Estonia: Religious Association Restrictions of Same-Sex Couple Religious Rights

EU law on same-sex unions (SSU) expects Member States to legally recognize the family life of same-sex couples in the form of marriage, partnership, or cohabitation. The normative expectation, which in about 2010 became a principled position of the EU institutions and the European Court of Human Rights, has not been endorsed by one Western European Member State (Italy) as well as the majority of the post-Communist Member States (Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia). There are a number of causes behind the failure to enact SSU laws: the legacies of the communist regimes, the prevalence of a certain interpretation of Christian doctrine, the medium level of economic affluence, and an unfavorable balance of power between the change and blocking coalitions of social, religious, and political actors. Unlike Western European countries, where the family life of same-sex unions was legally recognized primarily due to pressures from below (due to changes in public opinion and shifts in cultural values), governments and legislatures in most Central and Eastern European Member States are encouraged more from above (by the European Union and the Council of Europe). Therefore, the prospects for legal recognition of same-sex unions are slim in countries where the European normative agenda meets no significant support from domestic social values or religious and political actors. This conflict of national and EU forces is most likely to persist in Member States which are post-Soviet, culturally Orthodox, not shifted from materialist to post-materialist values, and governed by right-wing governmental coalitions

Implementing EU's Normative Agenda in the South Caucasus: Contradictory effects

It is not a secret that the EU has sought to influence regional developments by imposing liberal democratic norms on the third countries interested in closer relations with the union. Given that this soft power approach may effect change, we analysed the role of EU normative powers in influencing human rights dialogues. We also saw how both the political establishments and societies at large have adapted to these new circumstances. Further to the east, the lever for Europeanization seems to be eroding. To that end, the EU has continuously reaffirmed that its support for and cooperation with target countries must be conditional on the promotion of civil liberties and democratic reforms. While there is concern that the EU’s normative policies may be ineffective if they are not fully implemented on the ground, it is possible that the prospect of EU integration could prove to be an attractive aspiration for large segments of these societies. Fully implementing EU norms, however, may drive these countries into conflict with the conservative mores sustained by the state/religious institutions

The Insertion of Person References Motivated by Pragmatic Differences in Estonian-English-Japanese Facebook Communication

Sociopragmatic differences have been examined between many languages and cultures, including English and Japanese. However, Estonian and Japanese have yet to be compared, and thus this data of EstonianEnglish-Japanese communication on Facebook offers a look at a type of code-switching that is caused by the sociopragmatic differences between Estonian and Japanese – i.e. the insertion of person references from Japanese to Estonian and English utterances by native Estonians.I am using the Estonian-English-Japanese Facebook communication dataset from Kilp (2021) with new added conversations. The data consist of synchronous private Facebook messages between 2015 and 2021: a total of 7 informants, 50 conversations and 14,681 tokens. A usage-based approach and a qualitative analysis are applied to the data from individual informants and particular cases.These data show that a perception of pragmatic differences causes the insertions of the Japanese person references, senpai ‘senior’ and sensei ‘teacher’, in various forms (affixed to the name, replacing the name, elongated, capitalised, in the Latin alphabet, in Japanese script) in Estonian and English utterances, while factors such as vertical hierarchy, horizontal solidarity and (situational) salience play an important role in facilitating insertion.Keywords: deixis, code-switching, vocative, usage-based approach, contact linguistics, computer-mediated communication, salience, Estonian, English, Japanes

On covers of cyclic acts over monoids

In (Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 33:385–390, 2001) Bican, Bashir and Enochs finally solved a long standing conjecture in module theory that all modules over a unitary ring have a flat cover. The only substantial work on covers of acts over monoids seems to be that of Isbell (Semigroup Forum 2:95–118, 1971), Fountain (Proc. Edinb. Math. Soc. (2) 20:87–93, 1976) and Kilp (Semigroup Forum 53:225–229, 1996) who only consider projective covers. To our knowledge the situation for flat covers of acts has not been addressed and this paper is an attempt to initiate such a study. We consider almost exclusively covers of cyclic acts and restrict our attention to strongly flat and condition (P) covers. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of such covers and for a monoid to have the property that all its cyclic right acts have a strongly flat cover (resp. (P)-cover). We give numerous classes of monoids that satisfy these conditions and we also show that there are monoids that do not satisfy this condition in the strongly flat case. We give a new necessary and sufficient condition for a cyclic act to have a projective cover and provide a new proof of one of Isbell’s classic results concerning projective covers. We show also that condition (P) covers are not unique, unlike the situation for projective covers

