “public law” had been understood as established rules that are not subject to change as a result of “private agreements.” In Ulpian terms, the public–private distinction is based on the identification of legal interest. Public law refers objectively to public issues (the public interest) and the actions of the authorized organs of the state (magisterium) to secure it, while private law refers to the actions of individuals seeking to secure their individual interests. Issues of worship in Roman law were placed in the space of public law, Peter Stein: Roman Law in European History, Cambridge 1999, p. 21. In the opening of The Digest of Justinian, we find an oft-cited statement by Ulpian: “Of this subject there are two departments, public law and private law. Public law is that which regards the constitution of the Roman state, private law looks at the interest of individuals; as a matter of fact, some things are beneficial from the point of view of the state, and some with reference to private persons. Public law is concerned with sacred rites, with priests, with public officers.” [(Charles Henry Monro (trans.): The Digest of Justinian, vol. 1, Cambridge 1904, p. 3 (Book I.1.2)]. It is clear from thisstatement that the issues of worship and its administration (priestly office) were basic tasks of public law in ancient Rome.

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inherent and inalienable, it only first resounds in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776).3 This chapter is an attempt to comment on the widespread bans in Europe on face covering by female followers of Islam. This is an obvious interference with the freedom of religious practice of these Muslims. If we weigh the legal, private and public interests of religious practice, as well as the limits of freedom, our viewpoint is narrowed significantly. Downplaying the importance of this religious practice for the self-identification, that is, identity, of those concerned and religious toleration as a principle of democratic constitutionalism precludes any possibility of grasping the essence of the matter. The issue is not only about an individual’s freedom of choice and their autonomy (the decision to cover their face from outsiders). The juxtaposition of the importance of their choice with the need to protect the public interest (“living together”) could possibly outweigh this choice: the doctrine of proportionality. The call of conscience and the need to follow the dictates of the religious law with which a follower of a particular religion identifies does not necessarily match with our modern understanding of the essence of freedom, in this case freedom of religion. Seeking to legally secure the possibility of practicing a religion that is “foreign” or bizarre, deviating from the social norm, or perhaps even repulsive, forces us to confront the question of the limits of tolerance: where is the limit of our willingness to recognize the right to persist in and live in accordance with “non-normative” teachings? While in the case of religious freedom, we focus our attention on the subject of that freedom, in the case of tolerance, the state comes first, since it is the state that is called upon to tolerate unpopular beliefs and practices. Among the various definitions of and approaches toward tolerance, it is worthwhile to look at the findings of Mario Turchetti, who saw in tolerance an attitude of sincere acceptance of the unbudging differences between a person’s own position and the positions held by the person being tolerated, without any hope of these positions changing. Temporary concession, that is, the “consent to persist” (here Turchetti uses the term “concord”) in anticipation of the moment when the seemingly tolerated person finally accepts one’s point of view (in other words, conversion), when unity (or at least uniformity) of beliefs is achieved, is not a manifestation of tolerance. In this case, it is not tolerance that is actually at issue, but the unity to which tolerance is intended to lead. As Turchetti writes: “the foundation and maintenance of unity has been the goal of all social, political, economic, legal, and religious institutions. Concord has always been sought by

3 Section 16 of Virginia Declaration of Rights: “That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.”

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forms of government, and was even worshipped as a goddess in ancient Greece as well as in the Roman Republic and Empire. Several temples were dedicated to Concord.”4 A starting point for this topic is a consideration of the legal situation of Christians in the pre-Constantinian era. Our attention is focused on Tertullian’s argument for extending a policy of tolerance to Christ’s followers. The early Christian call for tolerance was an appeal for the recognition, in the society of the Roman Empire, of the right to exist of a group whose characteristics did not fit the pattern of the Roman political community and whose social influence was widely perceived as a threat to Roman civilization due to their sabotaging established customs, not showing the expected respect for what was considered sacred, and refusing to participate in practices that integrated the civic community. The search for analogies between the legal situation, and social reception, of Christians at the turn of the second and third centuries with the situation of female followers of Islam covering their faces in our day may seem a reckless undertaking. The distance in time between the two means we are dealing with cultural realities that are essentially incompatible. Nevertheless, the questions articulated by Tertullian appear to us to be still relevant today; his demands prompt us to reflect on the condition of religious freedom in our world.

Religious tolerance While the focus of a discussion of religious freedom as a fundamental right is on the person (the entitled agent), this is not necessarily the case with religious tolerance. It should be noted here that religious tolerance can be thought of in two ways: tolerance and toleration. The former refers to the disposition of a subject who is willing to tolerate dissent, which in this case is dissent involving worldview. As Bernard Crick has noted, tolerance functions here as a value or an attitude that gains in importance when the capacity for intolerance is retained. Intolerance is not the converse of tolerance; it conditions it, since tolerance is not absolute. Without identifying what will not be tolerated, it is impossible to identify what will be tolerated. In addition, the discussion of tolerance loses its meaning when we have no control over our behavior, when we are forced to adopt an “attitude of tolerance.”5 Tolerance requires self-restraint; it is not caused by a constraint coming from outside. The discussion of tolerance also 4 Mario Turchetti: Religious Concord and Political Tolerance in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France, in: The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 22, no. 1 (1991), pp. 15–25. 5 Bernard Crick: Toleration and Tolerance in Theory and Practice, in: Government and Opposition. An International Journal of Comparative Politics, vol. 6, issue 2 (1971).

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loses value when we reduce it to indifference or acceptance. According to Crick, the opposite of tolerance is precisely indifference; the opposite of intolerance is full acceptance. Being indifferent, I give up valuing and identifying with any beliefs, values or patterns of behavior. By accepting, I accept others’ beliefs, values and patterns of behavior as my own. Using the concept of acceptance in describing tolerance is adequate in the following form: “I accept the fact that your opinions, values and attitudes are alien to me (they are not mine), which does not preclude our coexistence and cooperation.” Acceptance here refers to the intransigence of differences; it is not the acceptance of another’s position as your own. A tolerant attitude does not exclude worldview perfectionism, but respects worldview diversity: disapproval of differing opinions, values and attitudes is accompanied by a reluctance to impose my worldview position on those who abide beside me. We will say here, after Crick: “To be tolerant is never to accept fully; it is simply not to reject utterly.”6 When we refer to tolerance as tolerance, we do not prejudge the subject displaying it. This could be an individual or a group of people, but it could also be a public authority, even the state as a whole. In contrast, tolerance as toleration is not an attitude, but a deliberate action of public authority that allows the functioning of certain denominational religious groups. In this view, our attention is focused on the political decision-maker who is willing to tolerate given views, attitudes, practices or religious associations by creating the appropriate legal guarantees through their power to issue an act of toleration. The political decision-maker here is driven by the need for tolerance of the governed, thus realizing the public interest of toleration. Political toleration here is expedient state policy. If it is expedient, then what is the motivation? Staying in the area of our considerations here, let us assume that political toleration is: (1) a rational response to the legitimate claims of an individual seeking to secure his or her religious freedom—prompting a co-linear juxtaposition of religious freedom and religious tolerance; alternatively, (2) a pragmatic need to preserve social peace in the state (e. g., the Warsaw Confederation, 1573; the Edict of Nantes, 1598; the Act of Toleration, 1688), or the peaceful coexistence of state actors (e. g., the Peace of Augsburg, 1555); or (3) a willingness to implement publicly affirmed values, such as pluralism and respect for others, as illustrated in Rawls’ ideal of political liberalism. While in the case of (1) and (3) we can find congruence with Turchetti’s notion of tolerance, in the case of (2) we are constantly confronted with doubts as to whether reducing tolerance to pragmatic toleration of dissent actually serves and permanently secures social peace. The history of acts of toleration in our own civilization only reinforces these doubts.

6 Ibid., p. 169.

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Today, in our cultural circle, which is dominated by a liberal narrative, the discussion of tolerance is dominated by the portrayal of toleration as a deliberate action of the state in response to the legitimate claims of an individual seeking to secure his or her autonomy. Confirmation of this thesis can be found, for example, in the reflections of Susan Mendus, who argues that “the belief in autonomy and the requirement of neutrality both imply that ways of life, commitments, moral ideals, are at root matters of individual choice. Political toleration is then a necessity if such choice is to be fostered.”7 For Mendus, the liberal view of toleration, especially Mill’s, is not about recognizing the fact of diversity, but about affirming the right to follow one’s own path in life, to “make one’s own life.” In a similar vein, Will Kymlicka has noted: “Historically, liberals have believed in a very specific notion of tolerance—one that involves freedom of individual conscience, not just collective worship. Liberal tolerance protects the right of individuals to dissent from their group, as well as the right of groups not to be persecuted by the state [....] This shows, I think, that liberals have historically seen autonomy and tolerance as two sides of the same coin.”8 In opposition to the liberal position, we find the view of Michael Sandel, for whom the essence of tolerance is not the affirmation of autonomy, but the recognition of the integrity of the adherent’s life and their collective identification. For Sandel, the beliefs, professed values and moral commitments, together with life attitudes in response to them, making up the broad worldview are not the object of individual autonomous choice. They are an external force, a foundational situation constituting the individual’s identity that the individual recognizes and seeks to understand, and that precedes or, as expressed by Sandel, is antecedent to the individual’s will. Where the liberal sees individual choice, Sandel sees the meaning of life and a non-voluntary obligation without alternative. For the liberal, human beings create the context in which they answer the ultimate questions for themselves. For Sandel, this context already exists; human beings merely discover it and try to comprehend it,9 a process they do not plan and that is not under their control. Sandel’s position is explicitly compatibilist. In his understanding, religious freedom is the freedom of religious expression, of living in accordance with the promptings of conscience, even if these promptings are determined by outside entities, religious law or religious authorities. Religious freedom is not conditioned by the freedom of the will to determine the answers to ultimate questions, but by the willingness of the public authority to refrain from interfering with a religiously motivated way of life. Clearly, the principle of non-interference is not absolutized

7 Susan Mendus: Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism, London 1989, p. 149. 8 Will Kymlicka: Multicultural Citizenship, Oxford 1995, p. 158. 9 Michael J. Sandel: Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, Cambridge 2012, pp. 54–59.

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here. The limits of non-interference are set by the limits of tolerance, i. e., what the public is willing to accept. This is the case even if, in the popular perception, certain religiously motivated practices appear incomprehensible or repulsive.

The early Christian call for tolerance Christianity emerged in a world where the political order was closely linked, even fused, with religion. This interweaving has been described by Mark Lilla as an “indissoluble divine nexus,” in which the narrative about transcendent power, man, and the world intertwine.10 Indeed, any attempt to conceive of human activity, including in connection with his social and political obligations, without regard to the transcendent dimension, appeared at that time as preposterous, morally suspect and anti-social. The same was the case for any presumption that human spirituality had nothing to do with political, civic subjectivity. This observation reflects the reality of both ancient Judea and the Roman Empire,11 under whose authority the former remained. Christian doctrine challenged this established and heretofore unquestioned order. The follower of Christ was to dwell in two clearly distinguishable cities, the earthly (carnal) and the heavenly (spiritual). Dualism of citizenship meant dualism of rights, as well as of the duties associated with it (Mark 10:42–45).12 The original impulse of “the way” was a call for the desacralization of political reality and the depoliticization of spiritual reality, a kind of alienation from the visible world, a spiritual release from its mechanisms. Although submission to political authority was treated as the realization of God’s command, since all authority is God’s tribute (John 19:11; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17), it nonetheless ceased to be an emanation of divinity. Both doctrinally and practically (rituals and the way of life that was promoted), Christians were something foreign and dangerous to Roman civilization, since the prosperity and future of Rome was determined by the display of piety (pietas) within the framework of state worship and military virtues (virtu) in defense of the “city.”13 The spread of a new, subversive doctrine, native to

10 Mark Lilla: The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West, New York 2008, pp. 18–23. 11 Mary Beard/John North/Simon Price: Religions of Rome, Vol. 1 History, Cambridge 1998, pp. 42–54. 12 “So Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.’” (NLT). 13 Laurens Franciscus Janssen: ‘Superstitio’ and the Persecution of the Christians, in: Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 33, No. 2 (1979), p. 141.

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a province far away from Rome, forced a reaction of the authorities, who, out of concern for public order and in the name of social unity, resorted to violence. Rome’s religious policy was relatively tolerant. In addition to the official state religion, local cults specific to the local population were tolerated. At the same time, invariably, participation in state worship was a measure of loyalty to the Roman order and a basic duty of a Roman citizen. “The Roman world” did not tolerate human sacrifices, astrology, divination or magical practices, prophecies foretelling the end of the world or the fall of the Roman Empire (such as propagated by Gallic druids), or religiously motivated orgies, i. e., bacchanalia. At the beginning of the second century, deliberate or intentional mutilation of the body was also prohibited, which was an indifferent issue within Judaism (as seen in the practice of circumcision).14 The teachings of Christians were put on a par with astrology, and their practices with magic,15 which made them criminals. Christianity became a transgression in itself, earning the reputation of an extremely dangerous superstitio threatening the Roman religio.16 In a letter from Pliny the Younger (ca. 61–ca. 113), governor of Pontium and Bithynia, to Emperor Trajan (53–117, r. 98–117), dating from about 110 CE, we find a request to set a standard of conduct toward Christians, not only in response to the actions they undertook (worship), but the legally prescribed response to the very declaration of Christianus sum, a verbal affirmation of being a “disciple of Christ” (asking Trajan: “whether the name itself (if it is not blameless) or offenses associated with the name are to be punished”17 ). Although Pliny could not point to a specific crime (flagitia) in the conduct of the Christians, he was unhesitatingly ready to portray their worldview as an obviously “wicked and immoderate superstition” (superstitionem pravam, immodicam). In response to the governor’s request, Trajan affirmed in an imperial rescript that stubbornly admitting to being a Christian warranted punishment. Thus, it was not only the action or omission, namely, the refusal to participate in offering sacrifices to Roman deities, but the mere “expression of identity,” the giving of oral testimony, that determined the guilt of Christians. Among the apologists for Christianity of the patristic period, Tertullian (ca. 155–ca. 220 CE), holds a special position. He was the first significant defender of the Christian cause (next to Minucius Felix), communicating with the public in Latin. In his writings, we find a call for embracing Christians with the tolerance that

14 Clifford Ando: The Ontology of Religious Institutions, in: History of Religions, vol. 50, no. 1, (2010); Philippe Borgeaud (ed.): Religion of the Alien and the Limits of Toleration: Ancient Perspectives, p. 56. 15 Astrology and magic were associated with Persian religiosity and anything Persian was fundamentally suspect. From early Republican times, these practices were forbidden by law as a particularly dangerous superstitio. Mary Beard/John North/Simon Price: op. cit., p. 227, p. 236. 16 Ibid., pp. 215–216, p. 225. A catalogue of Christians’ transgressions against the Roman religio can be found in: Laurens Franciscus Janssen: op. cit., pp. 153–154. 17 Agnes Cunningham: The Early Church and the State, Philadelphia 1982, p. 27.

