The article reviews the main trends in the academic research on interrelationship between migration and religion. Some researchers focus on changes in the religious space under the influence of migration, the de-territorialization of religions, and the transformation of religious institutions into global networks that partially function in virtual reality. The “network” approach in migration studies considers religious communities and identities as dynamic quantities. This makes it possible to abandon a simplified view of the reasons for the segregation of ethno-religious communities and the spread of radical religious ideas among representatives of the second and third generations of immigrants. The paper pays special attention to the role religion plays in the process of integration into the host society, either contributing or hindering this process. The article looks at a correlation between the social and religious role of communities. The analysis of the growing Muslim communities in Europe, the ways of integrating Islam and the problems of multiculturalism has become a separate research agenda. The studies of “parallel societies” formed by Muslim immigrants have been further developed. Based on the results of the review, the authors conclude that researchers involved in the field have moved from collecting data on migration flows to analyzing their various aspects, including the influence of religion on the processes of segregation of ethno-religious communities and the integration of (im)migrants into the host society.

Some of the most interesting and contentious issues that arise in connection with migration centre on religions and identities. This article begins by outlining the ways in which sociological research has already provided valuable insights into the complex intersections between religions and migrations. The second section of the article argues, however, that two of the less frequently studied questions about the intertwining of religions and migrations need to be examined in depth. They concern “forced” migration (particularly of children) and the implications of migration for the practice of religion in prisons. The third section raises two of the ethical and policy related issues that arise in connection with religions and migrations.

The most important changes in European societies recently occurred because of migrations, which significantly changed the demographic configuration. The main streams of immigrants come from North African countries to Portugal, Spain, France and Italy; from Turkey to Germany; from the Middle East to Europe as a whole; from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh mainly to the UK. These countries are developing linguistic and cultural communities that are also religious, raising the question of places of worship and conflicts with the old religions of the continent. The phenomenon of religious and interreligious acculturation is a serious challenge, and inter religious interaction is becoming more intense and prolonged than it has ever been in history.

The Italian case is a good example of how, and to what extent, a society of a religious, namely Roman Catholic, monopoly had been transformed, because of continuous immigration, into a society of an unprecedented and unexpected religious pluralism. The new religious landscape now includes main world religions, which is an absolutely new situation in Italy where Catholicism was deeply rooted in culture and collective memory.

The article examines the problem of “parallel communities” drawing upon the example of Moscow Shiite (Imamite) groups. They include immigrants from different regions and belong to different cultural areas and “ethnic groups” from Transcaucasia, South Asia, etc. They do not constitute a single “Moscow Shiite Jamaat” but rather exist in “parallel planes” already in relation to each other. This is largely similar to the groups of followers of ShiismImamism existing in Europe and America. Having appeared as a result of postSoviet migration, Shiite communities were able to settle and gain a foothold in the Moscow region. They mostly relied on their own resources and organizational activity; they created their own (Shiite) religious spaces (mosques, hussainiyas, prayer rooms); they entered translocal Shiite networks (Iranian, Azerbaijani, Afghan, etc.). The Shia Muslim communities have no intersections with the Russian Sunni Islamic field, which allows us to talk about “autonomy” or even “invisibility” of Moscow Shia Muslims. Nevertheless, the Moscow Shiite jamaats use various techniques characteristic of subcultural communities: the presence of their own spaces, cultural codes and networks of sympathizers.

In the context of growing studies on the history of “Muslim subjectivities” taken “from below”, i.e. the individual, the author suggests transcending the presumptions of the absolute performativity of subjectivity and going beyond the individual’s “personae”, so as to reveal “techniques of the self” behind them. To do that, the author explores the correlation between self and the deliberately invented “personae” of the impostor and double-dealer M.B. Hadjetlaché, a baptized Jew who claimed being Muslim, and was, inter alia, a journalist working both for the opposition-minded Muslims and the Interior Ministry and antiIslamic circles. This extreme case of the invention of Muslim identity is taken as a prism which can “reveal patterns available for more everyday experience” (NZ. Davis). The ways by which the protagonist constructs — in search of his subjectivity — his multiple “personae” are analyzed to disclose the distance between them and his self, and its structure. Given the strength of Hadjetlaché’s Muslim identity coexisting with the memory of his rejected Jewry in his self-perception, and the fact that those around him (including a number of Muslims) considered him Muslim, the author puts the question of “Muslimness” of his subjectivity in the context of historiographic discussions on defining the boundaries of the Islamic identity.

The authors focus on the views of a secular publicist, Sergey Melgunov, on the reform of the management of religious confessions carried out in early twentieth-century Russia. The reform marked a significant revision of traditional religious policy, moving away from the system of coercion in matters of faith and introducing the freedom of religion. Sergey Melgunov, an influential Moscow publicist of the liberal wing, played a prominent role in public intellectual discussions of the time. His position formed the mainstream in the public discourse about state church relations, yet it did not become so far the object of an independent study. During the period of the deep transformation of the imperial civil order and the transition to a new system that allowed religious diversity, Melgunov defended the ideas of freedom of conscience and the separation of Church from State. Melgunov’s views are compared with approaches of other intellectuals and experts — lawyers S.A. Kotlyarevsky, M.A. Reisner, V.D. Nabokov, A.F. Koni etc. The article is based on a wide range of sources, including Melgunov’s published works, as well as his memoirs and documents from his collection at the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library (Moscow).

