Religion, migration and conflicts in polarized societies. 38th biennial ISSR conference

Queerness and religiosity are important and relevant issues in Georgia today. The largest religious organization, the Georgian Orthodox Church, not only plays a decisive role in the legal status of the LGBTQ+ community in Georgia but also significantly shapes public opinion towards the LGBTQ+ community, activism, and individuals. This study delves into the interplay between religion and queerness in contem porary Georgia. It sheds light on the unique ways LGBTQIA+ individuals navigate their faith in the context of religious constraints. The study’s findings, derived from a robust methodology of 34 in-depth interviews conducted with LGBT QIA+ individuals over three months, offer valuable insights into the agency of LGBTQIA+ religiosity, enriching our understanding of this complex intersection. The study extends the discussion to the intersections of gender, sexuality, and religiosity and analyzes how these dimensions shape the religious experiences of the participants. It particularly highlights the strategies LGBTQIA+ believers use to reconcile their spiritual and queer identities, such as reinterpreting faith on an individual level or practicing spirituality without institutional affiliation. The resilience and adaptability of the community are significant aspects of the study.

The dissolution of the USSR in the 1990s marked the re-emergence of religion as a prominent force in Lithuania’s public life. Despite its constitutional status as a secular state, the influence of religion has become increasingly evident in recent debates on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. Lithuania has not ratified the so called Istanbul Convention and remains one of the last EU jurisdictions without any legal recognition for same-sex relationships. These initiatives have triggered ideological clashes between progressive and conservative actors, with the lat ter invoking Lithuania’s Catholic cultural heritage. This opposition is reinforced by the instrumentalization of stripped-down and reinterpreted religious values, anti-gender rhetoric, and informal cooperation between politicians and the Lithuanian Catholic Church. This paper aims to explore the ways in which religion shapes the political dis course around the implementation of more inclusive intimate citizenship, fo cusing on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights initiatives in Lithuania. It is based on PhD research involving expert interviews with members of the Parliament of the Re public of Lithuania (Seimas) and a critical analysis of parliamentary debates on various women’s and LGBTQ+ rights initiatives. Set within the broader context of rising anti-gender and neo-conservative ideologies in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe, the paper contributes to a deeper academic understanding of the interplay between politics, religion and gender in post-communist socie ties. It also challenges conventional secularisation narratives by highlighting the persistence and adaptation of religion in contemporary societies.

The presentation presents the results of PhD qualitative research (2021–2025) on the livedreligion and agency of practicing Lithuanian Catholic and Lutheran women as well as of thecomparable qualitative data on practising Lithuanian Muslim women from the ReliGen(“Religion and Gender Equality. Baltic and Nor dic Development”) project (2021–2024).They demonstrate how these women find the meaning of life and agency in traditionalreligion. The PhD research shows that for Lithuanian Lutheran women, as members of aunique historical religious minority, involvement in various activities in the church isextremely important, through which they perform their female and Lutheran identities, and so(additionally) give meaning to their lives and position themselves in Lithuanian society.Lithuanian Catholic women, as members of dominant reli gion, practise their faith andleadership more for themselves and self-improve ment. Islam provides Lithuanian Muslimwomen with an agency personally, through family and community, but rarely through acareer, which can serve more as an area of personal autonomy, despite of religion.Both studies reveal where the women stand on the axis of conservative and liberal values (asregards the issues related to gender and sexuality, i.e., abortion and LGBTQIA+ rights). Although many women, especially Muslims, tend to be more conservative, still their stanceon the issues can be complex in the country, which remains one of a very few in the EuropeanUnion, that has not ratified the Istanbul Convention on gender-based violence or adoptedLGBTQIA+ partnership or marriage law.

Religion, queer migration, and heteronormativity influence each other in com plex ways as they intersect through social norms, cultural expectations, and power structures. These social phenomena are deeply interconnected in ways that shape the experiences and identities of queer migrants. This paper argues that religion can be one of the main actors reproducing heteronormativity in a concrete society and, in this way, influencing queer migration processes. The pa per draws on theoretical insights on the link between religion, heteronormativ ity and queer migration and the empirical data from semi-structured interviews with twenty migrants from different sociocultural contexts: ten queer migrants who left Lithuania and ten queer migrants who came to Lithuania from Georgia, Iraq, Cameroon, Russia, and Belarus. Using a comparative perspective, the paper attempts to understand how queer migrants from different sociocultural con texts perceive the role and the impact of religion on their migration processes.

The return of religion in the public life of contemporary society is not a new theme within the sociology of religion; it has challenged the sociological mind over the last thirty years. For some scholars, the return of religion to the public sphere was evidence of a triumphant desecularization process (Berger), its per sistence (Taylor), and/or deprivatization (Casanova). For others, this return chal lenged the secularism of the public sphere (Asad) and created a space for de bating a “post-secular” society where religious and secular coexist (Habermas). This paper examines the return of religion in Lithuania’s public life since the dis solution of the Soviet Union and the declaration of independence. It provides an overview of the role religion played in Lithuanian society during the Soviet period, as well as the legacy and current role in contemporary Lithuania. Based on existing historical, statistical, and sociological data, the paper will address the following questions: which religion and how it has returned to the public life of Lithuania, and what are the features of this social process?

After the fall of the Soviet bloc, the democratic transition in Hungary brought in very liberal legislation on churches. This resulted in the mushrooming of re ligious organizations being recognized as churches. Muslim church-recognized communities also grew in number. From the original one church-recognized organization, we are aware of at least 3 Muslim organizations receiving church status by 2010. The new FIDESZ-led government’s supermajority after the 2010 elections brought in not only a new constitution, but also new legislation on religious organizations that created a much stricter legal environment for religious or ganizations being recognized as churches. Many previously church-recognized organizations lost their status in a newly created multi-tiered system of legal rec ognition. Only two Muslim organizations managed to obtain church recognition in this new system, the Organization of Muslims in Hungary, and the Hungarian Islamic Community. This paper aims to critically analyse the current legislation and its short and mid dle-term effect on the remaining two Muslim church-recognized organizations. The paper will argue, that even though the current legislation is generally not considered as favourable for Muslim churches as the previous one, the current system still puts the two church-recognized organizations into a relatively pow erful situation. As there is little chance for an emerging Muslim organization obtaining the church status these other two organisations have in the current Hungarian political climate, the two organizations that do have this recognition puts the current church-recognized Muslim organizations into a structurally powerful position vis-á-vis other Muslim communities in Hungary.