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Human rights in the Soviet Union were severely limited. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state from 1927 until 1953 and a one-party state until 1990. Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether they involved participation in free labor unions, private corporations, independent churches or opposition political parties. The citizens' freedom of movement was limited both inside and outside the country.
Forum 18 is a Norwegian human rights organization that promotes religious freedom. The organization's name is based on Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Forum 18 summarizes the article as:
Hinduism has been spread in Russia primarily due to the work of scholars from the religious organization International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and by itinerant Swamis from India and small communities of Indian immigrants. While ISKCON appear to have a relatively strong following in Russia, the other organizations in the list have a marginal presence in this country. There is an active Tantra Sangha operating in Russia. According to the 2012 official census, there are 140,000 Hindus in Russia, which accounts for 0.1% population of Russia. A majority of Russian Hindus were Vaishnavites.
State atheism or atheist state is the incorporation of hard atheism or non-theism into political regimes. It is considered the opposite of theocracy and may also refer to large-scale secularization attempts by governments. To some extent, it is a religion-state relationship that is usually ideologically linked to irreligion and the promotion of irreligion or atheism. State atheism may refer to a government's promotion of anti-clericalism, which opposes religious institutional power and influence in all aspects of public and political life, including the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen. In some instances, religious symbols and public practices that were once held by religions were replaced with secularized versions of them. State atheism can also exist in a politically neutral fashion, in which case, it is considered non-secular.
The Michael Polanyi Center (MPC) at Baylor University, Texas, was the first center at a research university exclusively dedicated to the principle of intelligent design, primarily to host William Dembski, its director, and Bruce L. Gordon, its assistant director. It was founded in 1999 by Baylor president Robert B. Sloan "with the primary aim of advancing the understanding of the sciences" in a religious context and was named for Michael Polanyi. It was aligned with the Discovery Institute's wedge strategy, and was funded in part by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation via the Discovery Institute. All of the center's research investigated the subject of intelligent design. It hosted a conference in April 2000 that brought the center to the attention of the broader Baylor community as well as the rest of the scholarly world.
Religion in Russia is diverse, with Christianity, especially Russian Orthodoxy, being the most widely professed faith, but with significant minorities of non-religious people and adherents of other faiths. A 1997 law on religion recognises the right to freedom of conscience and creed to all the citizenry, the spiritual contribution of Orthodox Christianity to the history of Russia, and respect to "Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and other religions and creeds which constitute an inseparable part of the historical heritage of Russia's peoples", including ethnic religions or paganism, either preserved, or revived. According to the law, any religious organisation may be recognised as "traditional", if it was already in existence before 1982, and each newly founded religious group has to provide its credentials and re-register yearly for fifteen years, and, in the meantime until eventual recognition, stay without rights.
Religion in Bulgaria has been dominated by Christianity since its adoption as the state religion in 864. The dominant form of the religion is Eastern Orthodox Christianity within the fold of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. During the Ottoman rule of the Balkans, Islam spread to the territories of Bulgaria, and it remains a significant minority today. The Catholic Church has roots in the country since the Middle Ages, and Protestantism arrived in the 19th century; both of them remain very small minorities. Today, a significant part of the Bulgarians are not religious, or believers who do not identify with any specific religion, and Bulgaria has been the cradle of some new religions, notably the Neo-Theosophical movement of Dunovism.
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After the October Revolution of November 7, 1917 there was a movement within the Soviet Union to unite all of the people of the world under Communist rule. This included the Eastern bloc countries as well as the Balkan States. Communism as interpreted by Vladimir Lenin and his successors in the Soviet government required the abolition of religion and to this effect the Soviet government launched a long-running campaign to eliminate religion from society. Since some of these Slavic states tied their ethnic heritage to their ethnic churches, both the peoples and their churches were targeted by the Soviets.
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Zoya Alexandrovna Krakhmalnikova was a Russian Christian writer, of Ukrainian origin. She was an activist and former Soviet dissident who was repeatedly arrested by the authorities of the former Soviet Union for her publications. She was a recipient of the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Writer's Civic Courage.
Estonia, historically a Lutheran Christian nation, is today one of the "least religious" countries in the world in terms of declared attitudes, with only 14 percent of the population declaring religion to be an important part of their daily life. This is thought to largely be a result of the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, prior to which Estonia had a large Christian majority.
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Slavic Native Faith or Slavic Neopaganism in Russia is widespread, according to some estimates from research organisations which put the number of Russian Rodnovers in the millions. The Rodnover population generally has a high education and many of its exponents are intellectuals, many of whom are politically engaged both in the right and the left wings of the political spectrum. Particular movements that have arisen within Russian Rodnovery include various doctrinal frameworks such as Anastasianism, Authentism, Bazhovism, Ivanovism, Kandybaism, Levashovism, Peterburgian Vedism, Slavic-Hill Rodnovery, Vseyasvetnaya Gramota, the Way of Great Perfection, the Way of Troyan, and Ynglism, as well as various attempts to construct specific ethnic Rodnoveries, such as Krivich Rodnovery, Meryan Rodnovery, Viatich Rodnovery. Rodnovery in Russia is also influenced by, and in turn influences, movements that have their roots in Russian cosmism and identify themselves as belonging to the same Vedic culture, such as Roerichism and Blagovery.
The John Templeton Foundation is a philanthropic organization that reflects the ideas of its founder, John Templeton, who became wealthy via a career as a contrarian investor, and wanted to support progress in religious and spiritual knowledge, especially at the intersection of religion and science. He also sought to fund research on methods to promote and develop moral character, intelligence, and creativity in people, and to promote free markets. In 2008, the foundation was awarded the National Humanities Medal. In 2016, Inside Philanthropy called it "the oddest—or most interesting—big foundation around."
Freedom of religion in Ukraine refers to the extent to which people in Ukraine are freely able to practice their religious beliefs, taking into account both government policies and societal attitudes toward religious groups.
References
- 1 2 About us Archived 2009-01-07 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ "In Memoriam: Michael Bourdeaux". Keston Center | Baylor University. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
- ↑ "In Memoriam: Michael Bourdeaux". Baylor University - Keston Center for Religion, Politics and Society. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
- 1 2 The Future of Freedom in Russia, by William J. Vanden Heuvel. Published by Templeton Foundation Press, 2000. ISBN 1-890151-43-2. p. 165.
- ↑ Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent: Faith and Power in the New Russia, by John Garrard, Carol Garrard. Published by Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN 0-691-12573-2. Page xv.
- ↑ the Keston Institute is an Oxford- based research charity which is... Archived 2011-06-10 at the Wayback Machine Oxford University Gazette., 2000-1.
- ↑ "Church Times: "Deaths"" . Retrieved 10 April 2021.
- ↑ Keston Center