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local cults enjoyed in the Roman Empire, as noted above, especially if they were entrenched historically.18 Yet, Christianity did not have these characteristics: it was not a local cult, but a new doctrine (nova superstitio) gradually gaining popularity in different parts of the Empire, regardless of the ethnic identification and social status of adherents. In addition, Christians were characterized by an undisguised disrespect for the traditional beliefs of Rome and the practices associated with them.19 Aware of this, Tertullian argued that this was the nature of Christianity. Expecting members of Christian communes to participate in Roman public worship was a negation of the essence of Christian identification. In the Apologeticus, his most popular work, we find a call for embracing religious tolerance for Christians: “[…] and for this reason even the Egyptians are tolerated in their superstition, which is the very vanity of vanities: they are permitted to make gods of birds and beasts, and to make it capital to be the death of any of these kinds of deities [….] But we Christians, we alone are the people who are not tolerated to enjoy a separate religion proper (religionis proprietate) to ourselves; we offend the Romans, and are not to be looked upon as Romans, because we do not worship the God of the Romans.”20 The problem faced by Christians, the essence of which is captured in the quotes above, stems from the fact that Christianity was itself a crime. The Apology is a work aiming for the decriminalization of Christianity, whose addressees were “representatives of the Roman state, the imperial governors of the Roman provinces” (Romani imperii antistites, preasides provinciarum). Under the law of the time, defending Christianity as Christianity was not possible; Christianity was indefensible. Equally absurd would be the defense of a murder by the person who had committed the murder.21 Exemption from responsibility for murder required confirmation that the accused had been wrongly attributed the act; exactly the same case was made with regard to Christian identity. Only by testifying that one was not a follower of Christ was one absolved from criminal liability. Despite this, The Apology was written in the form of an advocacy text, with the line of defense that Christianity is

18 Mary Beard/John North/Simon Price: op. cit., p. 228. 19 Roland Herbert Bainton: Christendom: A Short History of Christianity and It’s Impact on Western Civilization: Volume 1: From the Birth of Christ to the Reformation, New York 1966, pp. 58–62. 20 Tertullian: The Apology, W.M. Reeve (trans.), London 1889, XXIV, pp. 81–82. 21 Adrian Nicholas Sherwin–White: The Early Persecutions and Roman Law Again, in: The Journal of Theological Studies, vol. 3, no. 2 (1952), p. 205. In The Apology, Tertullian presents Christianity as religio illicita (forbidden worship), in contrast to Judaism, which is supposed to function in the Roman Empire as religio licita (permitted worship) (The Apology, XXI, 1). It is worth noting here that this is Tertullian’s original contribution. At the time, Roman law did not know the concept of religio licita and religio illicita, limiting itself to the dichotomy of religio and superstitio. This was a deliberate effort by Tertullian to arouse the reader to believe that Christianity was, in its essence, a phenomenon comparable to the Roman state cult.

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not a criminal act, not a threat to the Roman pax deorum. Tertullian discusses the familiar charges against “apostolic doctrine” and Christians, carefully beating them down one by one. His intention was to acquaint the representatives of the Roman state with the essence of Christianity, with the sources of self-identification being Christ’s disciples, and to show that Christianity does not threaten public order. Tertullian also puts forward the thesis, fundamental for advocates of religious freedom in subsequent eras, that legally enforced worldview conformity has nothing to do with actual religiosity. It ridicules the deity to whom a sacrifice is made, if this is done without sincere intentions. Moreover, it is manifestly unjust in that it contradicts human freedom. “But because it seems manifestly wrong to drag men to sacrifice against the natural freedom of their wills, since, as I have elsewhere declared, religion must be a pure act of the will, it must needs be very foolish to press men to the service of the gods, whom for their own sakes they ought to serve freely.”22 In turn, in a letter addressed to Scapula, proconsul of Africa in 211–213 CE, we read: “We worship one God, Whom ye all by nature know, at Whose lightnings and thunders ye tremble, in Whose benefits ye rejoice. The rest ye also think to be gods, whom we know to be demons. Nevertheless it appertaineth to man’s proper right and natural privilege (humani iuris er naturalis potestatis est), that each should worship that which he thinketh to be God; nor doth the Religion of one man harm or profit another. But neither is it the part of Religion to compel men to Religion, which ought to be taken up voluntarily, not of compulsion, seeing that sacrifices also are required of a willing mind. Thus even if ye compel us to sacrifice, ye shall render no service thereby to your gods; for they will not desire sacrifices from unwilling givers, unless they be contentious; but a God is not contentious.”23 In the above-quoted excerpts from Tertullian’s writings, we find three thoughts whose historical importance cannot be overstated, namely: (1) belief in a transcendent power is natural; (2) the assertion that the freedom to worship that power is an inherent right of every human being (in modern times we would say it is a human right); (3) coercion to practice state religion has nothing to do with actual religiosity. It is worth emphasizing the importance of the second point in particular, as we see here a foreshadowing of the legal-natural concept of religious freedom. According to Peter Garnsey, it is Tertullian who is credited with the authorship of the concept of “religious freedom” (libertas religionis).24

22 Tertullian: The Apology…, XXVIII, p. 89. 23 Tertullian: Apologetic and Practical Treaties. Vol. I, C. Dodgson (trans.), Oxford 1842, p. 143. 24 Peter Garnsey: Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity, in: Studies in Church History, vol. 21, 1984, p. 16.

The call for toleration

Being a Christian ceases to be a crime in 313 CE, with the promulgation of the Edict of Milan (Edictum Mediolanense).25 Its reading suggests that the emperors’ goal was to establish religious freedom, not to extend religious toleration to Christians. The rulers of the empire announces that by their unanimous decision, their subjects, Christians and all others, will henceforth enjoy “freedom (libera potestas) to profess whatever religion they wish,” as “no one can be forbidden the freedom to decide whether to incline his thought to the Christian faith or to any other religion he deems most suitable for himself,” which brings to mind the wording of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), as well as Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Here, adherence to a religion is supposed to be the result of “free decision,” as “one is free to follow whatever religion one wishes.” It should be noted, however, that unlike the modern understanding of religious freedom, the freedom of religion in the Edict of Milan functions as a granted permission, not as an inalienable right (falling into the category of status negativus, in Georg Jellinek’s terms). The essence of this proclamation was to equate the worldview positions (superstitiones) professed in the Empire with the legal status of the state religion (religio), an inalienable element of public policy that defines public worship. Religious freedom here is a gift from the ruler, granting unofficial cults the status of religio licita, a gift that he can claim back when he sees fit. Additionally, if one were to look at the implications of this edict from the perspective of Mario Turchetti’s considerations regarding toleration, the legal state described would correspond more to concord than actual toleration. In summary, in 313 CE, Christianity, a worldview identity alien to Roman tradition, gained legal protection. Excluding the brief reign of Justinian the Apostate, there were no longer any political barriers to the development of Christianity within the borders of the Roman world. With the issuance of the Edict of Thessalonica by Theodosius (380 CE, also known as the Edict on Orthodoxy, De fide catholica or Cunctos populos), Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire at the will of the ruler, or more precisely, it became the legally enforced orthodoxy (reaffirmed at the Council of Constantinople in 381 CE, supplementing the Nicene Symbol, today functioning as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol). A despised and repressed spiritual identity that had been radically incompatible with the religious reality of the Roman Empire was effectively integrated into its bloodstream.

25 Two years earlier, an edict of toleration (The Edict of Serdica) was issued by Galerius, signed by him and the other Augusts Licinius, Maximus Daia and Constantine the Great. The edict recognized Christianity as “permitted worship” (religio licita). Although Galerius’ attitude towards Christians was fundamentally negative, having recognized the popularity of their cult, the emperor decided to tolerate their existence. Nevertheless, it is assumed that was is the Edict of Milan that ended the period of persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, since after the death of Galerius in 311 CE, Maxentius returned to a policy of persecution in the eastern part of the Empire.

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Although the Epistle to the Ephesians (Ephesians 2:19–20) emphasizes that Christians are called to live in a separate city—a spiritual one, erected “on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and the cornerstone is Christ Jesus”—as a result of Theodosius’ political decision, they were ultimately citizens of Christianitas (Res Publica Christiana), a city in which the spiritual and the temporal were supposed to intermingle perfectly, functioning in full symbiosis. Christianitas is not just a visible Church, a community of people baptized in the name of the triune God, nor is it just a political body (subjects of the emperor): it is both at the same time, an ecclesial-political unity. The Roman political pattern changes: Augustus gives up the dignity of Dominus et Deus, replaces the office of high priest (Latin: pontifex maximus) with that of “vicar of God,” a non-officiating “high priest emperor” (Greek: archiereus basileus), following the example of the Old Testament Melchizedek, King of Shalem, and the “bishop of those who are outside” (Greek: episkopos ton ektos). The content of the official religion also changes. However, one thing remains intact: the fundamental principle of “indissoluble divine nexus,” the expression used by Mark Lilla mentioned above. Anyone who attempted to tear it apart became an enemy of both the state and the Church. With this, the Roman Empire remained a confessional state.

Religious symbolism in the public sphere in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the limits of tolerance for non-normative worldviews A feature of modern Western democracies is their secular (i. e., non-confessional) nature. By secularism we do not mean here the practice of radical separation of state and religion. Such a pattern is essentially implemented consistently only in France, where laïcité, or secularism, is the foundation of the republican system. By the secular nature of Western democracies, we mean here the cutting of the “sacred knot”—public authority not basing its authority on the will of a transcendent power. Even in states that retain an institutional relationship with the Church and where there is the presence of a state church, the legitimacy to govern is derived from the consent of the governed, with the purpose of that church solely to promote social peace and the welfare of the governed. The jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) provides a number of examples to support the theses formulated above. In recent years, the rulings on the display of religious symbols in the public sphere have attracted particular interest in Europe, and they reflect the point perfectly. In the high-profile case of Lautsi v. Italy 30816/06 (2011), the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR confirmed that the display of a Christian cross in the classrooms of Italian public schools does not violate the principles of secularism. Soile Lautsi,

The call for toleration

an Italian citizen, called on the school authorities to remove the crosses from the rooms where her children were being taught in connection with their compulsory education. According to the plaintiff, the display of the cross in Italian public schools is a promotion of Christianity by the authorities, which violated the principle of secularism of the state and negatively affected her right to educate her children in a non-religious environment, an environment with freedom from religion, as guaranteed by Article 9 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR). It is worth noting here that, guided by the interests of state secularism, the Italian Constitutional Court had justified the order to remove crosses from polling stations, as cited by the plaintiff in the ECtHR proceedings. The Italian authorities, in turn, argued that while the cross is a religious symbol, it also has an ethical significance, recognized and appreciated by participants of other worldview traditions, and reflects values also promoted by non-Christians. The defendant presented the cross as an essential element of Italian tradition and the identity of Italians. This argument did not convince the majority of the Court’s Chamber, but was accepted in the Grand Chamber. It was recognized that the issue of religious symbols in classrooms remains within the realm of state decision-making, given the lack of European consensus on the matter. In addition, it was stressed that the display of the cross in public places does not lead to indoctrination, as it is a “passive symbol.” The ruling outlined above is often recalled in connection with the allegation that the ECtHR has fostered the process of privatization of religion, which necessarily includes the removal of religious symbolism from the public sphere. Note, however, that the dismissal of the claim of Lautsi, who had stood up for her freedom from religion (in this case from unwanted religious indoctrination in public buildings), was justified by the discretion of state authorities and the “passivity” of the Christian cross. The second argument is controversial, since it can be considered a trivialization of a symbol that many people place at the center of their spiritual lives. Here, the Christian cross functions as a cultural product, embedded in Italian tradition and the social history of Italians. As a result, while it remains a religious symbol, it is no longer merely religious. One could consider its “religiosity” to have become culturally neutralized. At the same time, the ECtHR has repeatedly dismissed complaints brought by individuals defending their right to religious expression and non-discrimination in connection with clothing that reveals their religious identity. A complaint by a public elementary school teacher who covered her hair with a headscarf (hijab) based on her religious beliefs was dismissed as manifestly unfounded [Dahlab v. Switzerland, 42393/98 (2001)]. The Swiss government’s main argument, adopted in the ECtHR’s ruling, was the belief that exposing children to a symbol associated with Islam would not remain neutral in the process of forming their worldview, since teachers enjoy special authority in the eyes of students. Hence, in the name of

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the worldview neutrality of public education, teachers were deprived of the right to symbolic religious expression in the workplace; the hijab was considered a “powerful religious symbol.” The need to safeguard freedom from religious indoctrination in public schools, the undesirable influence of which would be expressed by the exposure of students to the hijab, fulfilled the conditions described in Article 9 (2) of the ECHR (the limitation clause in connection with the interest in protecting the rights and freedoms of others). A teacher in this type of school has been classified as a “public functionary” and, as such, is subject to the rigors of the worldview neutrality of a public institution, with concomitant legal restrictions necessary for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. However, the ban on the display of a “powerful religious symbol” is not limited to public school teachers. National legislation in Turkey and France also extends this ban to public school students, motivated by the need to protect public order, safeguard the rights and freedoms of others, and preserve the neutrality of public education. In 2006 these bans were found to be in compliance with Article 9 of the ECHR.26 Complaints by a university professor and an adult female student were also dismissed, when they sought recognition of their right to express their religious identity through their dress in state higher education [cases: Kurtulmuş v. Turkey, 65500/01 (2006); Leyla Şahin v. Turkey, 44774/98 (2005)]. Again, the justices pointed to the need to preserve the worldview neutrality of public institutions and to protect the rights and freedoms of others. Freedom of adults from contact with a “powerful religious symbol” in the academic community was privileged above the freedom to express beliefs through the clothing of members of that community. Particularly interesting, given the above context regarding religious freedom, are several cases involving the compatibility between Article 9 of the ECHR and statutory bans on face covering, including bans on the wearing of burqas and niqabs, not so much in public buildings, but in the open public sphere [cases: S.A.S. v. France, 43835/11 (2014); Belcacemi and Oussar v. Belgium 7798/13 (2017); and Dakir v. Belgium 4619/12 (2017)]. We will focus our attention on the 2014 S.A.S. case, since it provided the ratio decidendi for the other two, for which the verdicts came three years later. The applicant, a Muslim woman, claimed that, uncoerced by third parties, she wore a burqa and a niqab. She justified her attire on the basis of her religious beliefs and the culture with which she identified. Although her

26 Cases: Köse and 93 others v. Turkey, 26625/02; Aktas v. France, 43563/08; Bayrak v. France, 14308/08; Gamaleddin v. France, 18527/08; Ghazal v. France, 29134/08; Ranjit Singh v. France, 25463/08 and Jasvir Singh v. France, 27561/08; Dogru v. France, 27058/05 (2008); Kervanci v. France, 31645/04 (2008). On 7 Feb. 2008, the Turkish parliament introduced a constitutional amendment guaranteeing access to public education to women who cover their heads with a headscarf for religious reasons. Following a decision by the Constitutional Court, the ban was reinstated, only to be lifted again in higher education in 2013 and primary and secondary education in 2014.

