Social and Religious Differentiation

Every form of society contains several types of stratification, of a political and economic, artistic and cultural, professional and religious nature. Therefore, religious phenomenology too is subject to these socio-experiential factors. Differentiation of functions, roles, aims and modes of action is also produced, directly and through example, inside the constellation of movements and the composite religious experiences that characterize the vast panorama of Christian and other religions. Were we to limit ourselves to the socio-territorial context of Italy alone we would soon discover that the Muslim like the Sikh, Buddhist and Hindu and the various other religions practiced here, all contain within their folds a variety of structures, rituals, customs, rules and beliefs and that Christianity, the country’s numerically prevalent religion with its Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox congregations, is certainly no exception to the rule and that it too also contains a truly broad spectrum of forms.