Devotees of Krsna in Slovenia

This paper is the result of a survey of ISKCON in Slovenia. It contains comparisons between the devotee community and the wider Slovene population as well as between devotees and Slovene Catholics. As well as being a useful guide to the changes in ISKCON in Slovenia, this paper is a textbook example of the changes that many ISKCON communities faced throughout the 1990s. It documents the shift from temple-based communities to more congregationally-based communities. It highlights the factors that caused this shift and the effects of that shift on an ISKCON community.

The study

The purpose

The Hare Krsna movement is among the oldest, biggest, best organised and probably the most active, noticeable, and recognisable ‘new’ religious movement in Slovenia. The main purpose of my empirical study of the Hare Krsna movement and its members, which was carried out as part of my doctoral research project, was to obtain basic information on the community, its development and activities, way of life, daily routines, etc. One of the primary goals of this research project was to identify the Slovene members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON); determine how long they have been members; how deeply involved these members are in the activities of the Society; how intense their religious practice is; to what extent they follow religious doctrine; and what their religious background was prior to entering into the community. Another purpose of the research was to establish to what extent (if at all) members of the community differ from the wider Slovene population according to socio-demographic characteristics and viewpoints. I also endeavoured to examine the similarities and differences between ISKCON members and active Roman Catholics.¹

Methodological background

The basic methodological approach of this research was triangulation (a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods). In the first phase, which started in the middle of 1999, I used ethnographic methods (mainly participant observation and unstructured and half-structured interviews) to gather basic information on ISKCON and its adherents in Slovenia.

The ISKCON community in Slovenia mainly consists of the temple in Ljubljana as well as a number of smaller congregational groups throughout the country. I participated intensively in various activities in the temple and visited devotees who lived outside the temple in their own households. I visited two smaller groups of members (mainly students) who lived in small residential communities in Ljubljana (or its vicinity), and four families with small children. I interviewed seven former members who, for different reasons, are no longer active in the community (some of them have severed all contact with the community, others still visit the temple occasionally and perform some religious duties at home, some left ISKCON and joined another Vaisnava organisation).

In autumn 2000, on the basis of information and knowledge gained by using ethnographic research methods, I formed a questionnaire with 79 variables. From the very beginning there was a question of who should be involved in the sample, since the community does not have a well-defined membership. In the first phase I decided to involve the initiated members. However, in the process of qualitative research I soon realised that those who had not yet been initiated represented the majority of the active members. In the end, the sample involved all persons who declared themselves to be ‘practising bhakti-yoga’ (Krsna consciousness).

Between December 2000 and February 2001, I gathered 116 completed questionnaires. Although the respondents did not form a representative sample of all the Hare Krsna devotees in Slovenia, from a strict methodological perspective they did represent a random sample and it did include most of the Slovene devotee community. Therefore the results obtained from the survey enable a generalisation of the whole Slovene ISKCON population.

I compared the values of certain variables with values measured on the wider Slovene population. When doing the comparisons, I used data from the surveys of the ‘Slovene Public Opinion Survey 1997/2: International Research on Religion and Attitudes toward Church’ (Aufbruch 1997), and the ‘Slovene Public Opinion Survey 1998/1: International Survey of Inequality and Religion’ (ISSP 1998 Religion), carried out by the Public Opinion and Mass Communication Research Centre at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana.

One of the main purposes of the research was to establish the differences and similarities between Roman Catholics and ISKCON devotees in Slovenia. Because of the high intensity of religiosity of the adherents of ISKCON, I found it sensible to make comparisons with only those Roman Catholics whose religious practice is intensive and not with all respondents who regard themselves as Catholics. For that reason, I chose only those who declared themselves Roman Catholic Church and who identified themselves as being either fairly religious, very religious, or deeply religious, and who attended religious ceremonies at least once a month and prayed at least once a week.

Due to the small size of the sample, I also took into consideration some results of the analysis which do not meet the recommended statistical criteria of significance, since it can be expected that in these cases the statistical significance would increase with the growth of the sample.