Kiriku võim ühiskonnas, kultuuris ja poliitikas peale kommunismi

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsioone.Ajaloolist lähenemist ja võrdlevat meetodit kasutav uurimus hindab kommunistlike režiimide mõju traditsioonilise kiriku võimu langusele avalikul alal. Kiriku võimu langust ühiskonnas, kultuuris ja poliitikas käsitleb uurimus ainsa ja määrava tunnusena, mis kaasneb kaasajal sotsiaalse, kultuurilise ja poliitilise sekulariseerumisega. Põhitähelepanu all on üheksa läänekristliku kultuuritaustaga postkommunistlikku ühiskonda, mille kultuurilised rahvusliikumised algasid 19. sajandil. See oli aeg, mil Euroopa ühiskonnad olid olulisel määral juba sekulariseerunud ning avalikke funktsioone täitev kristlus oli muutunud piibellikust ja dogmaatilisest, müütilisest ja konfessionaalsest, kultuur-, tsiviil- ja rahvusreligiooniliseks. Kiriku avalikku võimu on kommunismiaegsetest riigi ja kiriku suhetest enam mõjutanud kaks kommunismieelset riigi ja kiriku suhete mustrit – kultuuriline konfessioon (luterlik või katoliiklik) ning 19. sajandil kujunenud kiriku suhted rahvusliikumisega. Sõltumata sellest, kas kommunistlik kirikupoliitika oli kaasav või repressiivne, nõrgendas ta veelgi neid rahvuse ja kiriku vahelisi suhteid, mis oli nõrgad ka varem, ning tugevdas rahvuse ja kiriku liitu seal, kus vastavad suhted olid tugevad juba kommunistliku režiimi eel. Kirikute võim on erakordsel määral nõrgenenud kõigis luterliku traditsiooniga postkommunistlikes ühiskondades, kuid traditsiooniliselt katoliiklikest ühiskondadest vaid sellistes, milles kirikul puudub positiivne side rahvuskultuuriga. Kahel kaudsel moel on kommunistlikud režiimid aidanud ka kaitsta traditsiooniliste kirikute avalikku võimu. Kommunistlikud režiimid ei soodustanud religiooni individualiseerumist ja kaasajastumist ehk protsesse, mis samaaegselt Lääne-Euroopa liberaaldemokraatlikes ühiskondades kirikute võimu nõrgendasid. Lisaks on homoseksualismi taunimine säilinud kommunistlike režiimi väärtushoiakulise pärandina ka sellistes ühiskondades, kus kodanike sidemed traditsiooniliste kirikutega on lagunenud.The study assesses the specific impact of Communist regimes on the public authority of the traditional churches by using the historical approach and comparative method. The declining authority of the traditional church institutions in society, culture and politics is claimed to be the sole indicator of the social, cultural and political secularization that accompanies the processes of modernization. The main regional focus is limited to nine traditionally Western Christian post-communist societies, which experienced the origin of the cultural nation-building in 19th century. By this time publicly functional Christianities in European cultures and polities had transformed from the biblical and dogmatic, mythic and confessional to the cultural, civil and the national. The church-state relations of the Communist period have influenced the post-communist patterns of church authority less than pre-Communist historical struggles between Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and the legacy of church-state relationships of the early national awakening. Regardless of whether the pattern of Communist policy vis-à-vis the church was cooptive or repressive, the Communist period tended to weaken the pre-existing weak bonds between the church and the nation but to strengthen them where they were strong from the beginning. The church authority has been undermined in all post-communist Lutheran cultures, but only in such Catholic cultures, where the church lacks positive tie to national identity. Indirectly,the Communist regimes have helped also to preserve the traditional authority of churches. The social structures of the Communist regimes protected church traditions from religious individualization and modernization, which have weakened the church authority in Western liberal democratic societies. Additionally, the disapproval of homosexuality has persisted as a legacy of Communist regimes even in such post-communist societies where connections to churches have largely been lost

PATRIARCH KIRILL AND METROPOLITAN HILARION ON RELIGIOUS CONFLICT AND SECULAR WAR IN UKRAINE: A DIACHRONIC STUDY OF RELIGIOUS LEADERS’ MESSAGES

