Моно–, поли–, пан–: мировоззренческая дифференциация православных верующих

Полития: Анализ. Хроника. Прогноз. 2025. № 4(119). С. 129–151.

Bochkor A., Шейдякова Н. Г.

Studies note the heterogeneity of religious beliefs among modern Orthodox believers, but often ignore the specificity and internal logic of their beliefs. This article develops and tests a model of classification of Orthodox believers from the point of view of the content and internal logic of their beliefs, differentiated with respect to the dominance of various worldview types: monotheism, polytheism and pantheism.

Based on the analysis of 15 semi–structured in–depth interviews with Orthodox believers, the authors identify the main criteria for classifying Orthodox believers by their religious worldview type and confirm the possibility of differentiating Orthodox believers into «monotheists», «polytheists» and «pantheists». The study found that each worldview type corresponds to a special system of cosmological and value-normative ideas, linked together in the logic described by G. Hegel. The hypothesis about the possible existence of a relationship between the type of religious worldview and the ethical and political views of believers was also partially confirmed.

The study offers a new way of differentiating and classifying Orthodox believers in terms of the worldview types of their beliefs: monotheism, polytheism, pantheism. The proposed classification allows us to obtain a more complete picture of the internal logic of individual religious beliefs and the relationship of these beliefs with the attitude of believers to other spheres of life, such as ethics and politics. The classification model allows us to develop a quantitative questionnaire, thanks to which it is possible to differentiate Orthodox believers by worldview types, to assess the prevalence of these types among Orthodox Russians, and to identify the significance of the relationship between the type of religious worldview and the ethical and political views of believers.

Keywords: религиозный синкретизм, монотеизм, пантеизм, pantheism, religious beliefs, религиозные верования, monotheism, polytheism, политеизм, religious syncretism, orthodox believers, православные верующие

Publication based on the results of: Проекции форм сакрального как априорного конструкта в социальной, политической и экономической сферах (2024)