Organized by the Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade (Forum for Religious Issues and the Center for Sociological and Anthropological Research), with the partnership support of the Center for Empirical Research of Religion from Novi Sad, the jubilee 10th Annual International Sociological-Religious Conference entitled Challenges Facing Religion and the Church in Postmodern Digital Society was held at Silver Lake on September 5–6, 2025.
The conference brought together 58 researchers from the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade, as well as other domestic scientific research institutions and scholars from Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Malta, Spain, Ukraine, and Iran. Across nine sessions during the two-day event, 44 presentations took place in an attempt to provide an interdisciplinary analysis of the many challenges contemporary societies face in the information society of late modernity—that is, how modern information technologies, and especially artificial intelligence, affect institutionalized religious organizations, their hierarchy, and their believers. The information society offers these organizations many advantages and opportunities for promoting religious ideas and practices, but on the other hand, it also presents to the public and the faithful a host of dilemmas—from moral issues to questions concerning faith doctrine and religious ritual practice.
This was the largest such gathering in the past ten years. It was opened by Dr. Goran Bašić, the director of the Institute of Social Sciences, after which, in a dense schedule and through intensive work, participants presented the results of their research within the framework of the conference’s theme. Considering that today this is one of the few interdisciplinary scientific conferences on religion organized by domestic scientific-research institutions—unlike in previous decades—the unanimous opinion of participants was that such gatherings should continue, fostering connections among researchers from the region who study religious phenomena.