The call for toleration

complaint pointed to being subjected to discriminatory practices owing to her religious beliefs and gender (the burqa and niqab being appropriate female attire within her religion), and thus violations of her right to privacy and freedom of expression, let’s focus on the applicant’s religious freedom, the right to manifest her beliefs. The defendant argued that under the law of 11 October 2010, in force from 11 April 2011, the French Republic had banned clothing that covers the entire face to be worn in public places based on the legitimate goals of public safety and respect for a minimum set of values for an open democratic society. The Court did not share the view that imposing the contested statutory prohibition was justified by the need to safeguard the interest of public safety. Given the preemptive nature of applying the prohibition, there was no need to specify the danger caused by a particular person covering her entire face. Turning to the second of the alleged objectives, the French government invoked here three values of French republicanism: equality between men and women, the human dignity of a person, and the minimum requirements of “living together,” that is, being part of society. Significantly, these values are not found in the descriptions in the limitation clauses in Article 9(2) of the ECHR. In essence, we do not find any values there, but only enumerated categories of public interest. Confirming this, the Court did not deviate from the proportionality test, using the legitimate purpose as described by the defendant, placing it in the category of protecting the rights and freedoms of others. As it turned out, only with regard to the third value did the Court share the French government’s position, that is, the subject of “living together.” The right of fellow citizens to live together makes it legitimate for them to claim that members of French society, including Muslim women, should not cover their faces, since the burqas and niqabs they wear effectively separate them from the rest of society, significantly reducing the opportunities for social communication, a prerequisite for living together in an open democratic society. While wearing a burqa, niqab or yashmak does communicate the religious identity of those who wear them, the Court noted that they also send a clear message of intent to opt out of social contact. Bans on face covering remain in effect today in France and Belgium.27

27 In addition to France and Belgium, among the group of countries subject to the ECHR regime, bans on covering faces in public spaces are currently in force in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, the Netherlands, and Norway. Such bans have also been introduced in parts of Italy and Spain. On 7 March 2021, a referendum decided to ban face covering in Switzerland. Bans on face covering in public institutions have been introduced in Germany and Kosovo.

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The modern understanding of religious freedom in contrast to earlier periods Tertullian’s call for tolerating beliefs different from those appropriate to state worship resounded in a world where state religion was the norm. Constantine the Great’s extension of the tolerance privilege to Christians took place at a time when Christ’s followers were already deeply divided, with these divisions threatening the public order. Concerned with preserving the peace and unity of the Roman Empire, public authorities distinguished between Christian orthodoxy and heresy (Council of Nicea, 325 CE) and engaged in a struggle against the latter. The nationalization of Christianity by Theodosius the Great gave rise to Christianitas, a world in which there was room only for the “one, holy and apostolic Church” (NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed). All non-orthodox doctrines were outlawed. Novatians, Arians, Donatists, and later Cathars, as well as numerous minor and major schismatic movements, were declared public enemies. Christian Europe was constantly accompanied by religious violence. The sixteenth-century Reformation did not change this state of affairs. The divisions it caused only intensified persecution on account of faith. Since the time of Constantine, social peace has been conditioned by the unity of the Church, the uniformity of teaching, worship and ecclesial order. However, denominational unity was not preserved by Christians; hence, social peace was constantly in danger. The most radical wing of the Puritan Reformation in the Church of England, the Baptists, came up with a solution to this dilemma, building on Tertullian’s appeal for tolerance and supplementing it with a call for the permanent separation of Church and state, which is to say, the depoliticization of the Mystical Body of Christ and the desacralization of the state. Since history has taught us that the unity of Christians in the formula Christianitas cannot be maintained, it seems that a logical next step would be to refute the usefulness of the Corpus Christianum construct. However, it is wrong to think that desacralizing the political order is tantamount to privatizing faith. Christianity invariably remains a communally organized religion, albeit non-political. In addition, there are serious reasons to consider the conviction that faith is necessarily a private matter to be unfounded, or that “spiritual choices” are a manifestation and affirmation of human autonomy since the Church is made up of individuals in a personal, intimate relationship with Christ. We should recall that religious freedom, in its original meaning, meant that communities formed by Christians were free from external pressures, in particular, from public authorities. By no means was this freedom merely the affirmation of a person’s autonomy in their spiritual choices, nor was it freedom from unwanted contact with religious symbolism in public institutions, not to mention in open public spaces. Note that the modern understanding of religious freedom is strongly linked to the concept of secularism of the state. Separation of Church and state is often presented

The call for toleration

as a prerequisite for preserving that freedom. The question remains, however, as to whether we are actually talking about the separation of Church and state, or the separation of state and religion in general. This is not an obvious distinction. In the former case, it is about protecting the Church; in the latter, it is about safeguarding the interests of the state. Today, this call is often understood as freeing the state (and often, more broadly, the public sphere) from religion, including from interreligious and interfaith disputes.28 Following the ECtHR’s jurisprudence with regard to Article 9 of the ECHR, related complaints have often been determined to be manifestly unfounded on the grounds that satisfaction of the plaintiffs’ claims would be in conflict with the values of an open democratic society, of which the secular state is an emanation. An outstanding example of this is the case of S.A.S. v. France, in which the right to express religious identity in a public place with the use of a particular garment, a garment essentially foreign to European culture, was rejected as being incompatible with the abstract principle of “living together.” The conformist requirement of female adherents of Islam who wished to cover their faces for reasons of belief was confirmed in the ECtHR ruling. Willingness to communicate with the public has been made a measure of civic engagement in a democratic state. When Tertullian questioned the legitimacy of demanding religious conformity from Christians, he declared the unwavering civic loyalty of Christ’s followers to the Roman Empire. Today, the ECtHR maintains that the French Republic and the Kingdom of Belgium can rightly demand conformity from members of their political communities, who should therefore unveil their faces whenever they are in public, justifying this on the grounds that it is necessary for defending the values of an open democratic society.

Universalism of modern religious freedom? Those who try to parse out causes in the evolution of religious freedom point to the process of “disenchantment of the world” in the secularizing of Western culture, with the roots of this secularizing found in the currents of thought grounded in the Age of Enlightenment. However, it can be argued that there are certain prominent elements in Christian doctrine that have also played a part in this process. Let us note the uniqueness of Christianity among other religions, including both Old Testament monotheism and Islam. A distinctive feature of Christianity, forcefully exposed by the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century reformers, is the emphasis on

28 Stephen Holmes: Gag Rules of the Politics of Omission, in: Jon Elster/Rune Slagstad (eds.): Constitutionalism and Democracy, Cambridge 1988, p. 23.

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the believer’s individual relationship with God. This is accompanied not only by the acceptance of the conviction of His existence, but also the adoption of a set of unshakable truths, or dogmas, in the description of His characteristics, and a community of believers in His existence—as listed, for example, in the Apostolic Creed and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol. Membership in the Mystical Body of Christ is determined by sharing a set of beliefs, not by the implementation of standardized practices in daily life—such as the 613 principles of Judaism, the five principles of Islam, or Sharia law (halal and haram). Clearly this does not mean that Christianity is exclusively spiritual and the other religions are ritualistic or “practical.” However, there are other proportions. One obligatory ritual for many Christians, albeit not for all, is baptism. All other forms of Christian activity observable to those around them are considered testimony to realizing the commandment to love (Matthew 22:34-40; John 13:34). Such calls of conscience do not submit to normativization. What we observe here is the prioritization of intimately functioning convictions and calls of conscience over “religious law” (Galatians 5:2–6). These concern, for example, how food is obtained; in this regard, consider the practice of Judaism and Islam as opposed to the verses found in Matthew 15:11; 17–20 and Acts 11:1–10, or clothing (in certain branches of Islam). Emphasizing the importance of intimate religious experience in Christian doctrine (Matthew 6:5–6) is easily at odds with contemporary understandings of religious freedom in our cultural circle, which absolutize intrinsic religious freedom while limiting extrinsic freedom in the name of conformity with pre-established social standards of behavior that take the shape of legal norms. Importantly in this context, some encouragement of “cultural conformity” is found in the apostolic lesson, such as that found in 1 Corinthians 10:14–33. However, the reality presented above does not correspond to the participants of religious traditions who place a certain way of life at the center of their worldview identity, including the practice of strictly established rules of conduct. Such person live in accordance with patterns presented as revealed divine law or the rules derived from it, patterns observable to the social environment. This is a measure of fidelity to the transcendent Power and a condition for receiving blessing. The essence of this matter is well illustrated, for instance, by the recurring dispute in Poland over the legality of kosher meat or halal slaughter in the Muslim tradition. In 2013, a ban was introduced on slaughtering according to specific methods required by religious rituals in order to protect animal rights (Law on Animal Protection, Article 34 (1), (Journal of Laws of 2013, item 856)). The legislator’s goal was generally understood and accepted by members of Polish society (65% of respondents in a CBOS survey expressed opposition to slaughter without first

The call for toleration

stunning the animal).29 The alleged worldview neutrality of the adopted law was a manifestation of a lack of understanding of the role of ritual slaughter in the lives of the righteous followers of Judaism (Leviticus 17:12–14) and Islam (Sura 5:3). By virtue of the Constitutional Court’s decision of 10 December 2013 (K 52/13), the statutory regulation prohibiting ritual slaughter was found to violate Article 53 (1), (2) and (5) of the Polish Constitution and Article 9 of the ECHR, i. e., religious freedom. However, discussions regarding ritual slaughter returned in 2020 in connection with the policy initiative of the so-called “Five for Animals.” A society with a predominance of Christian doctrine and a significant and growing presence of non-religious worldviews finds it difficult to accept the importance of clothing standards or how food is obtained for the religious identity of a small group of fellow citizens. By pointing to spiritual, intimate, or private space as a sphere that is inherent, or at least crucial, to religious experience, we are significantly reducing the subjective scope of religious freedom, thus diminishing the importance of rules of daily life for adherents of non-Christian religions. At the same time, we make the public sphere (the institutions of the state and the political community as such) the subject of this freedom (its carrier). In the name of worldview neutrality, the public sphere is supposed to remain free from religion and religious symbolism, but also from the involvement of rationales derived from revealed truths in the process of making universally binding laws. Here, in the interest of “freedom from religion in the public sphere,” we find rationale for restrictions on religious practices, including those that have symbolic character (such as clothing). Concrete religious precepts must give way in the face of the need to prioritize the public interest, taking the form of the abstract principle of “living together,” dubiously inscribed in the catalog of rights and freedoms of others.

Concluding remarks To recapitulate our considerations, let’s return to a fact noted earlier: the claim of religious freedom was articulated in a world where religion was closely linked, even fused, with the state. Tertullian, calling on the political establishment to extend tolerance to Christians, emphasized the inability of Christians to identify with state worship. He did not call for the abolition of state worship, but for Christians to be freed from the obligation to participate in it. In so doing, he undermined the principle, unshakeable to his contemporaries, proclaiming that involvement in the public religious practices of the Empire to be a measure of patriotism, that is, a measure of “living together,” to use a key phrase found in the S.A.S. v. France ruling.

29 Opinie na temat dopuszczalności tzw. uboju rytualnego, in: Komunikat z badań CBOS, BS/70/2013.

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Modern Western democracies are based on a different foundation. Although they operate with various models of religious policy, they are united in their rejection of the notion that public involvement in state worship practices is an expression of loyalty to the political order. At the same time, the separation of state and religion is commonly seen today as a condition for religious freedom. The politicization, and thus desacralization, of the state has been accompanied by a revision of the understanding of religious freedom. It has become a legal claim, encompassing a wealth of worldview positions, including non-theistic and anti-theistic ones. Religious freedom, originally understood as a safeguard for religious non-conformists from the pressures of public authority and the social environment, is now equally the right of those who wish to lead a life free from religion. Moreover, this freedom has become a right of the political community—the state’s worldview neutrality is inscribed in its ratio status. In other words, a kind of “politicization” of religious freedom has been complemented by freedom from religion of the public sphere. This situation puts those who persist in theistic worldviews at a disadvantage, especially if they give public expression to their beliefs, even symbolically. This state of affairs causes resistance from people who do not limit their religious experience to the intimate sphere—the notion of autonomy of conscience. Clearly, freedom of religious practice is not and cannot be an unlimited right, but the expectation of the comfort of not being exposed to religious content or symbolism, or the claim of communicative openness in “living together,” are weak grounds for restricting freedom of religious expression. Numerous statutory solutions and case law, including that of the European Court of Human Rights, are and will continue to be seen as failing to capture the essence of religious freedom, not only for participants in non-Christian religious traditions, but also for the many Christians who do not measure civic virtue under the conditions of a pluralistic demo-liberal society by their willingness to submit to the norm of privatizing religion. Non-normative worldview identity posed a challenge in a world unfamiliar with legal guarantees of religious freedom. This is no different in our modern times, with the reality of statutory, constitutional and international guarantees, through treaties, of religious freedom. Hence, in addition to questions about the scope of protection of the right to express worldview identity, which juxtaposes public interest and private interest, it is worth raising the question of the limits of tolerance in modern Western societies. Fundamental rights, including religious freedom, are a legal category. Tolerance, or toleration, is not. Toleration is a political category. The decision as to whether we are willing to allow female followers of Islam to cover their faces, recognizing the clear and enduring connection between how they dress and their self-identification, or whether this practice exceeds the limits of what we are willing to tolerate, should be made through a political process. We should not expect the judiciary to bail us out in this.

