The conference held at the Russian State University of Humanities, Moscow, in February 2012, was the first event of such scale and scope to deal with the religious practices and the ‘lived religion’ in the entire Soviet period. About 80 papers from Russia, Ukraine and the West were based upon a variety of recent case studies in this new field of inquiry focused on everyday religiosity rather than State policies or reactions of religious institutions. The conference addressed major topical theoretical issues about the Soviet type of secularity and the respective reshaping of religious practices. A number of key problems of methods and sources interpretation were equally central in dis- cussions. Some papers of the conference will be published in a special issue of this journal later this year.