Krsna consciousness in Slovenia

The beginnings of ISKCON in Slovenia go back to the early 1980s, when devotees brought the movement from Croatia. At the beginning, they rented an apartment for their meetings and religious ceremonies in Ljubljana.² In 1989 they rented a house and adopted it as their first temple. The movement was officially registered as a religious community in 1983 under the name ‘Society for Krishna Consciousness’. In December 1992 the community moved into a bigger house (which it later bought), where the ‘Hare Krishna Centre’ still exists today. The centre (or temple) has two functions: it enables spiritual education of the adherents living in the community, and it provides cultural and spiritual education for its congregational members and visitors. The temple’s regular activities include a Sunday programme (with spiritual music, a lecture on Krsna consciousness, and vegetarian food), morning and evening lectures on a daily basis, and traditional worshipping (arati). Apart from these activities, the community organises nama-hattas, regular meetings of congregational members in towns across Slovenia. Their activities also include the translating and selling of books (to date, ten books by the movement’s founder, Srila Prabhupada, have been translated into Slovene). Within the international humanitarian project ‘Food for Life’, the devotees deliver food to the homeless and the poor. They occasionally visit retirement homes, prisons, and residences for the disabled. The community organises a bhakti-yoga summer school and seminars for congregational members and others who are interested. The community also occasionally organises other cultural and spiritual programmes and courses across Slovenia.

The movement gained wide publicity in 1990 with the first ‘Hare Krishna Festival’. There was a similar reaction to the second ‘Hare Krishna Festival’ in 1993, which took place in a sports hall in the centre of Ljubljana, where more than two thousand people attended. Due to such positive reaction to the second festival, as well as frequent lectures by ISKCON spiritual leaders across Slovenia, a number of new adherents moved into the temple. A pop-rock musical group, Transcendence, also emerged. Furthermore, a large prasadam (sanctified food) distribution programme began and the selling of books became extremely successful.

However, the rigorous and strict discipline that dominated the temple in this early period did not suit many adherents; therefore, some of them left the temple and moved abroad after several conflicts with the community leadership. This pattern continued until about the end of 1995. Many devotees moved to Italy, where the atmosphere was considered more liberal and where many of the temples were facing a shortage of manpower.

The year 1994 was marked by padayatra, an international group of Krsna devotees who travelled on foot with oxen through many countries spreading information on Vedic culture. It travelled across Slovenia from early June till mid-July and drew wide media response. Several Slovene devotees joined the caravan; many followed it after it left Slovenia and travelled with it all the way to Moscow. The distribution of prasadam was still very intensive in this period. The devotees who were not successful at selling books were selling food (samosas, sandwiches, etc.). In that period the kitchen in the temple produced from 200 to 300 sandwiches (‘bliss-burgers’, as they were called) and the same amount of samosas daily. Gradually, the number of devotees translating books increased and many devotees were sent to temples abroad (mainly Sweden) to be educated in the field of translating. During the summer Transcendence had a number of very successful concerts across Slovenia (often performing three or more times a week). In this period the boundaries between the devotees from the temple and those from the congregation (adherents who do not live in the temple but maintain their own households) began to diminish.

In 1995 some new adherents came to live in the temple; there was also an increase in initiations. Book distribution was carried out by ten devotees, who sold about 2000 books each week. During this period serious tensions arose between the book distributors and the temple leadership. Transcendence gave numerous concerts across Slovenia in the summer. There was also a new group formed called Gopinath, which played traditional Indian music.

In 1996, Deities of Gaura-Nitai were installed and all the necessary requisites for deity worship were set up in the temple. During this period, marked by new leadership in the temple, many devotees moved out, and the first marriage ceremony was conducted. At that time, the community saw this marriage in an extremely negative light, and the two newly married devotees were practically excommunicated. Also in 1996, a summer camp was organised for the first time and many adherents took part (including several from the congregation, additionally blurring the distinction between the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ members of the community).

The highest recorded number of devotees lived in the temple at the end of 1996 and the beginning of 1997. Book distribution was still successful. Many members took part in the summer camp in the Croatian seaside town Pula. Initiations were very common in this period and, for the first time, initiation was conferred to devotees who did not live in the temple. Towards the end of 1997 many members of the community married and moved out of the temple. There was also the first official divorce of a couple married according to the traditional Vedic rules. Quite a few devotees gradually distanced themselves from the temple. Some of them entered the Gaudiya Math: another Vaisnava organisation.

The first, and thus far only, major public scandal connected to the Slovene ISKCON Temple occurred in 1997. One of the members moved out of the centre saying that he had been sexually assaulted while there. He demanded a large sum of money from the community, which in turn considered suing him for slander. Although the incident initially received wide media attention, it eventually quietened down and no legal action was taken by either side.

In 1998 a transformation from temple community to congregational community took place. Many leading devotees moved out of the temple and started to lead the community from outside. At the end of the previous year, the leadership was taken over by three older devotees, who adjusted the activities of the community to the needs of grhastas, the married householders. In the summer of 1998, the community faced another turning point when Harikesa Swami, the guru of most of the older devotees, left ISKCON. The community fell into a crisis, and many of its members left.³ During this period a large number of other gurus visited Slovenia, and many new devotees received initiation from them. Sangas, weekly meetings for congregational members to worship and associate, became a regular activity and a large number of members joined the second summer camp in Pula.