The call for toleration

Bibliography Ando, Clifford: The Ontology of Religious Institutions, in: History of Religions, vol. 50, no. 1, (2010) (special issue: Philippe Borgeaud (ed.): Religion of the Alien and the Limits of Toleration: Ancient Perspectives) pp. 54–79. Beard, Mary/North, John/Price, Simon: Religions of Rome, Vol. 1: A History, Cambridge 1998. Bainton, Roland Herbert: Christendom: A Short History of Christianity and It’s Impact on Western Civilization: Volume 1: From the Birth of Christ to the Reformation, New York 1966. Case Aktas v. France, 43563/08. Case Bayrak v. France, 14308/08. Case Dogru v. France, 27058/05 (2008). Case Gamaleddin v. France, 18527/08. Case Ghazal v. France, 29134/08. Case Jasvir Singh v. France, 27561/08. Case Kervanci v. France, 31645/04 (2008). Case Köse and 93 others v. Turkey, 26625/02. Case Ranjit Singh v. France, 25463/08. Cunningham, Agnes: The Early Church and the State, Philadelphia 1982. Crick, Bernard: Toleration and Tolerance in Theory and Practice, in: Government and Opposition. An International Journal of Comparative Politics, vol. 6, issue 2 (1971), pp. 143–171. Garnsey, Peter: Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity, in: Studies in Church History, vol. 21, 1984, pp. 1–27. Holmes, Stephen: Gag Rules of the Politics of Omission, in: Jon Elster/Rune Slagstad (eds.): Constitutionalism and Democracy, Cambridge 1988. Janssen, Laurens Franciscus: ‘Superstitio’ and the Persecution of the Christians, in: Vigiliae Christianae, vol. 33, no. 2 (1979), pp. 131–159. Kymlicka, Will: Multicultural Citizenship, Oxford 1995. Lilla, Mark: The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West, New York 2008. Mendus, Susan: Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism, London 1989. Monro, Charles Henry (trans.): The Digest of Justinian, vol. 1, Cambridge 1904. Opinie na temat dopuszczalności tzw. uboju rytualnego, in: Komunikat z badań CBOS, BS/70/2013. Porter, Jene M.: Luther: Selected Political Writings, Lanham/New York/London 1998. Sandel, Michael J.: Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, Cambridge 2012. Sherwin-White, Adrian Nicholas: The Early Persecutions and Roman Law Again, in: The Journal of Theological Studies, vol. 3, no. 2 (1952), pp. 199–213. Stein, Peter: Roman Law in European History, Cambridge 1999. Tertullian: Apologetic and Practical Treaties. Vol. I, C. Dodgson (trans.), Oxford 1842. Tertullian: The Apology, W.M. Reeve (trans.), London 1889, XXIV.

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Turchetti, Mario: Religious Concord and Political Tolerance in Sixteenth- and SeventeenthCentury France, in: The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 22, no. 1 (1991), pp. 15–25.

Joanna Kulska

Chapter 2: Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool

Introduction The issue of close relations between religion and politics in both Poland and Hungary that has developed over last two decades has been increasingly discussed as one of the latest examples of mutual entanglement of religious and political domains. As such, it became an element of the wider discourse on the evolution of the political and cultural landscape of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Poland and Hungary are given special attention in this regard as examples of countries where the link between religion and nation may be effectively used as a political tool, defining or redefining a collective identity aimed at realization of long-term political goals. This chapter aims to compare the phenomena of the religious-political nexus in Poland and Hungary, taking into consideration the wider CEE context. It focuses on the problem of specific relations between religion and nation that have not only been engaged but, to a significant extent, “invented” by political elites in the form of Christian or Catholic nationalism as the key political strategy. In order to analyze the problem, an attempt has been made to identify the elements of politicization of religion and sacralization of politics which are present in both countries and which can be understood only when the wider multidimensional contexts are comprehended. This study demonstrates that while some resemblance can be found in terms of objectives and mechanisms applied in both countries, significant qualitative differences are present. It proposes that religion-nation linkage is both a tool and goal of political activities. It is applied by political elites as an element in strategies to gain and attain power, but also in the wider sense as an important factor of counterrevolution. This counterrevolution is aimed at a “cultural turn” away from the model of the liberal order towards a new kind of national, “sovereign” order, an order perceived as the one to be followed by other states. In this process, religious outlooks may in fact be neglected, turning into pseudo-religious substitutes that have little in common with the religious doctrines they refer to.

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Theoretical framework: Religion and nationalism in CEE One of the key areas where mutual dependency is observed between “the religious” and “the political” are linkages between religion and nationalism. Since the boundaries of “the religious” are difficult to draw, many kinds of belief which cannot be perceived as recognized religions, including nationalism, have the key characteristics of religion.1 In fact, relations between religion and national identity are examples of the most powerful and influential relations between religion and politics and in “[…] much of the world one cannot analyze the topic of national identity without also scrutinizing religion.”2 Different terms and concepts are applied to discuss how religions and nationalisms are connected. To begin, it might be worth referring to some general notions, namely, the verbs “to politicize” and “to religionize.” While the first is understood as “to give a political tone or character to,”3 the second means “to make religious: imbue with religious principles: bring into conformity with religious standards: interpret or understand (a thing) from a religious framework“4 . Also, the term “to sacralize” occurs and is understood as “to treat as or make sacred.”5 Thus, the list of the terms emerging in the discourse on the overlapping of religion and politics is quite long. Scholars refer to the politicization of religion and the religionizing of politics, but also the sacralization of politics. While the first term means subordination of religion by politics to achieve political goals, the second term serves rather to “translate” political issues into a religious context, not aiming at a relationship of subordination.6 Meanwhile, sacralization of politics, which is one of the crucial terms used in the discourse, refers to the situation whereby politics has taken on some features of religion and started claiming as its own the prerogative of defining the fundamental purpose and meaning of human life.7 One form sacralization of religion is the religion of politics that has occurred in the modern era after the political realm gained its independence from traditional religion. The religion of politics can be found in two basic forms: civil religion, and

1 Oxford Reference, Religion and Politics, https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority. 20110803100413418 [last accessed: 1.08.2022]. 2 Joel S. Fetzer/J. Christopher Soper: A Theory of Religion and Nationalism, in: Joel S. Fetzer/J. Christopher Soper: Religion and Nationalism in Global Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics), Cambridge 2018, p. 1. 3 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politicize [last accessed: 23.08.2022]. 4 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religionize [last accessed: 23.08.2022]. 5 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sacralize [last accessed: 24.08.2022]. 6 Piotr Burgoński: Modele relacji między religia i polityką, in: Piotr Burgoński/Michał Gierycz (eds.): Religia i polityka. Zarys problematyki, Warszawa 2014, p. 235. 7 Emilio Gentile: Politics as Religion, Princeton 2006.

Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool

political religion,8 which is a broad, even vague, term. In its most recognized form, political religion is connected with totalitarian regimes such as fascism, Nazism or communism, and is linked to the ideas of Emilio Gentile, who applied the model of political religion to the history of Europe’s age of dictatorships.9 Yet Gentile also pointed to romantic nationalism and democracy as other systems in which the problem of new secular cults emerging can be observed.10 With the universal phenomenon of religious renaissance globally present, the modes of mutual links between religion and politics may differ significantly depending on, among other things, historical and cultural determinants, both politically and in the realm of religion. They lead to varying levels of independence, or dependence, between religion and politics, but also to varying levels of consensus.11 The same is valid for different modes of relations between nationalism and religion, one of the most widespread examples of politics and religion going “hand in hand” in the contemporary world.12 There is no unequivocal answer to the question as to why religion and nationalism are so closely related, since the patterns of mutual connections and interactions are complex and determined locally. Yet a general scheme is easily found when looking at the crucial functions that religions themselves fulfill. As Christopher Soper and Joel Fetzer observe, “it is difficult to imagine forces in the modern world as potent as nationalism and religion. Both provide people with a source of meaning, each has motivated individuals to carry out extraordinary acts of heroism and cruelty, and both serve as the foundation for communal and personal identity.”13 This last function, namely, the creating and supporting of both communal and personal identities, has become the essential social–political phenomenon to a great extent, regardless of political regimes and religious doctrines.14 Being the expression of an

8 Emilio Gentile: Fascism as Political Religion, in: Journal of Contemporary History 25 (1990), pp. 229–251. 9 Geraóid Barry: Political Religion: A User’s Guide, in: Contemporary European History, 24 (4) (2015), p. 625. Emilio Gentile himself credits Eric Voegelin as the author of the concept of political religion. See Thierry Gontier: From “Political Theology” to “Political Religion”: Eric Voegelin and Carl Schmitt, The Review of Politics 75 (2013), pp. 25–43. 10 Emilio Gentile, Fascism as Political Religion…, pp. 229–251. 11 Monica D. Toft/Daniel Philpott/Timothy S. Shah: God’s Century. Resurgent Religion and Global Politics, New York 2011. 12 One of the most recent typologies of mutual relations between religion and politics was proposed by Joel Fetzer and Christopher Soper, who conceptualize three main models: religious nationalism, secular nationalism, and civil-religious nationalism. See: Joel S. Fetzer/J. Christopher Soper: Religion and Nationalism in Global Perspective…, pp. 1–268. 13 Joel S. Fetzer/J. Christopher Soper: A Theory of Religion and Nationalism…p. 1. 14 Jocelyne Cesari: We God’s People. Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in the World of Nations, Cambridge-New York 2022.

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almost global “demand for dignity,” it has emerged, especially in the last decades, as the source of “politics of resentment,”15 becoming one of the most challenging issues of contemporary politics. CEE is one among many regions where the problem has been increasing. When referring to mutual relations between religion and politics in CEE, the first and basic level of entanglement is the one linking religion and the nation, expressed as various forms of nationalism. This is the level which leads to the well-known conclusion that the concept of identity differs significantly in the two parts of the continent of Europe. While in the earlier nations-states of the West, the sense of belonging is linked to the state and expressed through political identity, in CEE, consisting of later nations-states, identity is based on the nation and has a more cultural character.16 In CEE, nations have created the states, not the other way round. In CEE,17 religion and nationalism coexist as two powerful forces that can effectively influence society as well as be influenced by society, unlike in Western Europe, where nationalism has been largely subordinated, or incapacitated altogether.18 In this regard one can speak of the competition for society’s loyalty between political power and religious power. As a result, national identity means something “locally specific”; religion plays an indispensable role in this process. Radosław Zenderowski has observed that the differences are clearly visible when a nation is looked upon from three perspectives: the nation-state relationship, the nation-history relationship, and the nation-religion relationship.19 To explain the last of these perspectives, he proposes the concepts of “ethnicization of religion” and “sacralization of the nation” for characterizing CEE societies. In the first case, religion is absorbed by the given society and regarded as its “own,” losing in this way its universalistic character. In the second case, a given ethnic group is assigned

15 Francis Fukuyama: Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, New York 2018. 16 The classical nation-states in Northern and Western Europe evolved within the boundaries of existing territorial states following the path “from state to nation”. The later, or “belated” nations, including Germany and Italy, followed different path, “from nation to state”, the one that was also typical for formation of states in CEE. The difference between two paths is also reflected in the backgrounds of the elites who contributed to nation and state building. In the first case, these were lawyers, diplomats, and military officers who belonged to the king’s administrative staff and who constructed a state bureaucracy. In the second case, these were writers, historians, scholars, and intellectuals who laid the grounds for the subsequent diplomatic and military unification of the state. See: Martin Griffiths/Terry O. Callaghan: International Relations: The Key Concepts, New York 2002, p. 210. 17 The exception is the Czech Republic which has been deeply secularized. 18 Radosław Zenderowski: Etnicyzacja religii i sakralizacja etnosu: nacjonalizm w Europie ŚrodkowoWschodniej, in: Athenaeum 24 (2010), p. 42. 19 Radosław Zenderowski: Nation: Central European Context, in: Marcin Moskalewicz/Wojciech Przybylski (eds.): Understanding Central Europe, New York 2018, pp. 137–143.

Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool

religious meaning and receives some kind of “guarantee of immortality,” becoming the quasi-religious community.20 Sacralization of politics in CEE is linked to a few main factors. Firstly, there is the issue of integration and transformation of the given population, in this case a nation, into a sacred entity in which destiny of individuals and the collectivity is subordinated to a supreme entity. In this process, bonds within the group are created which allow one to define two other crucial elements, namely the issue of self-identification, on the one hand, and the issue of axiological framework that designs common ideals and goals, on the other. In the case of CEE, this means an enhanced sense of belonging to the entity framed by Christian identity and the goal of preserving specifically this, obviating the external risk of “melting” in the flood of a mass migration. It should come as no surprise that these elements are important in the cases of the most homogenic societies, societies that are attached to their local identities and also more collective than individualistic. Such examples of self-identification may be politically utilized to fulfill a Messianic mission of “saving ourselves” but also saving others, where national and religious dimensions overlap. And this is quite understandable from the perspective of political strategies. As a result, three Is are emerging: integration with its sense of belonging and collectivity, identity with its explanation of “who are we,” and ideals directed towards what is valued and what sets goals. Moreover, all these fundamental functions of religion are now being used for political purposes.

Poland and Hungary: Between the nation and the state The tradition of close relations between Poles and Hungarians is deeply rooted in their national cultures. In both countries the well-known proverb is present that can be translated as: “A Pole, A Hungarian, two nephews, both with a saber and a glass” that express mutual friendship21 and kinship. Being perceived in the past as the model students of the transformation processes in CEE and now as the main brakemen of the Europeanization process, they are not rarely thrown into one “basket.” This may particularly refer to the politicization of religion in both countries.22 Yet when observed more deeply, not only resemblances, but many

20 Radosław Zenderowski: Etnicyzacja religii i sakralizacja etnosu…, pp. 38–39. 21 Hungarians are the second most liked nation by the Poles. After Americans and Italians who are most liked (58%) Hungarians occupy the second place (57%). https://www.ekai.pl/cbos-polacynajbardziej-lubia-wlochow-i-amerykanow-najmniej-arabow/ [last accessed: 21.08.2022]. 22 Robert Sata/Ireneusz P. Karolewski: Caesarean politics in Hungary and Poland, in: East European Politics 36 (2), 2020, pp. 206–225.

