Invented Religion, the Awakened Polis, and Sacred Disestablishment: The Case of Slovenia's “Zombie Church”

Abstract

AbstractThe Trans-Universal Zombie Church of the Blissful Ringing is a religion that emerged in the context of a period of political uprising in Slovenia in 2012–13 and later consolidated into a church that now claims 12,000 members. We use the lens of invented religion and interviews conducted with observers and participants in 2017 to demonstrate ways in which the Zombie Church has been an unusually effective actor in contemporary Slovenian political discourse and, indeed, has broken ground by spotlighting challenges in the young republic's negotiation of the legal and cultural relationships between church, state, and civil society. Part 1 explores the context that led to the mobilization of Zombie as a multivalent symbol for political critique. Part 2 looks at the church's tenets, its success in compelling changes in Slovenia's registration process, and the challenge is its advocates raise to Slovenian church-state structures and practices.