The article contributes to critical analyses of contemporary European religion and (rather loose) conceptualisations of post-secularism. Return of religion into the public space, which may be called post-secularism, is visible and growing even in predominantly out churched Czech Republic. However, the very concept of post-secularism is too broad to be used as an analytical category. The author thus tries to operationalise it using functional differentiation between (social types of) churches and Davie’s idea of vicarious religion.Using empirical studies on religion, the author outlines the varying public roles of religion and religiosity in contemporary Western and post-Communist European countries, and emphasizes the middle position of the Czech Republic.However, the anomalous position will hardly persist forever. The author is convinced that Czech churches and especially their leaders are currently facing a choice between the Western and Eastern models of public religious life and church-state relations.
The paper discusses the intertwining of religious-national symbolism and socrealist aesthetics in a popular pilgrimage site in Poland: Lichen´. In the last decades of the 20th century, a local cult with a sanctuary devoted to the Virgin Mary has turned into a popular nation-wide pilgrimage site. It is argued that the popularity of Lichen´ derives from the familiarity it evokes, that the longing for the recent and familiar past is fulfilled by the, seemingly contradictory, combination of popular religion and the aesthetics characteristic for the People’s Republic of Poland. This is visible in the monuments, paintings, architecture, the cult of one man, as well as the language at the sanctuary. However, this particular poetics, rooted in recent history, is vitalized by modern technology and global trends, thus creating a successful and attractive pilgrimage destination.
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