Research Center for Religion, Society and Politics
Mission, profile and work
The Research Center was founded on February 1, 2007. Its primary goals continue to be the following:
Within the wide and diverse spectrum of religious studies, drawing attention to the connections between the fields of life specified in the Center's name;
Making it possible to develop the content, structure and efficiency of research work in the field;
Engaging in the national discourse and policy making in the field;
Actualizing and revitalizing relations between work done by various research communities and at the college;
Creating a college workshop for studies in religious issues, and opening it up to other fields and institutions;
Laying the foundations with this workshop as well as the other similarly oriented workshops of the college (such as the editorial board of Religious Studies Review, the faculty of the MA program in religious studies, the Institute of Communication and Media Studies and all the other creative communities of the college) for the preparation and effective operation of a future doctoral school at ZSKF.
The first event organized by the Center, "Religion and Society", was held on 27 March, 2007. The forum was initiated apropos of the tenth anniversary of the agreement between the Holy See and the Republic of Hungary. Among the distinguished participants of the forum we could welcome Katalin Szili, Speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly, and talks were given by Pál Tamás, Director of the Insititute of Sociology at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; András Csepregi, Leader of the Secretariat of Church Relations, Ministry of Education and Culture; and the representatives of the country's historic churches, Cardinal Primate Péter Erdő; President Bishop János Ittzés; Ferenc Kulin, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Károli Gáspár University; and Péter Feldmajer, President of the Alliance of Jewish Communities of Hungary (MAZSIHISZ). The proceedings of the forum were published in Religious Studies Review, Vol. 2 (2007), thereby hoping to enhance the understanding of current issues and debates in the field. Our subsequent event was organized for October 26, 2007. As part of the regular schedule of MA students in religious studies, András Csepregi held a lecture in the course "Religion and Society" for students, faculty and other guests invited. The material for his lecture - "Towards the Theoretical Basis of a New Leftist Church Policy" - was previously circulated and discussed among students within their own church communities and moderate groups. The students prepared with questions and comments for the lecture, where they could gain a better understanding of András Csepregi's theoretical proposal.
The Research Center - as the Rector of the college explained it at the first event of the institute - remains a forum for further discussions, and wishes to play a leading role in fostering communication and cooperation among institutions with the goal of enhancing the understanding of religious issues pertaining to society and policy making. We have active relations with the Hungarian Civil Foundation and the journal Stáció, and we have plans to further develop our network of connections.
The work done by, or related to, the Center focuses on the relationship between religion and society, as well as topical questions in church policy, but the research projects of the members also cover various theoretical fields that lay the foundations for these more "practical" questions. Research is done on the underlying principles of Christianity as manifested in the Old and New Testaments; the social encyclicals that draw on, as well as discuss, these principles; the ideologies of Christian socialism and Christian democracy; the Hungarian reception of these ideologies; and the biography of seminal figures in these fields.
Further research and educational work concentrates on the relationship between religions and civilizations, and religious debates and clashes. These topics mainly come up in courses that deal with the various world religions, and are linked with current political issues when, for example, Buddhism and Islam are discussed. Expressing balanced opininions in these questions requires that both teacher and student continuously inform themselves about current events and research into ongoing debates.
An important area of research is the analysis of religious relations in contemporary Hungarian society. In this field our Center has been cooperating with the Center for Sociological Research at ZSKF. An express aim of this cooperation is to rely and build on the results of each other's research, but we regularly incorporate into the research and educational work of the Center the studies and results of other national workshops, research teams and institutes as well.
Most of the research collective of the Research Center for Religion, Society and Politics is made up of the faculty teaching in the MA program in religious studies, and the members of the editorial board, as well as the authors, of Religious Studies Review. Research is mainly built on individual projects and the possibilities of cooperation that derive from them. The Center is planning to launch cooperative research projects in the future, as soon as King Sigismund College succeeds in registering for participation in projects funded by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund.
Péter S. Szabó
university professor
Director of Research Center
