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Although I don't entirely agree with this article, it's still interesting nevertheless. More impressive is the fact that the author is a progressive Catholic.

http://www.agreeley.com/articles/eeurope00.htm

RELIGIOUS REVIVALS IN EASTERN EUROPE
(Article suppressed by the London Tablet)

by Andrew Greeley

Enough research has been done on religion in Eastern Europe that one can say with considerable confidence that religion is reviving in the former socialist countries. At a recent conference at Nuffield College (Oxford) European scholars (Geoff Evans of Oxford and Ariana Need of Amsterdam) and American scholars (Michael Hout and myself) were able to compare notes and discover a convergence of findings. There are two major religious changes in the former socialist countries, one obvious and astonishing, the other more subtle but in the long run perhaps more important and, alas, more likely to be missed.

There is, first of all, the dramatic revival of religion in Russia, now so obvious that no one can dispute it. Three out of five Russians say that they believe in God, a higher rate than in West Germany, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries. Two out of five say that they didn't used to believe in God but do now. 58% describe their religion is Orthodox, though only one out of ten were raised Orthodox. The majority of Russians want baptisms, weddings and funerals in church and agree that religion provides the moral basis for life and a support for family relationships. Almost half of them attend church services at least once a year and one out five pray at least once a week.

Thus nine years after the abortive Communist coup that brought Boris Yeltsin to power, Orthodoxy has reemerged as a major force in Russian life, so important indeed that, when Boris Nicoalaevitch resigned as president, the Patricarch Alexei, in full robes, stood besides him. Half a decade ago such a resurgence of Orthodoxy was dismissed, perhaps not unreasonably, as impossible when I reported the first survey results, collected the same year as Yeltsin's rise to power. Now the religious revival in Russia, perhaps the most dramatic in human history, has become so obvious that it is taken for granted. Patently the millennium-long Russian religious heritage was too strong to be destroyed by seventy years of sometimes vicious but almost always inept Socialist oppression. Vladimir of Kiev triumphed over Karl Mark. (Drs. Evans and Need reported that the proportions believing in God and affiliating with Orthodoxy in the Ukraine and Beylorus were somewhat smaller but not basically different from those in Russia).

The second revival is more subtle but affects eight former Socialist countries on which we have data - in 1991 and 1998 Slovenia, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, and Russia and in 1998 the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Bulgaria. On a scale that combines (the highly inter-correlated variables) of belief in life after death, heaven, and "religious" miracles, the younger birth cohorts, especially those born during the nineteen seventies and the older cohorts, especially those born before nineteen thirty, have higher scores than the intervening cohorts. More concretely it would appear that the children share with (and sometimes exceed) the grandparental generation in the religious hope, which the parental generations seem to have rejected. This "U curve" exists, with somewhat varying shapes and at varying levels, in every country and is always statistically significant. Moreover no such curves can be found in any Western country. Only in Poland is there a negative correlation between educational attainment and spiritual hope - and that slight. At a time when religious leaders in the West bemoan the lost of religious faith among the young, the former socialist countries witness a dramatic rise of religious faith. How can this be explained? Perhaps the young in the former socialist countries have a different story about God than do their parents. An item asked in two surveys inquired whether the respondent thought that God was concerned with humans as persons. When answers to this question were added to the analysis, every single one of the eight U curves flattened out. The resurgence among the young of religious hope was linked to a rediscovery of a God who cares. When the burden of Socialist oppression was lifted, those born after 1970 found themselves more likely than their immediate predecessors, to believe in a God who is concerned about them personally - even in Poland! Far from being a phenomenon of "New Age" religion, it would appear to be a rebirth of age-old religion. Of its very nature this revival is invisible because it affects personal faith and hope. Church attendance normally correlates with advancing years. The nineteen seventies cohort is not yet old enough to return to church-going. It may never become more religiously active. In all eight countries confidence in Church leaders has fallen sharply in the last decade. Hannah Borowek and Gregoriez Gabinksi have edited a collection of essays which analyze the response of Eastern European churches to their new freedom. In every country, they report, the principle concerns of the churches were to reassert their political power, their religious monopoly, and their moral control of the population. Small wonder that they lost the confidence of their people. One would think that the religious leadership in Eastern Europe would have to be brain dead not to notice the possibilities for evangelization among those under thirty years old. However, since one hears nothing about this revival of faith in a God who cares, one suspects that they are not aware of it. Like religious leaders in the West, they do not need sociology to tell them about the needs and the problems of their people. Nor the opportunities.

