STATE-CHURCH RELATIONS IN THE FIELD OF ECONOMY: CONCEPTUALITY AND PROBLEMS

Abstract

The article highlights the meaning and legal status of state-church relations, reveals their content and draws attention to the problems that accompany them. Identifies certain aspects of economic relations in the activities of religious organizations and establishes the features of their relationship with the legal policy of the state. Attention is paid to the types of problematic issues of economic activity of representatives of religious organizations and the directions of their elimination are determined. The author's position on the expediency of expanding the clear apparatus of this process by introducing the category of "economic and legal regulator of state-church relations" is presented. The essential characteristics of the proposed conceptual category are presented in a broad and narrow sense, which provides a more substantive implementation in the legislative regulators of this area. The advantages of its adaptation in modern state-church relations, which affect economic activity, are determined in detail, with the substantiation of the chosen approach. The characteristics of typical models of state-church relations are given, the factors influencing their choice in the country are determined and the position of scientists on expediency of adaptation in Ukraine of the concept of formation of contractual-cooperative multilevel model of state-church relations is revealed. Of course, one should be aware of the legislator, who reveals the legal position on the formation of state-church relations in our society, but some issues of economic activity of religious organizations and communities need more substantive regulation, which emphasizes the relevance of the chosen area of research. A number of conclusions can be drawn from the results of the research. The legislative platform governing state-church relations needs to be improved, as there are a number of unresolved issues related to economic relations. Part of the solution to the problematic issues lies in the plane of improving the conceptual apparatus, which is able to more objectively reveal their target nature. Thus, the introduction of the conceptual category "economic and legal regulator of state-church relations" will provide more substantive. In general, a number of issues of modern state-church relations in the context of economic activity require closer attention both from the legislator and from representatives of the church, scientific elites, specialists in economic activities of religious organizations (communities), which together will improve the situation inherent in today.