The tangibility of the Secularization : En studie av hur serbisk-ortodoxa präster uppfattar den religiösa identiteten hos andra generationens serbiska invandrare.

Sammanfattning: In this study, I have examined how three Serbian Orthodox priests and a bishop, perceive the religious identity of second generation Serbian immigrants and put their responses against selected secularization theses. For this study, I have used qualitative interviews in order to analyze my informants' answers by way of applying different secularization theses. The informants have in interviews explained their experience on how young Serbs relate to Orthodoxy today. They all declared that secularization has affected young Serbs in several ways. There are three elements that have contributed greatly to the increased secularization and I emphasize them as the core factors: secularization as differentiation, the decline of religious belief and practice, and secularism as privatization of religion. In the result section, I have concluded that the informants' answers correspond well to the secularization theory. It is primarily the decline of religious belief and practice, and secularism as privatization of the religion that is proved to be one of the most contributory causes of religion´s decreasing importance among the second generation of young Serbs. This theory is proven by several of my informants who explain that the exercise of religion is not as ubiquitous nor to the extent it should be. This tendency does not have to entail young people abandoning their religion as a whole, merely that there is more freedom to create an individual approach to religion and belief.