This paper analyses the public messages of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and Metropolitan Hilarion 30 days before and one hundred days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 (hereinafter: invasion). The findings demonstrate that the main speaker for the Russian Orthodox Church (hereinafter: ROC) on issues related to secular and religious conflicts in Ukraine was Metropolitan Hilarion in the pre-invasion phase and Patriarch Kirill after the invasion had started. Their messages were identical on themes related to the ‘Russian world’ (e.g., that spiritually fraternal peoples do not fight, that war in Ukraine takes place on the Russian territory, or that Russia’s involvement in wars in history and the present day have aimed to liberate or protect spiritually fraternal peoples). They both condemn Western values, blame the West for the imposition of post-Christian values on both Russia and Ukraine, and consider the West to be the cause of both historic and present conflicts with Russia. Patriarch Kirill’s messages change mostly after 3 April 2022 when themes (such as ‘Lenin, divider of historical Russia’, ‘approval’ of Nazi ideology in Ukraine) used by Putin and Lavrov to legitimate the invasion appeared not extensively, but still one by one into Patriarch Kirill’s discourse on Ukraine. In the same period, Hilarion decreases his involvement in public discussions of war in Ukraine and becomes more amicable regarding those Local Orthodox Churches which have recognized the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine (hereinafter OCU). Hilarion’s discourse of the role of the ROC in ‘wartime’ also started to focus on the humanitarian mission and on a proper distance between the mission of the Church and the role of the state. Patriarch Kirill, instead, connected the Church and religion to the Russian effort more directly. He used several frames (e.g., ‘internecine strife’; peace conditioned by the unity of Russians and Ukrainians; war in defence of Russian independence; religious blessing makes [Russian] troops victorious) and a rhetorical style (e.g., religious demonization of the enemy) to emphatically contribute to the legitimacy of the Russian war effort and to the strategic narratives of Putin’s regime. The latter are virtually missing in the discourse of Hilarion

On the homological classification of pomonoids: atomic posemilattices

Between dierent and relatively well investigated so-called flatness properties of S-posets there is a property called property (Pw) which, so far, has not received much attention. In a recent paper by the author pomonoids from a subclass of completely simple semigroups with adjoined identity, all of whose cyclic (Rees factor) S-posets satisfy property (Pw), were characterized. In this paper pomonoids which as monoids are atomic semilattices, all of whose Rees factor S-posets satisfy property (Pw), are characterized

Failure of Our Duty Blocks Nature

It’s too late,-they should have done that a long time ago,-how are you going to stop the fires from burning them up?-they are too small to live,-you will be dead before they are cut for pulpwood. These were some of the remarks and questions fired at the planting crew and myself last May while planting Jack Pine seedlings for the Nekoosa Edwards Paper Company on sixty acres of barren, sandy land which parallels the Wisconsin River south of Nekoosa, Wisconsin

Religion enters politics: the process of politicization of religious issues in four post-communist countries : master thesi

http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b2604022~S1*es

Religious Leadership and Critical Junctures in the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine: 104 War Days of Metropolitan Hilarion

The chairman of the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) was dismissed from his office on the 104th day (June 7, 2022) of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Was Hilarion dismissed because of his ‘silence’ on the Russian invasion? We study the 104 ‘war days’ of Metropolitan Hilarion from four dimensions: leadership as position; leadership as process; leadership as result; and leadership as person. Our findings are multivocal: the Russian invasion of Ukraine did become a leadership challenge for Hilarion the way that previous military interventions (in Ukraine and Syria) and thorough broadening of the collaboration between the Church and the military in Russia during his 13 years as the Chairman of the DECR did not; Hilarion refrained from the rhetoric (religious demonization of the adversaries) and narratives (e.g. ‘spiritual brothers cannot be in conflict,’ labelling the conflict ‘an internecine strife’) used by Patriarch Kirill, but Hilarion still opted to leave his position of professor in Fribourg University instead of condemning (delegitimizing) the Russian invasion of Ukraine; Hilarion had contributed to Patriarch Kirill’s doctrine of the ‘Russian world’ since 2009 and did not revoke any of his related positions during the 104 days of war. As the ‘religious’ concept of the “Russian world” is the key narrative whereby religious leaders of the ROC have legitimated Russian imperialism over the territory and population of Ukraine, the key indicator for Hilarion’s assumed ‘silence’ should be the rejection of the Russian world doctrine, not his commitment to the principle “war is not a conflict solution method.” Finally, we observe his successor (Metropolitan Anthony) to be even less vocal than Hilarion on religious and geopolitical issues related to Ukraine. This period studied started with a secular critical juncture (start of invasion) and ended with a critical juncture in religious relations on Ukrainian territories occupied by the Russian Federation, when with the June 7, 2022, decision of the Holy Synod of the ROC to relocate dioceses of the Orthodox Church in Crimea into direct subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate, the latter initiated cuius regio, eius religio paradigm in its relations with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (of Moscow Patriarchate)