This article presents the research of Orthodox priests who studied the religious ideas of the peoples of the Russian Empire. Their works, both published and in manuscript, can be classified into five main groups: studies dealing with Abrahamic religions; studies of other world and national religions; studies of religious dissidents (Christian sects and Judaizers); works on the traditional beliefs of the native peoples of the Volga Region, the Urals, Siberia, and the Caucasus; and works on popular religiosity.

This article deals with children’s instruction on Islam in the Republic of Tatarstan. Research is based on fieldwork in seven rural districts and six cities carried out in June—July 2017, as well as on the analysis of teaching programmes, textbooks and mass media publications. The study shows that the main factor of a particular model of religious education in Tatarstan is its multi-ethnic and multi-religious composition.

School courses in the basics of religious cultures introduced recently into the Russian federal curriculum raise many questions: how and in what way religion can be taught in secular school; whether the course should be monoconfessional or based on comparative religious studies; what its goal should be teaching about religion or an invitation to religion; whether the course should be chosen with respect to ethnic background or whether it can be optional; whether it should be a short course or an extensive one covering the entire educational period; what the content of the

With special attention to Denmark, this article discusses to what degree religious education in public school in the Scandinavian countries, often said to be among the frontrunners as regards non-confessional religious education, reflects and accommodates an increased religious pluralism as well as public and political discourses linking national identity, social cohesion, the good citizen and society with the traditional majority religion as the basis for the (positive) values of the country, the society and the state in question.

This article considers the actual problems of teaching about religion in public schools. The implementation of the educational concept outlined in the «Toledo Guiding Principles on Teaching about Religions and Beliefs in Public Schools» (2007) has been the subject of a vivid international discussion. Supporters of the new approach to teaching religion hope that the lessons of modern religious and non-religious beliefs and practices will promote tolerance and mutual understanding.