The article explores the imagination of childhood and parenting practices of contemporary alternative communities in Russia, which draws upon utopian religious and social ideals. Among those communities there are “ancestral (rodovye) settlements” of a New Age, Neo-Pagan movement “Anastasia,” or “Ringing Cedars of Russia”. The childhood, taken as a unique phase in human lifetime, is particularly emphasized: children are seen as little angels and great sages, because they are not corrupted by civilization.

The paper shows the evolution of Catholicism in the Middle Urals over more than two centuries. The study is based on archival sources and statistical records that allow a reconstruction of the Catholic population dynamics as well as the process of Church institutionalization. The paper covers three periods of Catholic presence in the region: formation, institutionalization, and establishment, with an evolution from ethno-religious isolation to integration in the local cultural landscape.

The article makes an overview of the work of Bryan Stanley Turner, prominent expert on Islam and the author of an original theory as reflected in his papers recently put together in the volume called «Sociology of Islam». The crucial point of most of the chapters included in the volume is a thorough analysis of Orientalism and its implications to current Islamic Studies.

This article analyses what secularism could mean for the modern democratic society. It claims that secularism should pursuit three main goals: freedom (no one must be forced in the domain of religion, or basic belief ); equality (there must be equality between people of different faiths or basic belief ); fraternity (all spiritual families must be heard and included in the ongoing process of determining what the society is about).