C.N.R.M.S. Center of New Religious Movements Studies, in Belarus

The Center was founded in 1997 after the blessing of the Metropolitan of Minsk and Slutsk Philaret, Patriarchal Exarch of whole Belarus at the Eparchy of Minsk.
The Center collects information about the history and the actual situation of sects, cults, new religious movements (NRMs) and the non institutionalized "occult milieu" of the society on the territory of Belarus. The Center has established a systematized data bank which contains different materials about the activity of sects/cults in Belarus. The data bank consists of:

• a library of the sectarian and analytical literature about sects/cults;
• a videothek;
• an audiothek;
• a photothek;
• a computer data bank.

The activity of the center is performed in the frame of the applied new religions studies in the following directions:

• consulting of the private persons who are sects/cults victims or being interested in the research of NRMs;
• consulting of the ecclesiastical and social organisations, educational institutes, governmental agencies and mass media about basic questions of the new religions studies in general and of the sectarian activity in Belarus specifically;
• lecturing for interested ecclesiastical and social auditories.

The Center works within the frame of the theoretical new religions studies in the following fields:

• elaboration of the problems of theory of the new religions studies in the following directions:
• - knowledge of sources and methodology of research of NRMs;
• - history and currents of the new religions studies;
• - conceptual categories of the new religions studies;
• - position and function of the NRMs in modern society;
• - religious innovation, cult innovation and migration of the NRMs;
• - leadership in the NRMs;
• - structure and hierarchy of the NRMs;
• - development of the NRMs;
• - the question of the sectarian consciousness in the NRMs;
• - potential membership in the NRMs;
• - missionary activity of the NRMs;
• - conversion;
• - membership in the NRMs;
• - family, women, children and NRMs;
• - leaving an NRM;
• - crisis and decay of the NRMs;
• - education and NRMs;
• - sectarianism inside the church;
• - mind control and social-psychological influence in NRMs etc.
• research and analysis of the history and actual situation of NRMs in Belarus;
• carrying out of purposive research of NRMs in Belarus;
• publication of informational and analytical material related to new religions studies;
• elaboration of the educational new religions studies programms for the ecclesiastical and social educational institutes.

The work of the Center unites the efforts of public and experts (theologists, religious scientists, psychologists, sociologists, historians, psychiatrists and jurists). The Center has information about the NRM-related activity in 750 cities and villages in Belarus.
May 2005 the Center have got status of correspondent of European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism /FECRIS/.
The head of the Center is theology doctor Vladimir A.Martinovich, the consultant in new religious movements affairs of the Minsk Eparchy of the Belorussian Orthodox Church.