A Contribution to the Conceptualization of Secularity in the European and Croatian Social Context

What is it about?

The issue of secularity has been the focus of theorists from various scientific fields during the recent decades. Although Europe has long been considered as secular and secularized space, such claims are increasingly being questioned in the light of the events that seek to (re)define the public role of religion and its impact on European society as a whole and in its member states respectively. Starting from the attempt to define the concept of secularity and conceptualize its meaning through a review of the existing literature on this topic, this pa- per deals with secularity through the legal frameworks of the European Union and the Republic of Croatia. It also gives a short overview of the social context within which the issue of secularity is questioned. Secularity is in this paper defined in a broader sense as a constitutional and legal principle of separation between religious organizations and the state, which guarantees the neutral- ity of public institutions in relation to religious and non-religious beliefs and religious affiliations of the citizens. In a narrow sense, secularity refers to a society-specific, ideologically legitimized relationship between the religious domain and other social (secular) domains, or to a »culture of secularity« that articulates a hierarchy of social relations.

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