TEACHING RELIGIOUS STUDIES AND THEOLOGY AT RUSSIAN UNIVERSITIES: PROBLEMS AND TASKS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF TEACHERS OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES AND THEOLOGY (BASED ON EXPERT INTERVIEWS)*

The article deals with teaching religious studies and theology at universities of St. Petersburg and focuses on problems encountered by teachers of these subjects. The study was carried out in February.March 2022 using a qualitative method, i.e. an expert semi-structured interview. The experts identified the following key problems, related to theology teaching: the problem of personnel training; lack of a range of textbooks; insufficient development of the very concept of theology as a subject in secular higher education; the danger of dogmatisation and ideologisation in the field of teaching theology. Experts expressed different points of view regarding the fact of the emergence of theology in secular universities. Some experts noted the preference for a model that implies the interaction and complementary character of theology and religious studies. As for religious studies, there are two points that need to be improved: insufficient training in certain areas (e.g. psychology of religion) and poor language training of graduates. As for the main tasks that teaching religious studies and theology are designed to solve, the experts identified the following: understanding religiosity and a religious person; formation of an all-Russian civic identity and the prevention of extremist tendencies; formation of religious culture and reaching a more intellectual level of religious life itself. One of the questions in the guide of the interview was the question about the demand for graduates of such specialities as religious studies and theology.