City with or without God? Features of post-secularism in religious landscape of post-communist Prague
Abstrakt
The religious climate caused significant changes over the last few decades which led to intense debates about post-secularism in Western Europe. However, there is particularly a distinct lack of analyses of the features of post-secularism in post-communist cities.
The paper draws on the case study of Prague where the religious landscape is in many ways unique in a European context because of its highly secularized society. Nevertheless, Prague also experienced a revival of religious life, which has found expression in the religious landscape (not only) through the emergence of new sacral structures, pluralization of religion and post-secular rapprochement in religious institutions.
The paper examines the convergent and contradictory processes shaping the religious and non-religious landscape in Prague and therefore opens the discussion about post-secularism in post- communist context. The results point to the importance of historical, social, and urban development for the new geographies of religion.
New areas of research should also draw attention on the new religious movements and alternative spirituality which helps to explain the relationship between sacred and secular phenomena in current European society and space and the re-definition of the minority role of religion in the secular society.