The article considers the main directions of studying the religious history of Africa from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 21st century. It shows the stages of research and the major contributions. When analyzing the historiography of religions on the continent, the author focuses on the three groups of research: studies of tradition‑ al African religions, studies of Christianity and studies of Islam. This seemingly simplistic approach allows a relatively coherent description of the history of various denominations on the Black continent. The researchers were primarily interested in the history of Christianity, and it is in this area that the most significant progress has been made. In recent decades, notable advances have also been made in the study of traditional African religions. The studies in the history of Islam in Africa, however, have been less advanced, despite a number of important findings and new research directions. The author attempts to identify the contributions by both Western and African scholars, in the context of recently intensified debates about the need for “Africanization” of African religious studies. He points out the danger of politicization and ideologization of religious studies on the Black continent, turning them into an instrument of either nationalism or religious fundamentalism. This makes the development of academic dialogue between African scholars and researchers from other countries especially relevant.

The article examines religious and cultural processes in North Africa of the late Antiquity. Mainly using the example of Aurelius Augustine, it questions the traditional opposition of “Roman” (Catholic) and “African” (Donatist) Christianities and presents a more complex picture in which historical subjects simultaneously act within the framework of several social and cultural identities. The article claims that the Christianization of Africa should not be separated from its Romanization, and that it was Romanization that revealed deep, centurieslong, social contradictions in African society, which most clearly manifested themselves in the religious conflict between the Donatist and orthodox parties. This conflict reflected the confrontation between the two, although not monolithic, sociocultural groups in North Africa those who sought to defend regional linguistic and cultural identity and those who saw the only way to salvation in the universal Church, or wanted to ensure their own wellbeing through the service to the Roman state. In this respect, Augustine’s family and he himself provide an example of both strategies: on the one hand, the principled choice in favor of Romanization and the universal Church, and on the other, the preservation of African identity.

The article analyzes the reasons for the radical transformation of British policy towards West Africa, which led to the rejection of the longstanding bet on obtaining superprofits from the slave trade and the gradual formation of traditional colonial possessions in the region. The author shows the role of Protestant preachers in the formation and dissemination of concepts about the civilizing mission and the need for Christianization. The article compares the policy of Great Britain with that of other European powers, primarily France. It shows the role of British missionaries in the study of West African territories and the promotion of the European exploration of the new lands and the development of the school education system. The authors show how these efforts were connected with the goals of extracting economic benefits from the colonies. The article draws upon a variety of primary sources, as well as upon academic publications about the role of Protestant missionaries in the colonization process.

The article examines the activities of Protestant missionaries in South Africa. It was the most important component of the processes of the formation of a colonial society and the transformation of African society in the 19th century. Based on memoirs, travel journals, diaries and letters of missionaries, as well as official publications of the British Parliament and the Cape Colony, the article analyzes changes in economic life and the economic structure, the spread of school education, new family values and forms of organizing the living space of Protestant missions in South Africa. It then examines the African contribution to the life of Christian communities, which turned them into a fusion of modernity and precolonial traditions. Even the most stringent measures could not uproot the traditions of Africans, and missionaries had to reconcile or turn a blind eye to these practices within their congregations. The conclusion is that the Christian communities of Protestant missions were conceived, on the one hand, as the communities of the elect, as in early Protestant history; but they were, at the same time, a completely new syncretic phenomenon as the result of the interaction of cultures on the African continent.

The article discusses why Christian temples became the main places of the slaughter of Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The research is based on the analysis of three groups of primary sources: the testimonies of the génocidaires — those who com‑ mitted genocide; the documents of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and the materials of the extremist mass media (Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines and the Kangura newspaper). The analysis is carried out at two levels — local (perception of events by génocidaires) and national (interpretation of events by political leaders and nationalist propagandists). The attitudes of génocidaires towards the Christian temple are considered in the con‑ text of their religious views, primarily those on the role of God in the events. The analysis shows that, at the local level, there was a polytheization of génocidaires’ religious beliefs, an idea of the “God of Hutus” opposing the “God of the Tutsis”. The author comes to the conclusion that the Christian temple in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide retained its status as a sacred place, but this status ceased to be invariant and began to depend on whose hands it was in — either “true Christians”, “the God of Rwanda”, “the God of Hutus”, or inhumans, demons, Satan, “the God of Tutsis”: when the Tutsis (as “antiHutus”) desecrated the sacred place by their presence, it turned into an “antichurch” and therefore had to be cleansed of filth or even completely destroyed. This transformation of the perception of the Christian temple by génocidaires was the result of the victimi‑ zation of Tutsis, which was constantly fueled by the authorities and extremist media.