In 1999 most senior devotees left the temple, even though they remained fairly active in their own religious practice. The temple residents were now mainly young, uninitiated brahmacaris, many from Croatia. Book distribution declined significantly with only six devotees still selling books. There were more divorces, and even more devotees joined other Vaisnava organisations such as the Gaudiya Math. Many completely abandoned religious practice, and it was getting harder to define who was actually a member of the Krsna conscious community.

In the following years (up to the beginning of 2002), a number of devotees experienced break-ups or disruptions in their married life.⁴ Devotee marriages appear to be no more stable than marriages of other people. The senior devotees dispersed and integrated into wider society. Many expressed dissatisfaction with the leadership of the temple, believing it to hold negative attitudes toward them; meanwhile, the temple devotees expressed a concern that the older devotees who left the temple were not following the principles strictly or meeting the standards of living in the community to a satisfactory degree. A large number of those who left the temple remained faithful to ISKCON, but there were also many who interpreted Krsna and Vaisnavism in their own way. This causes additional difficulty in estimating how many ISKCON members there are in Slovenia, since there are no clear rules and criteria by which we can judge who is or isn’t a member.

The number of devotees in the community

The community itself does not have an exact record of its members. According to estimates from the community leadership, there are a few thousand members. However, after a thorough survey of the community and several interviews with current and former members, this number appears to be an overestimate. The number of Slovene devotees who have been initiated up to the present day does not exceed two hundred. Some 150 of these have first initiation, and not more than fifty have second (brahmana) initiation. The majority of initiated devotees are no longer active (which can clearly be seen from the results of the quantitative part of the research: only 27 respondents have first initiation, and 19 have second). In Slovenia, non-initiated adherents are clearly in the majority, but their exact number is very difficult to estimate, again due to unclear criteria for membership.

According to the estimated data provided by the community leadership, the following number of devotees lived in the Ljubljana temple:

Table 1: Number of residents Ljubljana temple (data provided by the leadership of the temple)

However, the leadership admits that these are only the estimated numbers, since the community does not have a reliable record either of its members or the residents of the temple during different periods. The data gathered between 1992 and 2000 in the personal diary of a devotee, who is (according to his activities and beliefs) today situated at the very margins of the community, appear more accurate. His account of the number of residents in the temple is as follows:

Table 2: Membership of ISKCON Slovenia (male/female) (unofficial count)

Both sets of figures show the same trend: an increase in the number of temple residents up until 1996/97, and then a considerable decrease due to the transition into the congregational phase (this being even more evident when looking at the number of all adherents of the community).

The numbers of the members who left the community are also of interest.

Table 3: Number of devotees who left ISKCON Slovenia (male/female)

In total, 183 devotees left ISKCON over this period. We can see that a large number of members left the community at the end of 1990s (from 1998). As mentioned previously, a number of these joined other Vaisnava organisations, some still adhere to Vaisnava principles outside of any organisation, and others abandoned Krsna consciousness.

As with most new religious movements in the West, ISKCON in Slovenia has a small membership. According to our estimates, there are approximately one hundred adherents forming the active core of the community, and there are twice as many around this core. Those in the second group are less active and, according to their beliefs and activities, less faithful to the official doctrine of ISKCON, but they feel that they are in some way connected to the community.

Socio-demographic characteristics of the community members

Of the membership, 61% are men and 39% women. At the time of the survey, the respondents were aged between 15 and 61 years. The average age was 30, with 78% between 21 and 35 years old. A large majority of the participating members have Slovene nationality (88%); 10% are Croatian. The Hare Krsna movement was brought from Croatia, which accounts for the strong connections between the Slovene and the Croatian communities. The percentage of Croatian devotees is still surprisingly high since Croatia has a larger number of centres (five temples). One of the reasons many decided to move to Slovenia was the war which Croatia was fighting during the mid-1990s.

The adherents of ISKCON in Slovenia appear to be better educated than most Slovenes, with more than half of the respondents having finished high school, and almost a quarter finishing college or university (some of these to MA or PhD level). Only 2% had not finished primary school. The parents of the Krsna devotees also had a higher level of education than those of the wider population or of practising Catholics.

