Abstract:

In modern higher education, in teaching historical disciplines, great attention is paid to issues affecting religious topics. In Russia, at lectures and seminars on history, teachers touch upon a wide range of issues related to the study of the history of confessions, the Russian Orthodox Church, church-state relations in different periods of the country's development. A number of new issues for discussion in the classroom include academic coverage of the problem of marginal religiosity, as a phenomenon of spiritual life that is not accepted by the official religious tradition in Russia. Interest in the occult at the beginning of the 20th century was a reaction to the social consequences of accelerated modernization in Russia, as well as on the transformation of society after the collapse of the USSR at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Historians note that in the recent period of history, not only sectarians from the social lower classes, but also the cultural and political elite of society, which did not always realize their isolation from the official religious tradition, were the exponents of marginal religiosity. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, Masonic lodges, Rosicrucian orders, theosophical and anthroposophical societies were actively working in large cities of Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The purpose of the article is to identify the most optimal options for studying marginal religiosity at lectures and seminars, based on an interdisciplinary approach. Methodologically, the article is based on theoretical models of understanding marginal religiosity by historical and theological sciences, as well as on the author's methodological developments for conducting seminars on the stated problem.

The author concludes that the task of the teacher when considering issues related to the activities of various mystical organizations is to focus the attention of students on the need to take into account the opinions of both modern historians and theologians based on the methodology of church scientific research. Also, students should understand that when assessing the activities of sects and occult organizations, it is impossible to remain only within the boundaries of history, it is necessary to refer to the concepts of theology, philosophy, church law, sociology and other sciences, that enrich historical science, and in the future will help to apply theoretical knowledge in practice in the field of countering sectarian propaganda that undermines the spiritual basis of Russian culture.

Keywords:

Interdisciplinarity, teaching the history of religions, the Russian Orthodox Church, methodology for the study of sectarianism, marginal religiosity, esotericis.