Perceptive area and coordinating management in inter-refessional relations

Abstract

This paper reveals the perceptual field of interfaith contacts, its content, functions, forms, scope. The relationship between traditional and non-traditional religious communities is empirically verified at different depths of church formation. The field work, which served as the basis for further generalization, was carried out in Moscow, the Kama region, Bashkortostan on a sample of about 3,000 believers. Among the studied confessional groups there are Orthodoxy, Islam, Finno-Ugric paganism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, Pentecostals, Vaishnavs (Hare Krishnas). The methodological position is grouped through a compilation of Kant's transcendental, socio-cultural and structural approaches, dialectics, cultural anthropology and social phenomenology. The study was conducted by means of included observation, with full immersion in the everyday life of the studied confessional groups, as well as the use of semantic, projective, and survey methods. Thus, the paper analyzes the specifics of social attitudes at the emotional, cognitive and behavioral levels, as well as the semantic fullness of perceptual images. Moreover, it also illustrates the specifics of reactions in conflict situations and touches upon the problems connected with revealing the discourse on the potential danger and real threat in the confessional sphere of public relations, the impossibility of abandoning these processes in the sphere of free and uncontrolled pluralism, the need for state mediation. Finally, the research discusses the means of containing interreligious antagonisms.