by Milda Ališauskienė

This paper represents the research about the religious life and its peculiarities in the city of Visaginas in Lithuania that was done in 2001. The author of this research seeks to show the life of religious communities of this city and for this reason personal observations and interviews with the members of religious communities of Visaginas were invoked.

by Andrius Navickas

The religion has long been recognized as an important institution of civil society, significant to the regime for its support and promotion of the values important for political culture. Together with schools, families and a variety of political and other voluntary interest organizations, churches influence political and societal attitudes. On the other hand, there is no firm consensus – does religion promote or subvert civil society? In his famous book about Italy and social capital “Making Democracy Work” Robert Putnam states that the hierarchical structure of Catholic Church is rather alternative for civil society than one of its component. Though great french thinker Alexis de Tocquille in his classic work “Democracy in America” observed that religion played the essential role in American type of civil society. I value very much Robert Putnam books, but I think that in soviet Lithuania the Church was real agent of civil society. In the era of communist dictatorship, the Church was a teacher of lasting and destuctible values and the conscience of an enslaved society. The Catholic Church as the largest religious institution in Lithuania was the leader of opposition.