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fundamental differences can be found, both regarding historical contexts but also in terms of contemporary factors. Looking from a historical perspective, both Hungary and Poland are deeply rooted in religious-political entanglements from the beginning of their statehood. In Hungary, formation of the Catholic state was linked with Saint Stephen, the first king of Hungary. The Reformation, which took place in the sixteenth century, coincided with a weak period of the country engaged in war with the Ottoman Empire. It was quite successful, with majority of Hungarians first becoming Lutherans and then, a bit later, turning to Calvinism. The Reformed Church was the birthplace of national culture, especially thanks to a translation of the Bible and education. While the Counter-Reformation that developed under the reign of the Habsburgs was also successful, the country preserved its denominational diversity, a diversity that characterizes the population until today.23 In the next period, the Catholic Church strengthened its position with its close link to the ruling Habsburgs. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, tensions between Catholics and Protestants were central to Hungary’s political development. After the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church developed as the largest religious organization, opposing liberal governments. In contrast, Protestants supported liberal movements. After 1918, a close union existed between the major churches and the state, but this union was destroyed under communism.24 In Poland, similarly to Hungary, the beginnings of statehood are linked to the establishment of Christianity in 966 CE. The fundaments of Christian culture were created between the tenth and twelfth centuries. By 1500, the number of parishes reached around six thousand.25 The first translation of the Bible into Polish in the Catholic version was completed in 1593 by the Jesuit Jakub Wujek. Here, in spite of the Reformation, Catholicism preserved its status as the majority religion, although there was significant denominational diversity in the population in the following centuries. This diversity included not only the various Christian denominations and Eastern Orthodoxy, but also Jews. Before World War II, the largest number of Jews in Europe lived in Poland. During the tragic period between 1795 and 1918 of partition and failed insurrections against neighboring invaders, the Roman Catholic Church remained the only effectively operating institution supporting survival of the nation under foreign political powers. The end of World War I and

23 Balazs Schanda: State and Church in Hungary, in: Gerhard Robbers: State and Church in the European Union, Third Edition, Baden-Baden 2019, pp. 363–364. 24 Zsolt Enyedi: The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary, in: John T.S. Madeley/ Zsolt Enyedi (eds.): Church and State in Contemporary Europe. The Chimera of Neutrality, London-Portland 2003, pp. 158–159. 25 Jerzy Kłoczowski: Chrześcijaństwo a historia kultury polskiej, in: Znak 10–11, 1978, pp. 1391–1408.

Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool

the Versailles Treaty brought a moment of national revival, with the rebuilding of an independent state after 123 years of non-existence. For Hungarians, the story is different. While the years 1867–1914 are considered a “golden age” in the nation’s history,26 the end of the World War I was a moment of national disaster. As a result of Treaty of Trianon, Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory and over three million Hungarians, who overnight became the citizens of neighboring states. This moment nonetheless established the identity of the Hungarian nation. The shadow of Trianon has since become a leitmotif not only in Hungarian politics, but also in Hungary’s social-cultural existence. As for the role of religion, or more precisely, different churches, Balazs Schanda has underlined the claim that the “patronate” in Hungary, meaning the royal, or state, care of spiritual issues, remained firm throughout the twentieth century.27 This makes the relations between religion and the state in Hungary the reverse of what developed in Poland. In the case of Poland, it is hard to speak of the state’s patronage, especially in the periods which—to a significant extent—shaped the genesis of the nation. In the dominant national memory, there is a vivid image of a Church that historically stood on the side of the society against the current ruling power. Here the Church played the role of the nation’s “ally” against the state,28 a role which developed especially in the time of partition and found another expression during World War II. These two periods have become meaningful points of reference for the present national narrative. This pattern continued also during communism. The Roman Catholic Church not only defended the interests of the Catholic nation against the atheist state; it also acted as a kind of substratum of civil society29 and contributed to the emergence of a “parallel polis.”30 This feature developed especially in the 1970s, when the first anti-communist oppositional organizations came into existence and grew to constitute a significant part of the social tissue in Poland. During the period of communism in Poland, both the Catholic Church and Catholics endured numerous severe restrictions, including murder of priests, but the Church was nonetheless too powerful for the communist government to engage in an open confrontation. 26 Paweł Stachowiak: 100 lat węgierskiej traumy, Przewodnik Katolicki 17, 2020, https://www. przewodnik-katolicki.pl/Archiwum/2020/Przewodnik-Katolicki-17-2020/Historia/Sto-latwegierskiej-traumy [last accessed: 15.09.2022]. 27 Balazs Schanda: State and Church in Hungary…, p. 364. 28 During the period of Poland’s partition (1795–1918), “the state” refers to the invader, or more specifically, the three different invaders that ruled over Poland: Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary. 29 Mihail Baciu: Religion and change in central and eastern Europe, Council of Europe 2002, https:// assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewHTML.asp?FileID=9678&lang=en [last accessed: 17.08.2022]. 30 Maciej Bartkowski: Poland’s Solidarity Movement (1980–1989), 2009, https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/polands-solidarity-movement-1980-1989/ [last accessed: 15.09.2022].

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In Hungary, severe restrictions on religious activity lasted, with some brief periods of liberalization, until 1963. Cardinal Mindszenty was the symbolic figure of this struggle. He was first tortured and then sentenced to life imprisonment; he was jailed from 1948 to 1956. After the Hungarian Revolution and Soviet invasion in 1956, he spent fifteen years in the US Embassy in Budapest. Generally, the situation in Hungary was different to that in Poland. The main Hungarian historical churches were subordinated by the state during the communist era. Yet, the majority of church leaders found a modus vivendi with the communist government.31 As Zsolt Enyedi has written: “The political opposition within the churches was crushed by the clergy, while the religious opposition to the clergy was intimidated by the state.”32 Additionally, in 1964 Hungary became the first subject of the Holy See’s “Ostpolitik,” the new pragmatic politics of “adjusting” to the communist bloc developed by Pope Paul VI. As a result, an agreement between the Hungarian communist government and the Holy See was signed. While it aimed at improving the tragic situation of Catholics in Hungary, it in fact contributed to further subordination of Catholicism. The communist era was also the time of some crucial patterns emerging, patterns that shaped both societies significantly. In Poland this meant the strengthening of folk religion,33 which constitutes the core of Polish religiosity up to the present day. But in Hungary, especially in the final decades of that period, there was a deep secularization that made religion quite irrelevant for society. In Hungary, mainstream churches no longer enjoyed public prestige. As a result, even the first decisions regarding freedom of religion in the early 1990s were drafted without their direct participation. This included the relevant amendment to the constitution and the Law on Religious Freedom. All of this was in sharp contrast with Poland, where the Catholic Church enjoyed high esteem as the center of opposition to communism. Still, the “prevailing spirit was not anti-clerical, and especially not anti-religious.”34 In Poland, the Catholic Church had been an active political actor even before 1989, and received some concessions from the communist government.35 Furthermore, in 1989 it was an active participant in the Round Table Talks, being one of the three official sides and serving as the mediator between the government and the Solidarity movement.36

31 Zsolt Enyedi: The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary…, p. 160. 32 Ibid. 33 Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, who led the Polish Catholic Church during the years of the communist regime, considered folk religion as a key dimension of Polish religiosity. 34 Zsolt Enyedi: The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary…, p. 161. 35 Anna Grzymała-Busse: Nations under God. How Churches use moral authority to influence policy, Princeton 2015. 36 Antoni Dudek: Historia polityczna Polski 1989–2015, Kraków 2016, pp. 15–46.

Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool

From positive neutrality to (contested) instrumentalization After the decades of communism and atheism, at the moment of transformation in Hungary and Poland, religion mattered both politically and socially. In the entire region the most common model of Church–state relations became the one based on positive neutrality, opening various channels of cooperation between the state and the religious institutions, especially the mainline ones.37 Yet, in spite of the regional patterns of closer relations between religion and politics, it is important to realize that the present stage of church-state relations in Poland and Hungary specifically is different than the one in the first years after the transformation period. Today, it is more a matter of the political elites trying to “utilize” religious arguments in redefining social-cultural-political values, with both societies being framed into more conservative ones. This is creating an order based on the respective sovereign nation, in opposition to cultural and political influences coming from outside. As a result, religion has stopped being used as the main identity factor in the cultural and social realm. It has also become an instrument of counterrevolution in which national and religious identity is used as a political tool to achieve concrete political goals. This counterrevolution, which is effectively politicizing religion, is not that of 1968, as was experienced in West38 ; it refers instead to 1989 and is being used against the individualistic political and economic patterns imposed by the West. Poland

In spite of the fact that the patterns for direct inclusion of religion into politics were maturing for many years up until 2015, in Poland the Church was not as openly “used” as has been observed since the election of 2015.39 Indeed, the Church, playing the role of both veto-player and agenda-setter, was strongly present in the public debate and back-channel arrangements with the government, influencing the shape of the Constitution, introducing of religious education into schools after 1989, or promoting a restrictive anti-abortion law.40 Yet it held more of a bargaining position, as in the Church’s support for the European Union membership referendum in 2003. Depending on who held power, the Church experienced various ups and

37 Lavinia Stan/Lucian Turcescu: Church, State and Democracy in Expanding Europe, Oxford 2011. 38 Michael Minkenberg: Religion and the Radical Right. in: Jens Rydgren (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, Oxford-New York 2018, pp. 366–393. 39 Aniela Dylus: Z troską o kościele (ludowym) i trosce z nim związanej, in: Chrześcijaństwo-ŚwiatPolityka 22, 2019, pp. 131–140; Kościół najwięcej tracił za rządów PiS. Wywiad Tomasza Królaka z profesorem Andrzejem Zollem, 2022, https://www.ekai.pl/prof-zoll-kosciol-najwiecej-tracil-zarzadow-pis/ [last accessed: 28 August 2022]. 40 Krzysztof Zuba: The Political Strategies of the Catholic Church in Poland, in: Religion, State & Society 38 (2), 2010, pp. 115–134.

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downs, but its social and political role was treated in a serious way with regard to recognition of its interests and claims. Things changed with the Law and Justice Party (PiS, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) gaining power in 2015, although there were signs of change even earlier. In fact, already the first victory of PiS a decade earlier had seen the emergence of a significantly redefined program of the party, as compared to its pro-Western, pro-EU beginnings. Regarding its religious-nationalistic identity, over time it shifted from its heretofore anticlerical stance which addressed the most radical wings of Polish Catholicism (as embodied by Father Tadeusz Rydzyk and his Radio Maryja), and moved in the utterly opposite direction. As Rafał Pankowski has pointed out, before 2005 Jarosław Kaczyński—co-founder of PiS—was one of the harshest critics of Radio Maryja. Yet PiS underwent a far-reaching transformation in almost all aspects since its creation in 2001: in its rhetoric, politics, ideology, political allies, sources of symbolic support, and voter base. In 2005, in its program brochure, Christianity was proclaimed as fundamental for Polish national existence; soon the pragmatic strategy of focusing on religious resources was explained by Jarosław Kaczyński in an apology addressed to Radio Maryja and Father Tadeusz Rydzyk. Interestingly, in the same speech, he placed himself in opposition to Viktor Orbán: “You have to look for a broader formula. You have to shoot with the guns that are available. […] First, I have to win elections. For this reason I have moved to the right as much as I can, not as far as Orbán in Hungary, he took over an extreme nationalist electorate, but still. You cannot win elections without Radio Maryja. Once I wanted to do it in another way. The Centre Alliance41 was an attempt to base oneself on the centrist voters. It ended up a failure…”.42 Soon, Jarosław Kaczyński declared that he had come to the conclusion that Father Rydzyk was a positive figure, strengthening the right wing in Poland through reviving and sustaining communal values—meaning national values—which are vital for the construction of the state.43 This evolved view was different, he admitted, from that of the majority of the Warsaw intelligentsia. The next moment of the historic all-encompassing shift towards a religiousnationalistic identity was the year 2010 and the tragic crash of the presidential plane that killed, along with President Lech Kaczyński and his wife, Maria Kaczyński, 94 other top representatives of the Polish state. This is the time when the so-called Smolensk cross, and the wider Smolensk myth, became the symbol of political instrumentalization of religion, often against the will of the Church. Both the Smolensk myth and the Smolensk cross have, since then, been the hallmarks of 41 Center Alliance was the political branch established by Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński in 1990. Based on it, PiS (Law and Justice) was established in 2001. 42 Rafał Pankowski: The populist radical right in Poland: The patriots, London 2010, p. 153. 43 Ibid., pp. 153–157.

Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool

more blatant use of religious narrative,44 a narrative that has significantly deepened already existing social criticism towards religious-political entanglement, but also intensified creeping political polarization of society. This intentional strategy has been presented as justification for political decisions aimed at creating a basic division into the “patriots” embodied by Jarosław Kaczyński and his followers, and the “traitors” embodied by the new president Bronisław Komorowski and his allies, a crucial division up to the present that illustrates the political and social polarization of Poles. The period between 2010 and 2015, when PiS won parliamentary elections, thus needs to be seen as a period in which the foundations were laid for the later open exploitation of this narrative by the ruling party, a narrative based on the unification of Catholicism and the nation. The strong role of the folk church in Poland, despite growing criticism towards the church as such, has significantly determined the tone of the present political discussion, in which representatives of ruling right-wing coalition are, with no embarrassment, publicly displaying close relations with the most conservative circles of the Polish national Catholicism embodied by Father Tadeusz Rydzyk and his Radio Maryja. Here, the center of the religious-political narrative is the concept of Poland being Poland only as a Catholic Poland. The famous words of Jarosław Kaczyński during the twenty-fourth birthday celebration of Radio Maryja a few weeks after his party’s victory in the parliamentary elections in 2015, words that have been repeated countless times in the public speeches by representatives of the ruling elites, need to be perceived as the motto of this connection: “The hand raised against the Church is the hand raised against Poland!”45 The remarkable continuation of this thought was the one expressed by Jarosław Kaczyński in 2019: outside the Church there is only nihilism, which builds nothing and destroys everything.46 Apart from the already mentioned problem of the “Smolensk cross” and “Smolensk religion” and the numerous speeches of top political elites, a key moment of instrumentalization of religion was the decision of the Constitutional Court to limit the right to abortion to cases in which the fetus is carrying a terminal disease, a decision that was made in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. During huge protests against this decision, when a few churches were attacked, Jarosław Kaczyński made a call to defend the churches “at all costs,”47 which was

44 Władysław J. Paluchowski/Krzysztof Podemski: Mowy miesięcznicowe Jarosława Kaczyńskiego jako spektakl władzy, in: Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny 4, 2019, pp. 253–268. 45 https://wiadomosci.dziennik.pl/polityka/galeria/507507,24-urodziny-radia-maryja-nauroczystosciach-byl-jaroslaw-kaczynski-i-ministrowie.html [last accessed: 15.09.2022]. 46 https://www.radiomaryja.pl/informacje/j-kaczynski-poza-kosciolem-jest-tylko-nihilizm-ktorywszystko-niszczy/ [last accessed: 15.09.2022]. 47 https://wyborcza.pl/7,173236,26448794,kaczynski-urges-his-supporters-to-defend-churches-saysprotests.html [last accessed: 4.09.2022].

