Geografie 2008, 113, 302-319
Religious landscape in Czechia: New structures and trends
The intent of this paper is to analyse trends and processes in the religious landscape in Czechia during the transformation period. In Czechia, society has been secularized to an extent unprecedented in the rest of Europe. The paper also uses the term sacralization of landscape, which is primarily connected with the restoration of sacred places. It has often been used in this context after 1989, creating a certain contradiction to the general trend of secularisation in Czech society and to the diversification, near disintegration, of religious communities. This research attempts to monitor the main reasons for the transformation of sacral objects as well as to seek fundamental consequences of these changes with the examples of select locations.
Keywords
geography of religion, Czechia, religious landscape, transformation.
Funding
This paper is the result of two research projects, sponsored by a financial grant from GA AV Project No. IAA 701110701: "Differentiation of changes of religious landscape in Czechia during the period of transformation" and from GA ČR Project No. 403/07/0743: She role of human and social capital in the integration process of peripheral regions into regional structures of Czechia in context of new Europe". The authors would like to thank the sponsors for their financial support.