Table 4: Education of devotees compared to general population and Catholics

Table 5: Education of devotees’ parents compared to those of general population and Catholics

Forty-two percent of the respondents have a full-time job; 32% are high school or university students; and 10% are unemployed. If we compare these data to those of the whole Slovene population (SPO 98/1), we can see that there are large differences, particularly in the category of high-school and university students and the retired (only 4% of devotees are retired, whereas 29% of the general Slovene population are retired). These differences can be ascribed to the differences in the ages of the devotees and the whole population. We can also note that the percentage of devotees in employment (42%) is lower than that in the wider population (54%), and that there are slightly more unemployed devotees (10%) compared to the whole Slovene population (8%). Two-thirds of the devotees have a regular monthly income, one third don’t (interestingly, there are no significant gender distinctions in this).

The majority of devotees (60%) live in Ljubljana or Maribor, the two biggest Slovene towns; 13% of them live in some other big town or its suburbs. Almost a fifth (19%) live in the countryside or in a small town. When these data are compared to the data of the general Slovene population (SPO 97/2), there is an unusually high percentage of Krsna devotees (almost three-quarters) who reside in urban centres (compared to a quarter of the general population), and a considerably smaller percentage in the rural environment, where the great majority of the Slovene population (65%) lives. This difference is even bigger when a comparison is done with active Catholics, most of whom (79%) live in villages or small towns.

Forty-two percent of the respondents live with their parents. A quarter (26%) live in a rented flat or a house, about a fifth (22%) in a flat or house they own, and a tenth (10%) in the temple. Some obvious differences can be noticed when this data is compared to that of the whole Slovene population (SPO 98/1). A large majority of Slovenes (77%) reside in houses and flats that they own, and only a small proportion in rented accommodation (6%). Furthermore, there is also a difference in the percentage of those who live with their parents (only 16% of the wider population). The main reason for these differences is probably the age structure of the ISKCON devotees who, on average, are considerably younger than the general Slovene population.

Almost one half of the respondents are single; a similar percentage are married or engaged. The majority of women are married or engaged. The situation of men shows, however, the opposite (see table 7). The percentage of single devotees is clearly higher than the wider Slovene population. These differences could again be explained by the age differences between devotees and the wider population.

We can also see that the prevalence of divorce in ISKCON is similar to that of the general population (but considerably higher than that of active Catholics).

Table 6: Marital status

Table 7: Marital status of devotees according to gender

A high percentage of married or engaged members (84%) are married or engaged to a member of the Hare Krsna movement. This high percentage of the partners who belong to the community is understandable considering the intensity of religious practice, which has an extremely strong and immediate influence on the everyday life of its adherents.

Less than a quarter of the respondents (24%) have children; much lower than the wider population (76% of Slovenes have children). Again, this can at least partially be explained by the difference in the age structure between the Slovene population and the adherents of the Hare Krsna movement. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that lately ISKCON in Slovenia has been going through a ‘baby boom’ stage, since there are ten families expecting babies at the time of my writing this article.

Religious background of Slovene Krsna devotees

Before joining the Hare Krsna movement, more than half (56%) of the respondents did not belong to any religion and 44% of them were Christians, mostly Catholic.

Sixty percent of the respondents come from religious families (94% of which were Christian and 5% Vaisnava) compared to 80% of the wider population who come from Catholic families.

Almost three quarters of devotees (73%) were baptised, slightly less than the Slovene average. According to data from the Roman Catholic Church, 81% of the inhabitants of Slovenia are baptised. Table 8 also shows that Sunday school was attended by far fewer Krsna devotees than the Slovene average. Those who did attend did so for a shorter duration than the Slovene average.

Table 8: Attended Sunday school

(a) There were no significant differences according to gender or initiation among devotees.

More than half of the respondents (56%) have always believed in God, while 44% of respondents believe in God today, but did not in the past. The vast majority (97%) of active Catholics have always believed in God

Involvement in the Vaisnava community and attitude towards it

The involvement of the respondents was measured by analyses of: their initiation and its duration; the duration of their belonging to the community; their lives in the temple; and the duration of their residence in the temple.

The attitude of the adherents towards ISKCON in Slovenia was measured by analyses of: their feeling of connectedness with the community; their attitude towards the public activities of the community; and the frequency of financial contributions to the community.

The reported duration of Krsna-conscious practice ranged from six months to seventeen years, with an average of slightly less than six years. Fifty-one percent reported practicing for five years or less, 44% between five and ten years, and only 5% more than 10 years.

Three-fifths of the respondents are not initiated, two-fifths of them are. Twenty-four percent of the respondents have first initiation and 16% have second (brahmana) initiation.

The period since first initiation ranged from one to nine years, with a reported average of four years. Almost half of the respondents have been initiated for three years or less. There are considerably more men than women with second initiation and women generally have been initiated for a shorter period than men. This distinction is not particularly surprising, due to the general lower position of women in ISKCON.

