by Donatas Glodenis

"White Lotus" phenomenon: an overview

The "White lotus" movement is an interesting phenomenon in the post-soviet Ukraine, Lithuania and a few other countries in Europe[1]. The movement was started by Vladimir Ivanovich Skubajev (1956 - ) a Ukrainian national, who has graduated from a pedagogical institute (nowadays it would be called university), worked in a high school and later as an elevator maintenance man. He got acquainted with students from Laos, with whom he began to practice Kung Fu, later spending some time in Laos. Upon return he claimed he has been initiated as a teacher in a Laos Buddhist martial arts school "Sha Phoot Phan", and began to teach Kung Fu in 1988 in Cherkassy, Ukrainian town of about 400,000, where the construction of a Buddhist temple was started by the movement in 1989, and is continuing to date. The "White Lotus" movement has continued to spread since and currently it has branches in many of the former Soviet Union republics including Lithuania and other Baltic States, also Greece, USA (branch in Chicago), United Arab Emyrates and Germany[2]. The movement's manifold activities provide it with many marketable features, so the spread of the movement should be expected in the future.

In this presentation the manifestations of Satanism in Lithuania will be discussed. The terms that would be used are: Satanism which in this case is used as deriving from Christian demonology - the cult of Satan or devil, which could be described as a power of evil that might be found in the Bible. As religious scientists claim, Satanism had manifested as an attack upon a dominant Christianity and the society it had supported. As religious organization, Satanism, according to Massimo Introvigne, might be divided into adult and youthSatanism groups.