Religion Within and Beyond Borders: The

The authors analyse religiosity in Croatia from the point of view of significant differences among its regions demonstrating an array of theoretical and meth-odological difficulties in interpreting religious changes in the post-Communist era, particularly the revitalization of religion in some countries and the contra-dictory social role of religion in most countries of Central and Eastern Europe. That the differences in religiosity between Croatian regions are connected to borders with countries of different religions, nations and/or languages and with the historical as well as recent social processes is very visible. Apart from the dominant paradigms of explanation (differences in historical processes and the trend of politicization of religion and ‘‘religionization’ ’ of politics in the transi-tional period), the authors suggest that the possible influence of politicization must be considered over a much longer historical period, that different patterns of socio-religious development have long-lasting consequences and that the role of religion as a cultural resource for individuals and for social groups must not be neglected