THE DYNAMICS OF RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOUR AND CONSCIOUSNESS AMONG URBAN POPULATION IN ARMENIA (COMPARATIVE ETHNOSOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF 1980-2005)

The development of contemporary societies is in many ways associated with ethnoreligious processes, modifications of religious consciousness, behavior, and religious identity. Their studying, besides theoretical approaches, will require a systematically arranged empirical knowledge. The article analytically presents dynamical analysis of religious processes in Armenia based upon three wide-scale periodic ethnosociological studies with gaps of 12 years. The said ethnosociological studies were held among Armenia’s urban population using the methods of standard interview involving 4000, 2000 and 2000 people in 1980, 1993 and 2005 respectively. Beside other clusters of problems, the research program included subjects associated with a changing character of religious consciousness and behavior of diverse socio-demographic groups of people dwelling in five cities of the Republic. Responses showing respondents’ attitudes to religion, the pretext for attending church, attitudes to the religious and ritual practices were chosen as indicators - all within the context of diverse facets of public relations...