Drs. Need and Evans tell us that religion is stronger in Catholic countries than in Orthodox countries, though they offer no explanation for this finding. In our data, only Latvia provides a sufficient number of respondents to compare Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran respondents. In fact the U curve for Catholics is higher. European sociologists, I learned at the Nuffield meeting, are willing to admit that Catholics are more resilient to the pressures of "secularization" as they call it but they don't essay explanations. My hunch is that "secularization" may in fact represent the final waning of the elan of the Reformation. Catholics are more persistent in their heritage because they have different stories about God and world and the relationship between the two - David Tracy's analogical imagination. However, in the Catholic countries in Eastern Europe, the rejection of the Church's sexual ethic is almost as complete as it is in the West. Since sex is the principle preoccupation of Catholic leadership, it is very likely that they will ignore the resurgence of faith among the young and continue to denounce the paganism of their young people. They will agree with Cardinal Ratzinger that there is a terrible loss of faith and remain unaware of the bright promise in the youthful discovery of a God who cares. Thus they will miss completely one of the great religious opportunities of the last hundred years and overlook what is perhaps the best current hope for the future of Catholicism in Europe.

Andrew Greeley

(Father Greeley teaches sociology at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona.
The University of California Press has recently published his book The Catholic Imagination).


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Most encouraging!

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Indeed it is. Greeley has also written much refuting the common notion of a religious decline in Europe. Greeley argues(as do I but from a more traditionalist perspective) thats theres much more complexity to the question. In some areas of Europe, yes the faith is in decline. But in others its actually reviving. In many other areas, its pretty much stable.

Then of course there's the question of which churches are declining. Liberal churches are hit the worst, while traditionalist churches are thriving(especially in France). So its really the mainstream churches(with watered-down theology and rituals) that are in trouble.

Not only that theres the question of where churches get their support. Many churches in Europe are state supported, so they really dont need an active laity to stay alive. In contrast, churches in America and the Third World need an active laity to stay alive and have to stay ahead of big competition.

So in many ways its more an issue of institutional incompetence in Europe than actual lack of religious belief in Europe.

I recent read a sociological report claiming that non-mainstream(and more traditionalist based) Christian groups have risen in Europe.


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I recent read a sociological report claiming that non-mainstream(and more traditionalist based) Christian groups have risen in Europe. [QUOTE]
As is true in America as well! Human beings need more than watered down faith, they need age-old truth.
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The problem with Russia, as I have seen and heard first hand with some young Russians that I have met, is that although they identify themselves as Orthodox, they don't really practice Christianity or Orthodoxy too much. Although I don't doubt that they believe, and I don't doubt that the religious cultural identity they were deprived of for decades means alot to them, they are never the less, just as seduced by the material,(something which they were also deprived of for decades) if not more so, as Western Europeans are.

Atleast in this country, Christians do tend to care about spiritual and ethical values and society. In Europe, this perplexes people. They don't understand us. They just accept the way society has become. We always have the tension of wanting to fight society's evils. Religion and religious values sees to mean a bit more to us here.

The whole world is juggling with trying to balance their belief in God and the religious and/or spiritual life with the 'good life' in a way which is unprecedented in the history of man. The problem is not so much in those that attempt the struggle to balance, but in those that have blatantly turned their faces from God, faith and religion in favor of the material and pursuit of the 'good life'.

