| Abstrakt: |
Secular authorities often use religion and the church to meet their political ends, the result of which is the church under the state's control.[45] Close ties between the state and the church retain particular significance for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In addition, President Heydar Aliyev's pilgrimage to Mecca was commonly given considerable media attention; being a true believer was a notion constantly mentioned to the public.[37] The metamorphosis of the Secretary of the Central Committee in Soviet Azerbaijan eerily resembles former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze's christening in 1992, building an informal yet politically cemented "rapprochement" between the state and the church as an instrument to reinforce their respective authority. The period between 2004 and 2007 was marked by a latent tension between the church and state, with the former managing to maintain its power and further reinforce its authority against the backdrop of "accelerated modernization". The aim of this special issue is to illuminate, at least in part, the heterogeneous religious landscape of the South Caucasus countries by looking at the different historical and cultural backgrounds, the Soviet legacy, nationalism, and particular religious cultures around which the countries are shaped. [Extracted from the article] |
