RELIGIOSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY IN ARMENIA: SOME CURRENT MODELS AND DEVELOPMENTS
RELIGIOSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY IN ARMENIA: SOME CURRENT MODELS AND DEVELOPMENTS

Summary/Abstract: This article is about realities embedded in the notions of “religiosity” and “Armenian religious identity” in contemporary Armenia. It is focused on some patterns of the Armenian national religion and official forms of Armenian Apostolic Christianity. In particular, the article discusses links, attitudes, interrelations, contradictions and mutual influences of doctrinal Armenian Apostolic Christianity and its vernacular versions. The Armenian version of vernacular Christianity includes the religious practices of worshipping local saints, magic, healing and divination. An attempt to outline three conventional models of religiosity within the Armenian Apostolic Christian identity, those of “grassroots”, “privatized”, and “fundamental”, has been made in the paper, and the main patterns of attitudes among these models are discussed. In fact, these models of religiosity represent different religious subcultures, with different systems of signs and different patterns of religious mentality, though sharing the symbols, values, and priorities of Armenian Apostolic Christian identity at the national level.

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