The article examines the ritual treatment of sacred texts in Buddhism, known in the scientific literature as the “cult of books”. This phenomenon became known after the appearance of works linking the formation of the early Mahayana with the emergence of institutional centers associated with the religious veneration of the texts of the Mahayana sutras. Subsequently, the term “cult of books” became a designation of Buddhist ritual book culture in general. The article analyzes the dogmatic foundations of the cult of books in the form of the Buddhist concept of religious merit (punya), as well as the textual foundations of the cult in the form of instructions from the Mahayana sutras about their own veneration. The main attention is paid to the Far Eastern variant of the cult of books. One of the manifestations of the Far Eastern cult of books was the so-called “Revolving Sutra Libraries” — special cabinet for books of the canon mounted on a vertical axis. One turn of this construction was equivalent to reading all the books of the canon in the sense that it brought the same amount of religious merit. In conclusion, it is shown that the understudy of the Buddhist cult is due to the methodological prerequisites adopted in Russian Buddhology, which focuses on the study of the doctrinal and philosophical side of Buddhism and marginalizes the Buddhist cult as a form of “folk” religion.

In 1942 the Japanese Catholic Church published a new edition of the Catechism which was meant to replace the Catechism of 1936. Such a precipitous reedition was dictated by the Japanese government that demanded the previous Catechism to be revised to suit the ruling ideology of the state and general policy of the government. This article aims at conducting a comparative analysis of the two catechisms to reveal the points at which the Church had to succumb under the pressure of the government to survive in the atmosphere of complete governmental control over Japanese religious organizations. The research has shown that the two editions of the Catechism have a number of interesting differences touching not only upon the formal side of the Catholic teaching but also upon its core doctrines showing the pressure of the ideology of State Shinto and its impact even among the hierarchs of the Catholic Church. Thus, the Catechism of 1942 includes passages concerning the utmost subordination to the Emperor and the importance of exercising their patriotic duty. At the same time passages concerning the exclusiveness of the Catholic faith, description of the history of the Jews, and detailed description of some basic Catholic rituals were lacking in the newer edition. The differences between the two Catechisms show that during WWII the Japanese Catholic Church had to make a serious compromise with the authorities, touching upon the basic doctrinal concepts of the Catholic faith.

The article highlights the history of relations between secular elites and Islamists within the framework of a confrontational model, including three main stages: 1) 1945–1965: a political split, the struggle against radicals, who proclaimed the Islamic State, and its liquidation; 2) 1966–1998: a “new state” based on secular authoritarian rule and prevention of political radicalization of Islamism, which did not exclude limited concessions to believing Muslims in the early 1990s; 3) from 1998 to the present — the democratization of the political regime, which retained the confrontational model of relations with Islamic radicals, although the latter got the chance of institutionalizing their communities and parties. The article analyzes how radical Islam, represented by Hilafatul Muslimin, gradually penetrated the secular and Muslim political parties, as well as the education system. The author shows the efforts of Islamists in questioning the secular nature of Indonesian statehood and creating communities based on Sharia law. The concept of the Caliphate was central in the political ideology of the Hilafatul Muslimin, who tried to nationalize this concept and integrate it into the international radical Islam.

The article examines the use of the concept of “Vedic” in contemporary Russian culture based on blog materials and interviews. Courses and training programs devoted to “Vedic femininity” are conducted by popular psychologists, religious or spiritual specialists, and teachers who claim access to “Vedic knowledge”. The patriarchal way of life serves as a model, where the man is responsible for the family’s prosperity, while the woman has the role of a housewife. In order to consolidate the ascribed identity, the courses offer training in practices relating to behavior, speech, clothing, profession, and hobbies. Vedic psychology focuses not upon Indian deity worship or the study of ancient texts, but rather on lifestyle, self-improvement, and gender prescriptions. The manuals also teach femininity through working on oneself and explain the passivity of the subject as the goal of training. Femininity courses seem opposed to western worldview because they include patriarchal scenarios, antifeminist attitudes, and rigid essentialism. At the same time they seem to borrow a western techniques of “therapeutic culture,” such as “working through” mistakes and investing in one’s spiritual growth.

The article examines the key concepts articulated in the works of the Oxford professor Sho Konishi. According to S. Konishi, Lev Tolstoy, in collaboration with Japanese Orthodox converts who received their theological education in Russian Orthodox Mission schools and institutions in Japan and in Russia, created a new form of religion in Ja‑ pan. This doctrine, which Konishi refers to as “anarchist religion” or “Tolstoyanism”, supposedly came to represent a new, unique model of modernity opposing the Western one, and played a significant role in Japanese thought in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries. The current article does not aim to either validate or argue with the more general concepts proposed by S. Konishi. However, it demonstrates that his main argument on Tolstoy’s interaction with the Japanese Orthodox believers in creation of a new Japanese anarchist religion does not stand up to closer examination.