The meaning of ‘Religion’ for the former Socialist Countries in ECHR

Religious freedom in former European socialist countries is a recent achievement when compared to the other continent states of a longest and most established democratic tradition. However, although the deployment of this freedom finds its origins in different vicissitudes, East and West Europe today are united by the duty to resolve the same issues. While in the West the acquisition of legislation for the defense and the protection of the religious phenomenon has had a constant and linear processing, this can not be said for former socialist countries. At a first stage, Eastern European countries, freed from state atheism, were subject to the assault of "new religious movements" who used a kind of vehicular, fast and cheap communication, such as that of the web. These new religious denominations have attempted to settle in territories that they considered at one time unrelated to religious experiences and at the same time in need of them, affecting the individual dimension of religious freedom through intense proselytizing. The countries concerned by this phenomenon, fearing to see their cultural references transformed, preferred to revitalize the traditional cults as an identity function, restoring their public role, in many cases establishing privileged relationships with them and managing relationships with religious communities through a new legislation that privileged relationships with one organization for each denomination. The next impact was the explosion of migratory phenomena. These countries have at the same time become places of emigration, exporting their traditional cultures to the West, while immigration from the South of the world imported new cultures in their territories or, in an even more alarming way, revitalizing religious and ethnic communities that they had fought even using ethnic cleansing during the remodeling phase of their state. It is therefore important to analyze this complex phenomenon because, on the one hand, it affects the multireligious composition of the Western Europe countries and, on the other, it explains the reasons why many of these countries are resolutely opposed to immigration, which characterizes the current historical phase of Europe, and to the introduction of new cultures, which has strongly influenced the very concept of religious freedom that these nations have. These issues have created a number of conflicts that have become the subject of multi-level rights protection. This process has come to the attention of the European Court of Human Rights, especially in those apical themes that have characterized the various national societies. The case law of the Court must therefore be read in the light of the general framework outlined in order to be able to understand its characteristics, problems and decisions so that said case-law is seen in the perspective of the development of new rules capable of mediating the conflict.