I have met persons of this persuasion in this country, in Western European countries, and in Russians. This is modern man's and the Church's (both the Eastern AND Western lung of it) biggest challenge ever. No one is really immune. May our Lord God have mercy on us all.

In Christ,
Alice

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Originally posted by Alice:

Atleast in this country, Christians do tend to care about spiritual and ethical values and society.
In Christ,
Alice
Some of us would dispute this; in America, it has been said, religion is a mile wide and an inch deep. In Europe, there is a deep and visible cultural foundation that is hard to shake.
For example, a born-again Christian in the US is more likely to be divorced, and the "divorce belt" runs pretty much across the same territory as the Bible Belt. There is in American Christianity a deep subjectivity, a sort of lived-in secularism, that strikes the European Christian as strange.
For example, it is often cited that the USA is the most religious place on earth [not true, by the way. It is West Africa, where virtually 100% say they believe in God, and 82% attend weekly church services], yet abortion laws are among the most permissive anywhere, and pornography is both produced and consumed disproportionately.
Not to mention the more controversial fact that born-agains and Catholics disproportionately support American militarism and capitalism.
It isn't so simple!
- frown confused Daniel

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This article seems to have been written in 2000. Is the revival still strong in Eastern Europe?

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Dear Daniel,

I certainly did not intend to insinuate that American faith is simple. It is complex.

However, I stand by my assertions about Europe. My husband and I travel there frequently, have lived there, and have family in England and Greece, as well as acquaintances and friends from other EU countries.

Abortion is just as rampant, divorce just as common, and pornography just as consumed there. The only difference is that, in general, no one cares. One only need to watch television in any country to see what is on the airwaves.

Another example I will leave you with is this: in every single church and cathedral I visited in Italy, there were nothing but tourists. ONLY in Saint Mark, Venice were there two older women praying in a side chapel, where I joined them, much to the perplexity of all who saw me, and in St. Peter's where there were masses being said in chapels which were lightly attended, (where I also joined). I experienced the same in Montreal, Canada recently. On the other hand, one need only step into St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC any time of any day to see hundreds of WORHSIPPERS in private prayer or attending Mass...the tourists looking around are the silent 'outsiders', not the other way around.

Ofcourse, as I said before, we and our European counterparts are really all in the same boat in the end: that of the allure of the world.

As I told my priest the other day, who agreed with my philosophy: it was much easier to be a Christian in the Middle Ages in Europe where Christianity and religion were everywhere, as was misery and dependence on God for survival from the moment you woke up to the moment you went to sleep. Another gentleman in my Bibly Study said it eloquently: man has accomplished so much today that he feels he really doesn't NEED God. Thus, the struggle, if you chose it between the material/secular and the spiritual--problem is that too many have chosen the former rather than the latter as they prefer not to engage in the battle.

In Christ,
Alice

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Of course it was easier to be a Christian in the Middle Ages, east or west, than in the modern world.
In fact, I don't disagree with much of what you have said. I have only traveled in Italy [outside of the US, where I have wandered through every state except Alaska, Hawaii, and South Dakota [!]] but I have seen much more faith in my limited travels [did you go to Assisi?; a truly blessed place]?
What I would disagree with is your more positive assessment of faith in the USA. I think it shallow, emotional, subjective.
To get more personal, my bride has an aunt, married three times, who currently is living with a married man, who is in process of getting a divorce. She claims to be a born-again Christian, watches TBN and sends money to Joyce Myers.
She defends her life with the typical subjectivist arguments, which in fact in essence mean "It must be of God, for it makes me feel so good."

PS: I know I really get on your nerves, but know I love you! smile
-Daniel

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Dear Daniel,

Well, my friend, sometimes you do get on my nerves a wee bit, but tonight you are not!!! wink *WINK!* wink

I hear what you are saying about the aunt.

