Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadayev (1794–1856), the author of the famous Philosophical Letters, is usually regarded as a “paradoxical” conservative, a representative of historiosophy and a social thinker. In the present paper Chaadayev is discussed from the perspective of the philosophy of religion with special emphasis put on the following issues: tradition vs religion (the traditionalist’s standpoint), history vs religion, freedom vs religion, and an outline of the proposed philosophy of religion (or religious philosophy). The paper also touches upon typically Russian issues: Russian identity facing the West, and primarily religious Occidentalism, which was the position taken and elaborated by Chaadayev.

The purpose of the article is to present the religious situation of Welsh society based on data from the censuses conducted in 2001 and 2011. On the basis of selected reports, the problem of discrimination on the grounds of religion and belief is also raised, as well as the issue of the existence and functioning of denominational schools in Wales. The analysis reveals the important role of religion in the process of creating the Welsh national identity, apart from, and often in conjunction with, such elements as even the Welsh language.

Although biblical movies could be considered an almost defunct genre, television and cinema audiences in the first years of the 21st century are discovering a new interest of producers, motivated more by the desire for profit than by religious reasons. Among films, modern audiovisual apocrypha, we can observe new tendencies: animated feature films aimed at large family audiences, the appearance of a “professional Jesus” (Bruce Marchiano), and the tendency to put the figure of historical Jesus in modern ahistorical situations and in racial contexts (black Jesus).

The aim of the article is to present the public discourse on the presence of a cross in the Polish parliament, which began after the parliamentary elections in 2011. At this time a group of the party Ruch Poparcia Palikota (RPP) submitted to the Marshal of the Sejm a request for its removal from the chamber. The article presents selected topics from the debate, focusing mainly on the arguments presented in the proposal and expertise of the Parliamentary Research Bureau and the arguments formulated in “Gazeta Wyborcza” newspaper, where they are presented as a continuation of the debate only initiated in the parliament, and then transferred to the media. Parliamentary debate took place only in one area – the political rivalry between the parties – while in the media appeared topics initiated by other institutions than the parties, i.e. educational institutions, public administration institutions and private individuals.

 

Islam in some EU countries is a traditional religion, which has existed in their territories for centuries, while in other it constitutes a new phenomenon. In countries where there is a traditional Muslim presence, Islam is officially recognised by the state and its functioning is defined by the law concerning traditional religions. The functioning patterns differ from country to country due to different models of state–church relations, confessional laws and legal traditions. Sometimes Islam as a religion and its spiritual functionaries are financed by the state (e.g. in Romania), but there are countries where the state funding of religion is prohibited by law (e.g. in Poland). This paper collects some characteristic cases of the legal situation of Muslims in various European states and presents the extent to which the Muslim religion is financed, or the lack of such financing resulting from the legal system.
 

The article is a comprehensive attempt at demonstrating the entry of the concept of the Indian Tantric Left-Hand Path into the Western esoteric tradition. Based on selected examples such as Wicca, Satanism and Thelema, the authors show the ways in which this idea has been reinterpreted and absorbed by the Western esoteric milieu.