Full Description
The first volume to explore various facets of contemporary change in consecrated religious life in selected Central and Eastern European countries, this book presents a series of studies of Catholic and Orthodox monasticism.
With attention to changes in the economy, everyday life, organisation and social presence of monastic orders, contributors shed light on the impact of 20th and 21st century social and cultural processes - such as communism and its collapse or the growth of new communication technologies - on life in the cloister.
Bringing together research from various locations in Central and Eastern Europe, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, religious studies and theology, with interests in religious orders and transformations of religious life from a social perspective.
Contents
1. Introduction 2. Changes in religious life since the 1970s in quantitative terms - situation in the CEE countries in the context of global transformations 3. Clericalisation and the search for identity in Roman Catholic religious institutes in Poland at the turn of the 21st century 4. Female religious congregations in Poland in the face of changes from Communism to the transformation period (1945-2000) 5. The economy of Polish monasteries: Between the charismatic and routinisation stage 6. The reinvention of tradition: The moral economy of monastic life in the Czech Republic 7. New Monastic Communities in Poland 8. The presence of religious orders in Hungarian society 9. Orthodox monasteries as pilgrimage sites in contemporary Russia
