Principles of methodology guiding the study of religion as found in the work of Friedrich Heiler

The issue of methodology in the study of religious phenomena appears as problematic to those Russian experts who deal with the scientific study of religious phenomena. On the other hand, western European researchers have already made much positive progress in this direction. This article attempts to define the principles which guide the scholar in the study of religion as found in the work of the renowned German scholar Friedrich Heiler. The author’s starting point is Heiler’s fundamental concept which permeates all his work and is most clearly defined in his last monograph: «Erscheinungsformen und Wesen der Religion». Heiler gives several pointers to students of religion: attention to detail, a fi rm grounding in the core matter of the object to be studies, and at the same time a comprehensive and panoramic view of religion and religious phenomena as a whole. The author concludes that Heiler’s protracted study of both Christianity and the Eastern religions led him to regard the phenomenological method as the most eff ective. The author presupposes a negative reception of this method by Russian students of religious phenomena due to the fact that the latter are too unfamiliar with Heiler’s work and conclusion