Archive of Scientific Articles

Abstract. In modern society owing to the development of scientific-technical progress and the processes of democratization the issue about the character of state-church relations doesn’t seem to be so topical as it was, for instance, at the beginning of the last century. However, the problems associated with the strengthening of religion role both as a political institution in the post-soviet area (mainly the Russian Orthodox Church) and the manifestation of religious fundamentalism in the West and in the countries of the East are a new impulse, which urges on the study of the processes of making society a clerical one and the influence of religious factor on political process. Therefore for such research the proper conceptualization that is based on the reconsideration of the phenomena of priest-ridden and theocratic states in the context of modern reality is necessary. This article is an attempt to understand the problem of the conceptualization of these phenomena and the scientific discourse devoted to it.

Key words and phrases: теократия, "боговластие", религиозно-политические властеотношения, теократические тенденции, клерикальное государство, папоцезаризм, цезаропапизм, антирелигиозная идеократия, theocracy, "rule of the God", religious-political authority relations, theocratic tendencies, priest-ridden state, Papo-Caesarism, Caesaropapism, anti-religious ideocracy