Religion as a cultural universal can be approached from many disciplines. This paper analyses the use of signs in the Lakota inipi (purification) rite from the perspective of semiotics of religion, applying basic semiotic concepts and theories. The semantic, syntactic and pragmatic approaches are based on a description of the Lakota Inipi rite as recorded in religious anthropological source. The detailed description of the rite in that text is the starting point for a semiotic analysis, for the identification of signs, and sign-acts, and for understanding the role this rite played in the life and religious tradition of the tribe. The aim of the analysis is to understand how the signs demonstrate religious doctrines and help contact with supernatural forces, and at the same time, how they express the group cohesion.

Keywords: semiotics of religion, semantics, syntax, pragmatics, Lakota rite, anthropology of religion

Full text (in Hungarian)

Szeklerland, at the south-easternmost part of historical Transylvania, an ethnic Hungarian enclave in the middle of Romania, lies on the borderline between cultures, on the crossroads of religious denominations where western Christianity meets eastern Orthodox Christianity. Șumuleu Ciuc (Csíksomlyó in Hungarian) is a major historical Roman Catholic – Marian – pilgrimage site of Szeklerland, which has grown into a national holy site of Hungarians from all over the world. This place was included into the official itinerary of Pope Francis’ 2019 visit in Romania. The aim of this article – as part of our interdisciplinary research project titled “Videmus Papam. Social, Economic Aspects of Pope Francis’ 2019 Visit to Șumuleu Ciuc in Szeklerland’s Regional and Wider Contexts” identifying, mapping, describing, and analyzing the socio-religious, socio-demographic, economic-touristic, and media-representation aspects of the papal visit – is to investigate the echoes of the papal visit, with special attention to the personality and the role of Pope Francis, the ethnic identity of Szekler-Hungarians, the significance of the Marian pilgrimage site, the historical importance of the special occasion, the inter-ethnic relations between majority Romanians and minority Hungarians, the role of the church in religious and secular discourses. The investigation focuses, based on key terms, om the public discourses around the papal visit unfolding from the digital media contents, opinions, public comments appearing in social media, but the data obtained from the online questionnaires and interviews performed during the research project offer important insights as well. The texts and auxiliary materials (photos, videos) have been processed through qualitative discourse analysis methods – corroborated with the work and results of the members of the research team.

Keywords: Papal visit, Csíksomlyó/Șumuleu Ciuc, social media deliberations, pope-criticism, pope-enthusiasm, inter-ethnic relations, inter-religious relations

Full text (in Hungarian)

In this paper I show how an identification dogma influences the image of society. The identification dogma is a doctrine that is not intended to clarify a theological issue but to influence political views on society by influencing the religious sentiment of believers. I call this process dogmatical identification. Here, in connection with the Filioque doctrine, I examine how this process is realized in contemporary Romanian theology and public discourse.

Keywords: dogmatical identification, identification dogma, Filioque, Romania, Dumitru Stăniloae

Full text (in Hungarian)

At the Századvég Foundation, we have asked questions about religiosity in our major research projects, regardless of the topics. The reason for this is that in many questions about values or attitudes, respondents’ religiosity is even more significant as an explanatory factor than other socioeconomic variables. Recognizing this, we have already attempted to capture religiosity along several dimensions through our research on domestic religiosity. This paper focuses on summarizing these, and also presents the Foundation’s religiosity cluster, which it began developing in 2017, and the key findings on the variables used to develop it. Finally, based on our research experience, I propose the use of an additional religiosity measurement variable developed by our research team for cases where the scope of the questionnaire only allows for one question on religiosity.

Keywords: religiosity, irreligiosity, hungary, measurement, religious practice

Full text (in Hungarian)