Discussions about criminal law in the religious sphere have become relevant in Europe. This article presents the main milestones in the development of German criminal law in the field of «religious crimes» (insulting religious feelings, obstructing worship, desecration of religious objects, etc.) in the context of church‑state relations during different historical periods — the Middle Ages, Reformation, Enlightenment, Kulturkampf, National‑Socialism, and post‑war.

This article deals with the Russian mystical religious group of the Christ‑Faith (Khristovery, or Khlysty). It draws upon documents of the eighteenth century referring to Christ‑Faith believers in Moscow. According to these texts, in the middle of the eighteenth century, there was no special terminology to describe or classify Christ‑Faith believers, and the Synodal oicials would call them «superstitious believers», «schismatics», or «antichrists». 

It is not possible to write the history of blasphemy, anticlericalism and religious scepticism in the Early Modern period without taking into consideration the variety of their different manifestations (not only words but also gestures), as well as the lexibility of the boundary separating blasphemy as an emotional outburst from blasphemy as a conscious act of rebellion against the Church as an institution and God as an idea. The author investigates these issues by looking at materials of the Republic of Venice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

This article is devoted to the wide set of practices of coercion and punishment of saints via their images that are well documented in the Catholic world from the early Middle Ages to the Early Modern period.