America is full of divorces and people who just don't keep the commitments they made before God. Marriage is not easy, but I would think that divorce is more difficult in so many ways. I just can't figure such people out, I really, really can't.

It seems that they really do give in to the 'feel good' mentality which permeates our society. It is even sadder when they are practicing Christians.

We are in agreement.

Unfortunately, I did not get to go to Assisi. I would love to return to Italy and see the spiritual treasures which I have not yet seen in beautiful Rome, like the Sacred Steps, the wreath of thorns, the chains of St. Peter, and ofcourse, Assisi. Thank you for the thumbs up about the birthplace of St. Francis. What I did love about Italy besides the art, architecture (and ofcourse, the food) was all the religious history...I can't remember the town now or the full story, but I remember being impressed by the story of the 'Corpus Christi' miracle.

In Christ,
Alice

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Alice,

Was it Orvieto, built on a lava mountain, outside of Rome?

I went inside the cathedral there (the facade is one of the ones I mentioned to Fr. Anthony on another thread; gorgeous) and saw the Host that bled in the hands of a Bavarian priest who was traversing there and doubted the Real Presence.

But I think the miracle actually occured in Bolsena...don't know how exactly it turned up in Orvieto. Maybe I'm confusing two miracles.

Here's a picture of the Orvieto duomo:
[Linked Image]

Logos Teen

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Dear Garrett,

I remember that it was a small town outside Rome...

Fondly,
Alice

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Originally posted by Alice:
[QB] The problem with Russia, as I have seen and heard first hand with some young Russians that I have met, is that although they identify themselves as Orthodox, they don't really practice Christianity or Orthodoxy too much. Although I don't doubt that they believe, and I don't doubt that the religious cultural identity they were deprived of for decades means alot to them, they are never the less, just as seduced by the material,(something which they were also deprived of for decades) if not more so, as Western Europeans are.
Yes what you describe is what is commonly referred to as "Cultural Christianity". Although not perfect, I will have to say I prefer it over the shallow nature of Christianity witnessed here in America.


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Atleast in this country, Christians do tend to care about spiritual and ethical values and society...We always have the tension of wanting to fight society's evils. Religion and religious values sees to mean a bit more to us here.
True to an extent....but much of it tends to be of a very trival and petty nature IMHO.Also, there have been considerable Social Christian movements of significance arising in Europe as well.


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Originally posted by iconophile:
Some of us would dispute this; in America, it has been said, religion is a mile wide and an inch deep. In Europe, there is a deep and visible cultural foundation that is hard to shake.
Exactly my point.

Quote
For example, a born-again Christian in the US is more likely to be divorced, and the "divorce belt" runs pretty much across the same territory as the Bible Belt. There is in American Christianity a deep subjectivity, a sort of lived-in secularism, that strikes the European Christian as strange.
I also firmly agree with this. Not to mention there's a higher intellectual quality to European Christianity than to American Christianity.

American Christians more heavily rely on the Bible than European Christians. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it tends to lead to Biblical literalism and "bible thumping"; which has lead to often ridiculious consequences.

Wheras European Christians have more familiarity with say the Church fathers or Thomas Aquinas or other Christian thinkers. You rarely see this in American christianity.

In fact in its whole history, American Christianity has failed to produce thinkers on the level that we've seen in Europe. A great majority of the great thinkers even in the modern era were Europeans.

Quote
Not to mention the more controversial fact that born-agains and Catholics disproportionately support American militarism and capitalism.
It isn't so simple!
This is also true, even when it's a direct challenge to Papal teachings. There's much more I can say about this!


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Originally posted by Jason:
This article seems to have been written in 2000. Is the revival still strong in Eastern Europe?
Yes in many ways. During WYD, I watch a report done by European Journal about young Slovak pilgirms and how Catholicism is actually relatively well there. They also did another report about the growing number of nuns entering monastaries in Romania, and how it conicides with a resurgent of faith there.


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