Change and Its Discontents: Religious Organizations and Religious Life in Central and Eastern Europe. An Introduction

Thirty years of social transformation in Central and Eastern European (cee) societies have indicated the pivotal role of religion in the long-term processes of regeneration of social life in the region. As influential public actors not fully controlled by communist authorities, religions emerged as primary channels of change, epitomized by the overall post-1989 social transformation. By chal- lenging atheistic regimes “as value-generating and value-sustaining” structures (Lytle 1998, 304), religious institutions became sources of moral authority and “spiritus movens” of post-1989 developments (Kvasničková 2006). Consequently, the liberalization of religious life enabled religious organizations and commu- nities to enter various dimensions of public life as agents of the deprivatization of normative systems, simultaneously providing grounds for ideological change and strengthening individual and collective identities (Borowik and Zawiła 2010; Casanova 1994). The growth and diversification of religious communities, the public role of religion, and the increasing significance of religious institu- tions have been demonstrated in the majority of, if not all, post-communist societies in the region (Ramet 1998; Tomka 2001). Against this background, this volume was envisaged as a compendium of country- based and regional cases discussing in detail the complex nature of long- term processes in cee intersecting with more recent consequences of the modernization of the region. Three theoretical assumptions about the coun- tries constituting the cee region – their geopolitical and cultural heterogene- ity, the need to understand post-1989 social processes in the context of a much longer historical development, and the importance of incorporating religious factors – are central to all contributions in this volume.