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RELIGION AND ECOLOGY 63 in historical churches (Beyer 1998:17). In Beyer’s view, the term is a useful analytical abstraction, which can be applied to the description of any religious belief and practice whose adherents regard nature as the manifestation of the divine, sacred, transcendental, spiritual force — whatever you may call it” (Beyer 1998: 11).8 Equally frequent is the use of the term native faith in this discourse. Studying Eastern European neo-paganism, Adrian Ivakhiv concluded: “East European practitioners mainly call native faith that which western researchers categorize as paganism” (Ivakhiv 2005: 195). Native faith, native tradition, ‘ancient Hungarian tradition or ‘heritage of our ancestors’ are used in the social sciences and everyday life. There are thus several different terms for describing groups close to neopaganism in Central and Eastern Europe, and these designations often obscure their ties to similar traditions elsewhere in the world, while also alluding to the differences characteristic of the two regions.” Ivakhiv also stresses that the concept of nature, too, has different interpretations and connotations in contemporary Western versus CEE nature religions, and first of all neo-paganism. In his view, the dominant understanding of nature in the West is that it is an entity in its own right, while in CEE, nature is closely connected to the human being and the nation and vice versa: the people, the nation is closely tied to the local environment (see Ivakhiv 2005). Taking this as the point of departure, he discusses the problematic aspects of the term: he argues that the concept of nature must not be taken as unambiguously this or that. Rather, it must be seen as a constantly evolving definition, the outcome of construction, bricolage and discursive fighting (Ivakhiv 2005: 196). The above themes are not only important conceptual questions in scholarly discourse, nor are they arbitrary word games. Instead, they shed light on the subtle differences that also influence the attitude to nature. An excellent example is that of the Indian environmental historian, Ramanchandra Guha’s surprise at the differences. In India, his experience was that the environmental movements were concerned first of all with questions of social justice. Their subject and goal were equal access to natural resources, hence they were centered on the human being. Later, in the United States, he met with a wholly different environmentalism in whose focus stood not the human being but the animals, plants, and non-human actors of nature and their rights (Guha 2000). Innumerable examples could be cited from anthropological literature as well, but suffice it here to refer to Csaba Mészaros’s work. He has shown, on the basis of his field work in Siberia, the huge differences in meaning between climate change in a Siberian community and in Western thought (Mészáros 2019). To return to the phenomenon of eco-spirituality and nature belief: social scientific, mostly cultural, anthropological investigations have revealed that no homogeneous nature belief and related practice can be found even during the study of a single group. Nature religions are characterized by plurality and bricolage. Religiosity that comes closest to neo-paganism/nature religion/native faith and its 8 To the theme, see also Harvey 2014; Letcher 2003; Pearson — Roberts -Samuel 1998. " On the question of terminology, see Simpson — Filip 2013. In addition to terminological differences, there are considerable ideological deviations between Central and Eastern European and Western European - let us call them — neo-paganisms. Its antecedents, causes and character are examined, by, for instance: Altamurto — Simpson (eds.) 2013; Szilagyi -Szilärdi 2007; Wiench 2013; Hobbes — Povedäk 2014.