The article examines the role of religion in the formation of societal security in three countries of Africa — Ivory Coast, Ghana and Gabon. The authors focused on the correlation of indigenous African traditions, Christianity and Islam in the political elites’ search for a postcolonial national identity. The authors identify religion’s various relations to societal security. In the Ivory Coast, religious violence was the result of political manipulation of religious beliefs of different groups, which has blown up societal security. In Ghana, the society was not religiously split because the state emphasized civic identity, which stabilized the security. In Gabon, the politicization of religion turned the head of state into a “supernatural being”, which devalued societal security. The authors show that in Ivory Coast, and especially in Gabon, the role of religion in society is more significant than in Ghana. Despite the contextual differences in the political and cultural spheres of the countries under study, none of them could have traditional religion as a driver of political change, but everywhere it has proved to be a catalyst for it. In the context of the formation of national identity, religion in African societies most often appears not as a primary factor of civil conflicts, but as a motivating, situational factor associated with communal violence.

The paper is based on the author’s field work in Cuba in 2013– 2016. It discusses the methods of visualization and, more broadly, the materialization of orishas, the deities of the AfroCuban cult of Santeria (Regla Lucumi, Regla de OchaIfa). After analyzing the contexts and models of the materialization of spiritual agents, as well as the practices of interaction with them, the author considers their historical dynamics and connection with certain discourses and ideological narratives. The focus is on the situation of the mid2010s. This time is characterized by significant processes in Cuban culture and public life, in particular, the emergence of tangible results of the change in attitudes towards both religion and African heritage that began in the 1990s.

The first Russian translation of the essay On the Faith of the Fathers, written by William Du Bois, an African American sociologist, historian, and PanAfricanist civil rights activist of the late 19th — early 20th century. This text presents Du Bois’ views on the religious development of the African American community in the United States, the role of Christianity and institutional churches in this development, and his interpretation of the history of “Negro religion” and its state in his days through the prism of his concept of “double consciousness”.

The first Russian translation of the Introduction to the Encyclopedia of African Religion, published in 2009 by a group of leading African American scholars. It presents the key features of the socalled Afrocentric model of interpretation of traditional African religions and their role in religious history of Africa. Special emphasis is placed on the differences between African and Western religions and on the idea of religious unity of the African continent.

The article is devoted to the philanthropic activities of Friedrich Josef (Fyodor Petrovich) Haass (1780–1853), a Moscow physician who moved to Russia in the early 19th century. Haass was actively involved in the work of the Prisoners’ Aid Society, established by Emperor Alexander I. The Society was based on the ideas of the British prison reformer John Howard. Not limiting himself to the development of prison medicine, Haass strove for the precise implementation of the rules of the Prison Board. This involved teaching the prisoners to read, instilling in them the basics of a Christian world‑ view and rules of conduct. Haass distributed thousands of copies of books and pamphlets free of charge. This study shows the repertoire of books distributed, the statistics of book distribution; it highlights the most popular book titles and different audiences for whom Haass bought books. The spread of literacy and book reading was influenced by a combination of Haass’ personal character, the traditiona of German Catholic Enlightenment, Church pastoralism, the principles of social Christianity, and Post-Rousseau’s pedagogy. The article draws upon the documents of the Moscow Synodal printing house (Russian State Archives of Ancient Documents, f. 1184) and other archival funds.

“The Neocatechumenal Way” (“Neocatechumenate”) is a movement emerged in the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II Council on the wave of attempts to bring the Church back to the spirit of early Christianity. Its main task was the conversion of baptized people who are far from church life. The movement is considered as an example of ‘charismatic associations’ because it emphasizes the religious experience of the charismatic leader, their liturgical and catechetical practices largely contradict the Church traditions and reveal a clear tendency towards “protestantisation.” At the same time, there were attempts of the Catholic hierarchy to incorporate some Charismatic features of the movement into the structure of the Church, though this trend was sometimes negatively received by the clergy. The article attempts to analyze the process of integration of the movement into today’s Roman Catholicism. The authors explore the nature of the relationship between the Catholic hierarchy and the charismatic leaders of the Neocatechumenal Way in the context of the development of theological conceptions of charisma. The hypothesis of the authors suggests that the reception of the movement was conditioned by a new theological understanding of “charisma”.

This text is a review of the recent trends in the study of contemporary African Christianity, and, particularly, Pentecostalism and Charismatic Churches. It focuses on four recent books studying the agenda of Pentecostalism, the reasons of their success, and their role as civil society agents tackling the social issues in contemporary Africa.