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willingly done by the most right-wing organizations and against the reservations of some Catholic clergy. Simultaneously, the police were used for this purpose. Hungary

While using religion as a political tool may be understandable in the case of Poland, the situation is much more remarkable in the case of Hungary. In comparison to Poland, Hungary is both more secularized and more diverse, which could be considered factors that would hinder the use of religious or semi-religious arguments in the public debate. Data collected by Pew Research Center shows the different role that religion plays in the two countries very clearly: 86% of Poles believe in God, while in Hungary it is 59%. In Poland 92% are Christians; in Hungary, 76%. As for church attendance at least once a month, 61% is the result for Poland, in contrast to just 17% for Hungarians.48 There is also a visible discrepancy as to whether religion is perceived as a component of national identity. While 64% of Poles say it is “very” or “somewhat” important to truly be a Christian when sharing one’s national identity, for Hungarians this is but 43%.49 As Zoltán Ádám and András Bozóki have underlined, “the turn from their original anticlericalism in the late 1980s and the early 1990s to their openly positive stance towards religion never played a highly important role in the history of Fidesz.”50 What was important was the nation. A change was recorded as early as in 1993, whereupon it evolved into a wider spectrum of symbiosis gradually created by the Fidesz government.51 After Hungary’s pro-religion turn, churches became more privileged than civic organizations. Main churches also received financing from taxation to make them more independent from party politics.52 In 1998 a “pact” between the Catholic Church, the Calvinists, and the government was made, a pact perceived by observers as a tactical decision for all sides. Being suspicious of both the left and the liberal churches, various church leaders agreed to form a political pact with the party that turned towards conservative values and was

48 Pew Research Center: Eastern and Western Europeans Differ on Importance of Religion, Views of Minorities, and Key Social Issues, October 29, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/ 2018/10/29/eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religion-views-of-minoritiesand-key-social-issues/ [last accessed: 15.09.2022]. 49 Ibid. 50 The authors remark that a recent book on the history of the Fidesz Party—published by a semi-official party publishing house—does not even mention the role of religion in the formation of the party’s ideology. Zoltán Ádám/András Bozóki: State and Faith: Right-wing Populism and Nationalized Religion in Hungary, in: Intersections 2 (1), 2016, p.108. 51 Earlier Fidesz-MPP. 52 Zsolt Enyedi: The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary…, p. 163.

Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool

likely to form the next government. In a circular sent out during the 1998 election campaign, church leaders urged worshippers to vote for the Fidesz party.53 In the following years, state financing of religious teachers was introduced and the subsidies for churches were doubled.54 These redefined relations were developed and further strengthened on the occasion of the millennium celebrations of the year 2000. At that time government ministers regularly stressed the solid, organic bonds between the Hungarian state and Christianity.55 But this was also already the moment when politics countering Western patterns of Church–state relations started to emerge. In 2002, the Hungarian Ministry of Cultural Heritage argued that the model being introduced in Hungary was not only to compensate for the damages caused by the communist regime; it was also to avoids “those deadlocks where, led by the secular myths of the past century, the church policy of some of the western nations ended up.”56 In the same Ministry document, a declaration of the unbreakable relationship between religion and politics is also present: “The Hungarian model of church policy is faithful to the spiritual legacy of our first king Saint Stephen (997–1038), which proclaims: whatever is beneficial to the nation is also beneficial to the church.”57 What needs to be stressed, in addition, is the special attention paid towards the Catholic Church by Viktor Orbán, Fidesz-MPP Prime Minister. As commentators have remarked, Catholic rituals were found to be best for strengthening collectivity,58 and were willingly “used” in their integrative function. In spite of being a Calvinist, Orbán referred to Pope John Paul II as the “Holy Father” and stated once that the Hungarian government voted for Catholic values.59 Orbán has participated

53 Edit Inotai: Papal visit to Hungary highlights Fidesz’s religious complex, 2021, https://balkaninsight.com/2021/09/08/papal-visit-to-hungary-highlights-fideszs-religious-complex/ [last accessed: 31.08.2022]. 54 Zsolt Enyedi: The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary…, p. 170. 55 The coordinator of the millennial celebrations proposed that the separation of church and state should be symbolically suspended in the anniversary period, but the idea was not realized. See: Zsolt Enyedi: The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary…, pp. 171–172. 56 Zsolt Semjén: The Hungarian model of Church-State Relations, in: Balazs Schanda (ed.): Legislation on Church-State Relations in Hungary, Budapest 2002, p. 7. Cited after Zsolt Enyedi: The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary…, p. 171. 57 Ibid., p. 9. 58 Zsolt Enyedi: The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary…, p. 172. 59 An interesting parallel could be made to the Horthy era. Governor Horthy, who himself was not a Catholic but a Calvinist like Viktor Orbán, developed good relations with the Catholic Church—which in his day was also the biggest religious organization in Hungary. He also valued the preservation of Christian-national axiology. See: Júlia Mink: Shadows of the Past: The Roots of Hungary’s “Pluralist System of State Churches,” in: Journal of Church and State 61 (3), 2019, pp. 472–494. Csaba Fazekas describes the ideology of the regime as “Christian nationalism.” See: Csaba Fazekas: The Roman Catholic Church and Extreme Right-Wing Ideologies in Hungary,

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in Catholic masses and processions, and proposed introducing a national holiday on the Catholic feast day of 15 August, the Assumption of Mary,60 an announcement that surprised even Hungarian Catholics.61 As Zsolt Eneydi has pointed out, “most proclerical initiatives did not come from the churches but from the Prime Minister himself. […] it was he, and not the churches, who proposed that the state should supplement the salaries and pensions of the priests.”62 This volt towards the Catholic Church should be viewed as even more interesting when one takes into consideration that in 1991, before the “religious-political transformation,” Fidesz leaders tried to avoid meeting with John Paul II, who was paying a visit to Hungary at that time.63 Over the next years, Orbán’s politics of “appreciation of religion for the good of the nation” grew in strength. The big turn was in 2011 with the changes in the Hungarian Constitution, in which Hungary was described as being a part of Christian Europe, and in which the role of Christianity in preserving nationhood was recognized.64 In 2014 Viktor Orbán gave his famous speech about illiberal democracy in which the defense of Christian culture was one of his key political goals.65 Moreover, in 2018, he directly defined Christian values as illiberal. According to him, Christian democracy must be clearly separated from liberal democracy, as they differ in three key elements, namely, their attitude towards multiculturalism, immigration, and the family model, attitudes that in fact contradict one another. As a result, according to Viktor Orbán, Christian democracy is by definition illiberal.66 In the same speech

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1920–1945, in: Jan Nelis/Anne Morelly/ Danny Praet (eds.): Catholicism and Fascism in Europe 1918–1945. E-Book. Hildesheim, pp. 367– 378. Cited after: Zoltán Ádám/András Bozóki: op. cit., p. 105. August fifteenth is one of the most important religious holidays in Poland. The tradition of pilgrimages to the religious capital of Poland, Jasna Góra, with the shrine of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, is one of the strongest elements of traditional Polish religiosity. One of the leaders of the Hungarian Pax Romana organization commented she was not aware of any expectation within the Catholic Church to celebrate the Assumption of Mary as a state holiday. She added also this idea came from the politicians who have no idea what Christianity is about. Zsolt Enyedi: The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary…, p. 175. Zsolt Enyedi: The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary…, p. 172. Edit Inotai: op. cit. Ministry of Justice, The Fundamental Law of Hungary, https://www.parlament.hu/documents/125505/138409/Fundamental+law/73811993-c377-428d-9808-ee03d6fb8178 [last accessed: 13.08.2022]. https://visegradpost.com/en/2019/07/29/orbans-full-speech-at-tusvanyos-political-philosophyupcoming-crisis-and-projects-for-the-next-15-years/ [last accessed: 15.08.2022]. “Let us confidently declare that Christian democracy is not liberal. Liberal democracy is liberal, while Christian democracy is, by definition, not liberal: it is, if you like, illiberal. And we can specifically say this in connection with a few important issues—say, three great issues. Liberal democracy is in favour of multiculturalism, while Christian democracy gives priority to Christian culture; this is an illiberal

Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool

he also explained his vision of the “universality” of Christianity: “Our duty is not to defend the articles of faith, but the forms of being that have grown from them. These include human dignity, the family and the nation—because Christianity does not seek to attain universality through the abolition of nations, but through the preservation of nations.”67

Religion as a political tool: Inventing and re-inventing (Christian) identity The blurry borders of “the religious” are of great significance to the “missionaries of the change.” There is a long tradition of religion entering the space of discredited ideologies, in this case liberalism. When this happens, religion is used as a vital source for group identification. In this function, it fulfills the fundamental needs of belonging and self-identification, and has a sense of transforming national goals, following the scheme of the “three I’s”—integration, identification, and ideology. The comparison of Poland and Hungary is justified not only by the similarities in the political rhetoric that have developed over the last two decades. This rhetoric could not be so effectively applied if the social-cultural background of the two countries did not constitute a shared context. Both Poland and Hungary represent examples of the most homogeneous societies of the region.68 This needs to be recognized as one of the crucial determinants influencing the effectiveness of the discussed political strategies. Both Poland and Hungary are also states with very long state traditions and proud histories that were interrupted by external determinants which can be easily used as key elements in historical memory. In fact, “otherness,” understood as being different compared to the West, is a source of pride, but also of complexes.69 “Martyrology” is an essential element in the socio-cultural and psychological context of both countries. It has been strongly emphasized as the framework narrative in both—and they both, in fact, have good reasons to refer to it. For Poland, this is the partition time of 1795–1918, certainly, but above all the World War II concept. Liberal democracy is pro-immigration, while Christian democracy is anti-immigration; this is again a genuinely illiberal concept. And liberal democracy sides with adaptable family models, while Christian democracy rests on the foundations of the Christian family model; once more, this is an illiberal concept,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán Speech at the 29th Balvanyos Summer Open University and Student Camp, 28 July 2018, https://miniszterelnok.hu/prime-minister-viktororbans-speech-at-the-29th-balvanyos-summer-open-university-and-student-camp/ [last accessed: 30.08.2022]. 67 Ibid. 68 Ferenc Laczo: How East-West Dynamics define Europe, Review of Democracy, 3 July 2021, https:// revdem.ceu.edu/2021/07/03/how-east-west-dynamics-define-europe/ [last accessed: 8.08.2022]. 69 Radosław Zenderowski: Nation: Central European Context…, p. 137.

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period, when the number of victims and degree of destruction caused by Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia were unimaginable. In the case of Hungary this is the Treaty of Trianon and its aftermath. For both countries, victimization also refers to their communist regimes. The narrative of tormented and exploited nations as the crucial element of political religion70 is brought back, strengthened, and ultimately redefined as a collective sense of suffering and victimization. Moreover, both Hungarians and Poles carry the burden of nations marked by the “traumatic fear of physical extermination.”71 Based on these elements, the top-down political strategy has been applied of exploiting national memories necessary for reinventing and strengthening national-religious identity. The key aspect of victimization is linked here directly to the Messianic mission of saving true European values, which are officially Christian values, while in fact they are actually semi-Christian or post-Christian.72 One of the questions that arises is the effectiveness of strategies based on nationalreligious identity. In Hungary, with its extremely low numbers of church goers, religion is “utilized” in the cultural context. Yet it is not religious values, but cultural heritage that is used as the key integrating and delimiting factor.73 As Rene Nieland has remarked, “Viktor Orbán uses a tool, which, at least in political discourse, had relatively little relevance in Hungary, yet now serves marvelously for his purpose of redefining Hungary and its international status: the reference to Christianity and Christian heritage of Hungarian history.”74 This strategy, which can be perceived as one of many illiberal innovations in the country,75 has proven very effective. Orbán has been successful in creating a new identity based on religious affiliations in a non-religious society. In Poland, despite rapid secularization and much criticism of the Catholic Church, it would be difficult to speak of cultural heritage substituting the religious one. While the Church attendance is decreasing, the element of “belonging” to a nation that confesses specific religion, even at a quite superficial level, stays

70 Piotr Burgoński: op. cit., p. 235. 71 Radosław Zenderowski: Nation: Central European Context…, p. 141. 72 Tamás Nyirkos: Post-Christian democracy: The case of Hungary, Società Italiana di Scienza Politica Conference paper 2019 (Abstract). 73 Dominik Héjj: Chrześcijaństwo według Orbána, in: Przewodnik Katolicki 40, 2018, https:// www.przewodnik-katolicki.pl/Archiwum/2018/Przewodnik-Katolicki-40-2018/Spoleczenstwo/ Chrzescijanstwo-wedlug-Orbana [last accessed: 15.09.2022]. 74 Rene Nieland: Viktor Orbán and the Role of Religion in Hungarian Politics, 2019, Munich, https:// www.grin.com/document/462259 [last accessed: 12.09.2022]. 75 Zsolt Enyedi: Right-wing authoritarian innovations in Central and Eastern Europe, in: East European Politics 36 (3), 2020. DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/21599165.2020.1787162? needAccess=true [last accessed: 11.09.2022].

Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool

strong.76 Yet looking from the perspective of political effectiveness, strategic adjustments between “the religious” and “the political” are not bringing the expected results. The strategy that has proven so successful in Hungary is not as successful in Poland. On the contrary, the religious-national identity that used to exist in Poland has increasingly become a problem for especially young voters, who no longer want to identify with the institution of the Church. Poland’s younger generation is becoming one of the fastest secularizing generations in the world.77 Although the “hard electorate” is not changing their affiliations, it is impossible for the ruling party to reach a constitutional majority, as occurred in Hungary. Playing the religious card has caused increasingly negative social reactions, in spite of the “natural” link between Catholicism and Polishness and negation of the connection “PoleCatholic” at more reflectional levels. The last important issue that should be raised is the extent the contents of the religious doctrines that are being utilized politically can be perceived as Christianity. In Hungary, the top-down process of sacralization of the nation is based on a quasi-religious ideological construct through which it is trying to mobilize a wider social spectrum, namely ethno-nationalism. As Zoltán Ádám and András Bozóki have written: “This surrogate religion offers a nationalist and paganized understanding of Christianity and elevates the concept of ethnically defined nation to a sacred status.”78 In Poland, sacralization of the nation is both a bottom-up process rooted in cultural heritage, and a top-down process being strategically conducted by politicians—often against voiced concerns of Church officials and religious norms, a dynamic that was quite apparent during Europe’s 2015 immigration crisis. Such internal contradictions may serve the political elites well, according to the well-known divide et impera, yet they do not help these societies’ cohesion, nor religion itself, which is gradually being rejected in its politicized form by the next generations of these societies.

