Pagan Religions in Five Minutes - Suzanne Owen
28. Is Romuva an Official Religion in Lithuania?
Pagan Religions in Five Minutes - Suzanne Owen
Rasa Pranskevičiūtė-Amoson [+]
Vilnius University
Rasa Pranskevičiūtė-Amoson is an associate professor in cultural studies and anthropology of religion at the Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies, Vilnius University, Lithuania. She has published on (post-)Soviet religiosity and alternative religious movements and subcultures, including Romuva, and was the president of the Lithuanian Society for the Study of Religions (2018–2022).
Description
Organisations can be recognised as an official religion in Lithuania in different ways. The first Romuva religious community was registered in 1992 and recognised as a non-traditional religion in 1995. Lithuania does not have a state religion, but the law lists three categories of religion – “traditional”, seen as historically present in Lithuania; “recognised”, which includes more recent Christian groups; and “other”, the largest group of religious communities.