Religious attitudes as a source of social communication barriers: the case of the Orthodox community

In modern Russian society, there is a contradiction between the perception of religion as a unifying factor that promotes peace and understanding, and the perception of religiosity as aggressive missionary activity. This is evidenced by the Scientific Notes of the Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences: at the same time, 69% of Russians are concerned about the growth of clericalism, and a purely religious project for the development of society, which includes a symbiosis of political and moral connotations – the idea of “purifying” society through the Orthodox faith – is considered deeply marginal, and only 4% would like to see it as a future project. Thus, the perception of Orthodox attitudes can create a social communication barrier between religious and secular society. The study was based on a specific Orthodox community, whose representatives were interviewed and identified certain social communication barriers that arose when the religious and secular communities collided.