Conclusions In the third decade of the 21st century, the problem of the sacralization of politics in Poland and Hungary seems to be connected to more than the classic question of who is ruling. The essence of the theologico-political problem is not solely

76 Pew Research Center: Eastern and Western Europeans Differ on Importance of Religion… 77 Młodzi Polacy tracą wiarę? Jesteśmy liderem w rankingu spadku religijności, 2018, https://deon.pl/ kosciol/mlodzi-polacy-traca-wiare-jestesmy-liderem-w-rankingu-spadku-religijnosci,483992 [last accessed: 8.09.2022]. 78 Zoltán Ádám/András Bozóki: op. cit., p. 99.

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authority as Leo Strauss has defined it.79 Rather it is how the religious-national narrative is being applied as the key determinant for introducing a new “national order” based on redefined views of crucial concepts such as community, rights, duties, and sovereign nations. Thus, the problem is not only connected to politics. It touches fundamental questions organizing the lives of societies, and constructs an alternative social-political order. The aim of the leaders of this redefined order in the region, opposing the one established after the collapse of communism, is to leading a true counterrevolution that serves higher national goals, despite being quite unsatisfactory to significant segments of both Polish and Hungarian society. This new order is, in fact, creating an alternative normative framework upon which certain countercultural innovations are based. These are being constructed through selective application of religious-political ideas, symbols, and rituals. The goal of this selective and manipulative reference to religious values is above all to satisfy the political needs and interests of the ruling elites. At the same time, however, the aim of this counterrevolution, while serving local purposes, is to become a substantial part of a “universal counterrevolution” based on pseudo-Christian values and norms that, in fact, do not have much in common with the essence of Christian doctrine. Neither the pure mechanism of merging “what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar,” two things that Christianity originally separated, nor the contents of this doctrine, with its selected values and norms, can be perceived as truly religious categories. Yet this shows again that concepts such as nation, religion, and identity will last and be used by political elites, following the ancient tradition of alliance between throne and altar, for the interest of one or the other.

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Kościół najwięcej tracił za rządów PiS. Wywiad Tomasza Królaka z profesorem Andrzejem Zollem, 2022, https://www.ekai.pl/prof-zoll-kosciol-najwiecej-tracil-za-rzadow-pis/ [last accessed: 28 August 2022]. Laczo, Ferenc: How East-West Dynamics define Europe, Review of Democracy, 3 July 2021, https://revdem.ceu.edu/2021/07/03/how-east-west-dynamics-define-europe/ [last accessed: 8.08.2022]. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politicize [last accessed: 23.08.2022]. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religionize [last accessed: 23.08.2022]. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sacralize [last accessed: 24.08.2022]. Ministry of Justice, The Fundamental Law of Hungary, https://www.parlament.hu/documents/125505/138409/Fundamental+law/73811993-c377-428d-9808-ee03d6fb8178 [last accessed: 13.08.2022]. Mink, Júlia: Shadows of the Past: The Roots of Hungary’s “Pluralist System of State Churches,” in: Journal of Church and State 61 (3), 2019, pp. 472–494. Minkenberg, Michael: Religion and the Radical Right. in: Jens Rydgren (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, Oxford-New York 2018, pp. 366–393. Młodzi Polacy tracą wiarę? Jesteśmy liderem w rankingu spadku religijności, 2018, https:// deon.pl/kosciol/mlodzi-polacy-traca-wiare-jestesmy-liderem-w-rankingu-spadkureligijnosci,483992 [last accessed: 8.09.2022]. Nieland, Rene: Viktor Orbán and the Role of Religion in Hungarian Politics, 2019, Munich, https://www.grin.com/document/462259 [last accessed: 12.09.2022]. Nyirkos, Tamás: Post-Christian democracy: the case of Hungary, Società Italiana di Scienza Politica Conference paper 2019 (abstract). Oxford Reference, Religion and Politics, https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/ authority.20110803100413418, [last accessed: 1.08.2022]. Paluchowski, Władysław J./Podemski, Krzysztof: Mowy miesięcznicowe Jarosława Kaczyńskiego jako spektakl władzy, in: Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny 4, 2019, pp. 253–268. Pankowski, Rafał: The populist radical right in Poland: The patriots, London 2010. Pew Research Center: Eastern and Western Europeans Differ on Importance of Religion, Views of Minorities, and Key Social Issues, October 29, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/ religion/2018/10/29/eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religionviews-of-minorities-and-key-social-issues/ [last accessed: 15.09.2022]. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán Speech at the 29th Balvanyos Summer Open University and Student Camp, 28 July 2018, https://miniszterelnok.hu/prime-minister-viktororbans-speech-at-the-29th-balvanyos-summer-open-university-and-student-camp/ [last accessed: 30.08.2022]. radiomaryja.pl/informacje/j-kaczynski-poza-kosciolem-jest-tylko-nihilizm-ktorywszystko-niszczy/ [last accessed: 15.09.2022]. Schanda, Balázs: State and Church in Hungary, in: Gerhard Robbers: State and Church in the European Union, Third Edition, Baden-Baden 2019, pp. 363–388.

Religion and nation in Central and Eastern Europe: (Christian) identity as political tool

Sata, Robert/ Karolewski, Ireneusz P.: Caesarean politics in Hungary and Poland, in: East European Politics 36 (2), 2020, pp. 206–225. Semjén, Zsolt: The Hungarian model of Church-State Relations, in: Balazs Schanda (ed.): Legislation on Church-State Relations in Hungary, Budapest 2002. Stachowiak, Paweł: 100 lat węgierskiej traumy, Przewodnik Katolicki 17, 2020, https://www. przewodnik-katolicki.pl/Archiwum/2020/Przewodnik-Katolicki-17-2020/Historia/Stolat-wegierskiej-traumy [last accessed: 15.09.2022]. Stan, Lavinia/Turcescu, Lucian: Church, State and Democracy in Expanding Europe, Oxford 2011. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Religion and Political Theory, https://plato.stanford. edu/entries/religion-politics/ [last accessed: 2.09.2022]. Toft, Monica D./Philpott, Daniel/Shah, Timothy S.: God’s Century. Resurgent Religion and Global Politics, New York 2011. visegradpost.com/en/2019/07/29/orbans-full-speech-at-tusvanyos-political-philosophyupcoming-crisis-and-projects-for-the-next-15-years/ [last accessed: 15.08.2022]. wiadomosci.dziennik.pl/polityka/galeria/507507,24-urodziny-radia-maryja-nauroczystosciach-byl-jaroslaw-kaczynski-i-ministrowie.html [last accessed: 15.09.2022]. wyborcza.pl/7,173236,26448794,kaczynski-urges-his-supporters-to-defend-churches-saysprotests.html [last accessed: 4.09.2022]. Zenderowski, Radosław: Etnicyzacja religii i sakralizacja etnosu: nacjonalizm w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej, in: Athenaeum 24 (2010), pp. 36–50. Zenderowski, Radosław: Nation: Central European Context, in: Marcin Moskalewicz/ Wojciech Przybylski (eds.): Understanding Central Europe, New York 2018, pp. 137–143. Zuba, Krzysztof: The Political Strategies of the Catholic Church in Poland, in: Religion, State & Society 38 (2), 2010, pp. 115–134.

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Chapter 3: The role of religion in the process of building social trust: An empirical study

Introduction One of the basic components of social life is social trust. According to the assumptions of the sociology of everyday life,1 social trust exists in all aspects of life and plays an important role in them. Thanks to this, it is possible to build lasting social relations. Trust, as the main component of social capital, fosters economic growth, market efficiency, social integration, cooperation, satisfaction and well-being, but also stability and the development of democracy. At the same time, it reduces the complexity of reality by ensuring that the social system determines mutual expectations regarding the future behavior of actors and parties; thus, social trust encourages the choice of specific options for social action. As a result, the essential functions of cooperation and exchange are fulfilled and the social order is maintained. Lack of trust thus poses a great threat to the entire socio-political system. A low level of trust may contribute to low efficiency in the development planning process and the emergence of negative phenomena, such as clientelism, corruption and breaking the democratic rules of social order. The unwavering interest in the subject of social trust is due to many reasons. The changes taking place in the modern world are not without significance here. There is a shift toward societies that are based on human subjectivity. Global interdependencies are intensifying. The social structure is becoming more heterogeneous. There are significant generational and demographic changes accompanied by an increase in media influence.2 Previously unknown threats and dangers in various domains (e. g., ecology, health, terrorism, etc.) are appearing and intensifying, and as a consequence, human actions are ceasing to be easily predictable.3 As a consequence, members of society are increasingly insecure about the actions that others will take; there is a sense of confusion, and fear of the negative consequences of political decisions. Trust thus becomes an indispensable resource that allows us to cope with the volatility of social life, especially as it is integrated into political, cultural, economic and social structures.

1 Piotr Sztompka: Zaufanie. Fundament społeczeństwa, Kraków 2007. 2 Russel Hardin: Zaufanie, Warszawa 2009. 3 Ulrich Beck: Living in the world risk society, in: Economy and Society, vol. 35, number 3, 2006.

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Constructing social trust is a process. It can be modified if the factors contributing to a higher or lower level are known. A key role in this process is played by macrostructural factors related to demography, economy, legal order, political dimension, as well as those of a cultural nature. One such factor is religion. This chapter aims to analyze the relationship between the level of social trust of Poles in institutional and social dimensions with their declared religious level and frequency of religious practice. The empirical basis for the analysis will be the results of the Polish edition of the European Social Survey at two points in time—in the first round of 2002 and the round of 2018–2019. This will allow us to grasp the different nature of this relationship over time.

Social trust as a scientific category Trust can be defined in many ways. In psychological terms, the concept is equated with trust and faith in another person. It can also be seen as a kind of calculation or balance sheet,4 the effect of proper socialization5 or social learning.6 In the social sense, it is also presented as a bet in a situation of uncertainty.7 Trust is understood as a mechanism based on the assumption that other members of a given community are characterized by honest, cooperative behavior based on shared standards. These standards are defined as an “informal norm” that minimizes the costs of socio-economic transactions that create supervision over the conclusion of political and social contracts, a mechanism for resolving disputes and enforcing formal agreements.8 The level of social trust can be considered a relatively permanent feature of any society, determined by its historical experiences. Stable societies that experience predictable situations, as well as permanent and respected legal, moral and ethical rules, are characterized by a high level of trust.9 Therefore, it can be considered a

4 James S. Coleman: Foundation of Social Theory, Cambridge 1990; Russel Hardin: Trust and Trustworthiness, New York 2002. 5 Eric M. Uslaner: The Moral Foundation of Trust, New York 2002. 6 Albert Bandura: Teoria społecznego uczenia się, Warszawa 2007. 7 See also: Eric M. Uslaner: The Moral Foundation of Trust, New York 2002.; Piotr Sztompka: Zaufanie. Fundament społeczeństwa, Kraków 2007. 8 Ronald Inglehard: Trust, Well-Being and Democracy, in: Mark. E. Warren (ed.): Democracy and Trust, New York 1999. 9 Ronald Inglehard: Modernization and Postmodernization, Princeton 1997.

The role of religion in the process of building social trust: An empirical study

culturally determined value because it is, in a way, socially inherited.10 Trust creates social and political life through the experience gained. Trust can be considered on many levels. Considering its nature, there are several types of trust: (1) personal—trust of specific people; (2) positional—trust of specific social roles, professions, or positions; (3) commercial—trust targeted at goods (products, brands, or companies); (4) technological—trust of various types of technical systems (communication, energy, information technology); (5) institutional—trust of complex organizations involving numerous, anonymous participants (banks, the stock exchange, or universities); (6) systemic, the most abstract—trust of an entire social system and its participants (a civilization or an economy).11 To simplify the arguments and analyses, this multiplicity of research perspectives is often reduced to three levels: personalized (individual), generalized (social), and institutional (political, including formal institutions). The degree of personal trust depends not only on the specific partner in the social relationship, but also on the type of issue in which one person trusts the other. In the case of personal trust, a tripartite relationship is assumed, in which person A trusts person B about X. Generalized social trust is not defined in this way and refers instead to a person’s basic readiness to show trust in other unknown people. Generalized trust is based solely on expectations as to the intentions of other people, i. e., the expectation that people are mostly decent, honest, good, reliable and do not harm others on purpose. Institutional trust can be treated as a political or slightly broader trust. It determines the level of social approval for the activities of various institutions that are of key importance for the functioning of the state and society. There are no clearly crystallized relationships between these levels. Lack of trust causes people to stop believing in the sense of teamwork and become antisocial. As a consequence of this lack of trust, social and political systems also lose their legitimacy and development is quite difficult.12 Trust is also essential in the life of modern societies because of their increasing complexity, opacity, and increasing areas of uncertainty and amounts of risk.13 Trust allows you to reduce uncertainty and assume that others will be favorable or at least neutral towards you. The trust expressed by citizens in the most important political institutions and representatives of state authorities is one of the basic determinants

10 Francis Fukuyama: Zaufanie. Kapitał społeczny a droga do dobrobytu, Warszawa 1997; Robert D. Putnam: Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community, 2000. DOI: https://doi. org/10.1145/358916.361990; Luigi Guiso/Paola Sapienza/Luigi Zingales: Social Capital as Good Culture, in: Journal of the European Economic Association, vol. 6, Issue 2-3, May 2008, pp. 295–320. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/JEEA.2008.6.2-3.295 11 Piotr Sztompka: op. cit. 12 Francis Fukuyama: op. cit. 13 Ulrich Beck: op. cit.

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of the stability of democratic systems; trust in other people is a determinant of social stability. Trust is associated with risk because each party must take into account the partner’s possible dishonesty and the uncertainty of the realization of the effects of the relationship. An important aspect of trust is that it cannot be earned once and for all. Trust is dynamic and changes over time, which means it can be lost at any time. The level of social trust in all three indicated dimensions is influenced by the historical and structural context, which is favored or disrupted by several factors. Among them, it is worth highlighting the following. (1) Poverty, unemployment, and levels of discrimination. It can be assumed that in societies where there are large inequalities, as measured by the Gini coefficient14 , there is a low level of social trust.15 (2) Political and civil rights. Those countries with a well-developed system of political rights and civil liberties (measured by universal indicators such as the Freedom House index16 ) are characterized by a medium range of social trust.17 (3) Stability and prosperity. It can be concluded that an important factor contributing to trust is the absence of unfavorable economic phenomena such as inflation, tax increases, unemployment or social conflicts between significant categories of social actors. (4) Degree of urbanization. In less urbanized communities, greater social integration that fosters trust is observed. A high degree of urbanization favors individualization and social atomization, which does not positively correlate with trust.18 (5) The presence of a specific culture of consent, which causes actions that are not accepted normatively to be judged gently.19

14 The Gini coefficient is a dispersion ratio created by the Italian analyst Corrado Gini in 1912. It is regularly used to check monetary imbalances, assess wage appropriations or, less frequently, distribute wealth among the population. This ratio ranges from 0 (or 0%) to 1 (or 100%), with 0 talking about fairness being consumed and 1 talking about disequilibrium being consumed, see: Grzegorz Kołodko: Społeczne i przestrzenne aspekty zróżnicowania dochodów we współczesnym świecie, in: Nierówności Społeczne a Wzrost Gospodarczy, 39, 2014. 15 Bo Rothstein/Dietlind Stolle: Social Capital and Street-Level Bureaucracy: An Institutional Theory of Generalized Trust, Princeton 2001. 16 https://freedomhouse.org [last accessed 21.04.2023]. 17 Kenneth Newton: Social Trust and Political Disaffections. Social Capital and Democracy, Paper prepared for the EURESCO Conference on Social Capital: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Exeter, 15–20 September 2001, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242072396_Social_Trust_and_ Political_Disaffection_Social_Capital_and_Democracy [last accessed 20.06.2022]. 18 James. S. House/Sharon Wolf: Effects of Urban Residence on Interpersonal Trust and Helping Behavior, in: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1978, pp. 1029–1043. 19 Mancur Olson: The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Cambridge 1977.

The role of religion in the process of building social trust: An empirical study

(6) Corruption. A high level of corruption as measured by Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index20 translates into a low level of trust.21 (7) Inherited distrust of the state, as well as individualism and selfishness; (8) Religiousness. In general, it is possible to indicate a proportional relationship between the level of religiosity of a society and the level of trust measured in the three indicated dimensions. This dependence, measured between people of different faiths22 , indicates that there is less trust among Catholics as a result of the hierarchical structure of their church’s authority.

Religiosity as a factor determining the level of trust Contemporary social processes taking place on many levels of life are a source of much tension for humans as well as the source of many risks. The search for the most adequate solutions, both ethically acceptable and credible, is conditioned by many individuals, but also socio-cultural factors, including spiritual and religious ones. Religion—treated from the point of view of the social sciences—is associated with a system of meanings, values, norms and patterns of behavior that perform the functions of ordering and structuring reality, and explaining the world in which people live by referring to what exceeds the empirical reality. For this study, I will not deal with religiosity in general, but with religiosity that is related to social life, which is entangled in a specific socio-cultural context. Religion (as a very broadly defined concept, including the aspects of subjective experience and religiousness) is seen as one of the potential instruments of political action. In all kinds of discussions about the state and politics, religious topics cannot be avoided. The political nature of religious issues, or—more broadly speaking—of world views, means that they are often treated as religious politics. An important problem related to the definition of religion is the question of how to understand religiosity. The concept of religiosity is closely related to the concept of religion. It is a one-way relationship. Adopting a specific position to define religion directly affects the understanding of the term religiosity and the manner of its subsequent operationalization. In the social sciences, religiosity generally refers to the functioning of religion in the conduct of an individual or social life. Religiosity is understood as a socio-cultural phenomenon, a social fact that manifests itself in

20 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021 [last accessed 21.04.2023]. 21 Bo Rothstein/Dietlind Stolle: How Political Institutions Create and Destroy Social Capital: An Institutional Theory of Generalized Trust, 2001, http://www.colbud.hu./honesty-trust/rothstein/pub03.doc [last accessed 20.06.2022]. 22 Ronald Ingelhart: Modernization and Postmodernization, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1997.

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the consciousness and life of individuals and communities. In definitions, religious phenomena are related to religious institutions that directly or indirectly participate in the processes of religious socialization of individuals, or translate into their legal and formal impact on the behavior of individuals and social groups. Religious institutions create a socially defined order. Religiosity shaped by institutions is considered from two perspectives: social, external, one-dimensional (the criteria of religiosity here are mainly religious practices); and individual-social and multidimensional (here the criterion of religiosity is related to faith, its experiencing and acting following the dictates of religion and denominational identity).23 The purely subjective dimension is also important. Such an understanding of religiosity assumes that it is a subjective, individual attitude of man towards God, the supernatural, expressed in the sphere of notions and beliefs, feelings and behaviors.24 Religiousness, therefore, concerns internal mental processes related to experiencing a specific relationship with the reality that exists outside the visible world. We infer religiousness based on such elements as religious awareness and feelings, religious decisions made, ties with the community, religious practices, morality, religious experiences and forms of religious life.25

Methodology As the empirical basis of the considerations in this chapter, the results of two editions of the European Social Survey (ESS) have been used. The ESS is one of the largest and most important European research projects. It was initiated by the Expert Committee of the European Science Foundation. The primary goal of the ESS is to observe social changes taking place in Europe, such as attitudes towards key problems and changes in value systems and behaviors. The Polish edition of the study is coordinated by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. So far, ten rounds of the study have been carried out, with the first in 2002, and subsequent rounds held every two years. The tenth most recent round was carried out in 2021 (data from this study are still not available and for pandemic reasons, its methodology was modified slightly). The standards for the field implementation of ESS are strictly controlled by the Central Coordination Team and are thoroughly documented in methodological reports and databases of results. The open nature of the databases and the detailed 23 Maria Libiszowska-Żółtkowska: Postawy inteligencji wobec religii, Studium socjologiczne, Warszawa 1991. 24 Zdzisław Golan: Pojęcie religijności, in: Stanisław Głaz (ed.): Podstawowe zagadnienia psychologii religii, Kraków 2006. 25 Czesław Walesa: Rozwój religijności człowieka (t. 1.), Lublin 2005.

The role of religion in the process of building social trust: An empirical study

reporting on the effects of the field phase of the research allows researchers to conduct theoretical and empirical studies using the results of the research. Social (generalized) trust is measured in the ESS using two questions in the questionnaire. The so-called “standard trust scale” consists of the following three questions: (1) Generally speaking, do you think that most people can be trusted or that you can never be too careful when dealing with people? (2) Do you think that, should the opportunity arise, most people would try to take advantage of you, or would they try to be honest? (3) Do you think that people primarily try to help others, or that they primarily care about their interests? These questions have been asked of participants in social research conducted in various countries around the world since at least the 1970s. For this analysis, only the first question will be used, which directly specifies the level of generalized trust in others. The justification for such an action is the result of methodological experiments showing the complexity of the construct behind these questions and the inability to treat them as poles of the same axis.26 In ESS research, it is assumed that political trust is a hidden (unobservable) feature, the potential indicators of which (at the national level) are: (a) trust in the national parliament, (b) trust in the legal system, (c) trust in the police, (d) trust in politicians, (e) trust in political parties. The presented battery of questions is part of the so-called “basic module” of the ESS questionnaire, which means that questions about political trust are asked of the respondents in each subsequent edition of the project (although in the first round of the ESS in 2002, there was no question about trust in politicians). The measurement of each of the indicators of political trust assumes a gradation of attitudes extending on an 11-point continuum, from “total lack of trust”—with an assigned value of 0, to “complete trust”—with an assigned value of 10. Consequently, the use of 11-point scale responses meets the continuity of scale assumption to a much greater extent than the measurement of political confidence in other transnational projects. For this chapter, a single summary index was created from all the elements of the study. This index has been used for the empirical illustration of the level of institutional trust. The issue of religion, religiosity and denominations is extremely complex, if only due to the multiplicity of concepts that make up the definition of the issue, the multiplicity of methodological and empirical approaches with their advantages and limitations, and the multiplicity of environments and groups involved. Despite a certain imperfection in the indicators of faith and religiosity used in empirical research, they constitute an unquestionable source of knowledge about society and

26 Zbigniew Karpiński: Zaufanie uogólnione a ostrożność w kontaktach z nieznajomymi: porównanie wyników dwóch sondaży, in: Studia Socjologiczne, 3, 2016 (222).

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the changes taking place in it.27 Religion and denomination are also a component of the ESS Core Module. Since the first edition of the project in 2002, respondents have been asked questions about their affiliation to a specific religion (a dichotomous question with the addition of a specific religion and church); their subjectively defined level of religiosity (an 11-point scale, with 0 meaning complete lack of religiosity, and 10, the highest level of religiosity); and their religious practices (frequency of participation in services and prayers).

Religion and social and institutional trust Trust can be counted among the social goods that are part of public values. Acceptance of this type of value determines the social order of each community. The acceptance of trust as a value allows for the identification of certain norms and principles that enable the efficient functioning of societies at various levels. On the other hand, trust is related to the acceptance of sensitization to the actions of two sides of a relationship, which appears in conditions of interdependence between the parties. The concept of trust includes many components, such as expectation, reliance on someone, risk, belief in someone’s intentions or actions, and insecurity. Social (generalized) trust is based on a direct experience of living in society, and daily relationships with friends, family, neighbors, colleagues and others. Institutional trust is mainly based on indirect experience and information provided about institutions or political leaders. Trust in public institutions reduces the costs of implementing legal rules and creates collective actions. Institutional distrust may result from reflections on the state of political life, from attitudes towards people who run democratic institutions and other agencies implementing public programs, or from general lack of confidence in the democratic system and democratic procedures. In Polish society, dominated as it is by the Catholic religion, trust is treated as one of the essential values and moral features. When analyzing the results of the ESS from two editions—the first one in 2002 and the last one containing the results on the condition of Polish society from 2018–2019—it can be noticed that a characteristic feature of Poland in light of the research is the relatively low level of both dimensions of social trust. It is possible to see an increase in the high values of indicators between selected editions of the survey. In the 2002 edition of the ESS, the highest level of social trust (points 7–10 on the scale) was declared by 11.2% of respondents; in 2018–2019 edition,

27 See more: Rafał Boguszewski: Polak-katolik casus polskiej religijności w warunkach globalizacji na podstawie badań empirycznych CBOS, in: Maria Libiszowszka-Żółtkowska (ed.): Religia i religijność w warunkach globalizacji, Kraków 2007.

The role of religion in the process of building social trust: An empirical study

this had become 33.6%. At the same time, 11.1% of respondents in 2002 and 6.8% in 2018–2019 declared a lack of trust in this dimension. The lowest level of trust (points 1–3 on the scale) was chosen by 36.2% of the respondents in the first edition and 20.2% in the last analyzed edition of the survey. In the case of institutional trust, the highest level of trust was 13.4% in 2002 and 29.1% in 2018–2019. At the same time, 0.9% of respondents in 2002 and 1.6% in 2018–2019 declared a lack of trust. The lowest values were indicated by 24% of respondents in 2002 and 20.7% in 2018–2019. Table 1 Social and institutional trust levels in Poland [in %] No trust at all

1

2

3

4

5

Social trust Institutional trust

11.1 0.9

8.7 2.5

11.7 7.7

15.8 13.8

11.5 20.5

Social trust Institutional trust

6.8 1.6

3.6 3.6

6.9 6.7

9.7 10.0

2018–2019 8.9 19.4 11.3 13.1 17.5 18.4

2002 22.4 23.3

6

7

8

9

Total trust

6.8 17.9

6.4 9.4

3.6 3.0

0.9 0.9

1.2 0.1

15.9 15.8

12.3 9.6

3.4 2.9

2.0 0.8

Source: Own analysis based on the ESS

One of the parameters determining the level of religiosity is self-identification, also referred to as the global profession of faith and practices. Respondents determine their own level of religiosity, situating themselves on a scale of intensity of religious attitude. This parameter indicates that Polish religiosity is decreasing. In 2002, 2.6% of the respondents considered themselves non-religious; in 2018–2019 it was already 17.7%. The highest level of religiosity (points on the 7–10 scale in total) was indicated by 55.8% in the first edition of the study and 30.9% in the last edition. Table 2 Subjective religiosity levels in Poland [in %] Not at all 1 religious

2

3

Religiosity

2.6

1.5

2.8

4.4

Religiosity

17.7

5.8

7.2

7.6

Source: Own analysis based on the ESS

4

5

6

7

8

9

2002 4.9 17.9 10.2 16.5 18.2 8.0 2018–2019 6.1 15.0 9.6 10.8 9.6 3.7

Very religious 12.8 6.8

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Another parameter important in determining the level of religiosity is religious practices, the scope of which is determined based on the declarations of the respondents. This involves the ritual dimension of religion or the functions of a religious cult, such as voluntary participation in practice and prayer. This is another dimension where a downward trend in the level of Poles’ religiosity is visible. According to their declarations, less than 5% of the respondents in 2002 never participated in religious practices. This had increased to 33.8% of the respondents in 2018–2019 (except for weddings and other special occasions). In the case of prayers, these levels were 8.3% and 38.5%. Table 3 Frequency of religiosity practice in Poland [in %] Every day

More than once a week

Once a week

Attendance in religious services Prayers

1.0

6.7

47.

46.8

16.0

9.7

Attendance in religious services Prayers

0.8

2.4

10.1

18.5

7.5

6.1

At least once a month

Only on Less special often holy days

Never

2002 18.6

17.4

3.5

4.9

5.6 6.4 2018–2019 10.0 23.2

7.2

8.3

19.8

33.8

16.3

38.5

6.3

6.8

Source: Own analysis based on the ESS

According to the analyzed data, in the first edition of the ESS, religiosity as defined in two dimensions did not translate in a statistically significant way into the level of social and institutional trust. The situation changed in the last analyzed edition. Religious self-identification and the greater frequency of practices contribute to a lower level of trust. The exception is social trust, where there is a slight proportional relationship. Table 4 Correlation between religiosity and trust in Poland [in %] Religiosity

Social trust Institutional trust

-0.007 0.058

Frequency of attendance at religious services 2002 -0.018 -0.017

Frequency of prayers

0.017 0.015

The role of religion in the process of building social trust: An empirical study

2018–2019 Social trust Institutional trust

-0.049**

0.072**

0.102**

0.033**

0.004

0.046**

r-Pearson correlation *p