Table 9: Numbers of devotees by initiation (by gender)

sig. P = 0.195

Table 10: Number of years since first initiation (by gender)

sig. P = 0.065

Only thirteen respondents (11%) live in the temple. On average, they have lived there for three-and-a-half years with reported durations ranging from six months to nine years. Most (62%) have lived in the temple for three years or less, 23% from three to six years, and 15% more than six years.

Thirty-eight percent of respondents had lived in the temple at some time. Men lived in the temple more often than women (42% of all men and 28% of all women). Initiated adherents also lived in the temple more often than the non-initiated ones (20% of non-initiated, 54% of first initiated and 82% of second initiated). They lived in the temple between six months and twelve years and slightly, with an average of slightly more than three-and-a-half years. The largest number of the respondents lived in the temple for one year. Half lived there for less than three years.

When analysing the number of the adherents who live or lived in the temple, and the periods of time of their stay in the temple, it is important to consider the transition from the ‘temple’ to the ‘congregation’. Most adherents today live in their own households and actively participate in the activities in the temple (67% visit the temple at least once a week).

More than two-thirds of the devotees stated that they are closely or very closely connected with the community, while a quarter feel little or no connection with the community. We get a clearer picture of the level of connectedness of Slovene devotees when this data is compared to the level of connectedness of active Catholics with the Roman Catholic Church. It appears that Catholics feel slightly more connected with their church than Krsna devotees with their community. Eighty percent of active Catholics (compared to 65% of ISKCON adherents) feel very closely or closely connected with their community.

Table 11: Intensity of connection with religious community

The majority of devotees (79%) contribute financially to the community: 57% contribute a few times a year; 22% contribute every month; 21% never contribute financially.

The majority of the respondents (83%) believe that the Slovene devotees are not active enough in public; 16% believe that the level of activity is sufficient; while 1% (one respondent) believes that in the past three years, the community has been too active in public. These results suggest that the Slovene devotees are not satisfied with the drastic decrease in public activities of Slovene ISKCON that occurred after the transition from the ‘temple’ to the ‘congregational’ phase.

Intensity of religious practice

The intensity of religious practice was examined by analysing: the frequency of the respondents’ visits to the temple; the participation at sangas (groups external to the temple); the number of hours individuals devote to reciting mantras, worshipping deities, and reading of holy texts.

We also measured the percentage of adherents who have an altar at home and the frequency with which devotees felt a sense of genuine, personal contact, and closeness with Krsna.

The majority of respondents (67%) visit the temple at least once a week. They visit sangas (regular weekly meetings organised in different towns across Slovenia) slightly less often (but more than a third of them at least once a week). To some members of the community, particularly those who live far from Ljubljana, sangas, to some extent, represent a substitute for the activities in the temple. Most devotees, however, perceive sangas as an addition to their regular temple visits.

Members of the community are also active at home, where the majority of the respondents have an altar with Deities, pictures of Deities and all other requisites for daily ritual worshipping. All the devotees with first initiation and the majority (94%) of those with second initiation have an altar at home. There is a lower percentage (70%) of non-initiated members who have an altar at home.

The respondents devote up to fifteen hours daily to fundamental religious activities (the reciting of the Hare Krsna maha-mantra, the worshipping of Deities and the reading of holy texts). On average, they devote slightly more than three hours daily, with most devoting between one and five hours daily to these activities. Men generally devoted more of their time to these activities than women, with the majority of women (56%) dedicating less than two hours daily, and the majority of men (62%) dedicating more than two hours daily. Men dominate particularly among those who devote more than five hours daily to fundamental religious activities (16% of male respondents compared to 5% of female respondents).

Comparison with Catholics

The intensity of religious practice of Slovene ISKCON devotees was compared with the intensity of religious practice of Slovene Catholics. With that purpose we analysed the frequency of visits for religious ceremonies and the frequency of prayers among the self-declared ‘religious’ Catholics (those who declared themselves as belonging to the Roman Catholic Church and being fairly, very, or deeply religious). The self-declared religious Catholics are considerably less active (32% of them attend religious ceremonies at least once a week, 35% of them pray at least once a day) than the Krsna devotees who generally attend ceremonies in the temple (and/or sangas) at least once a week, and devote several hours daily to fundamental religious activities. For this reason, we also compared the intensity of religious practice of the Krsna devotees with that of ‘active’ Catholics: those who attend religious ceremonies at least once a month and pray at least once a week.⁵ We can see that there are fewer differences between the intensity of religious activities of active Catholics and the intensity of devotees, with most (66%) active Catholics attending religious ceremonies at least once a week and 59% praying at least once a day.⁶

The experience of having personal contact with God is more frequent among Krsna devotees than Catholics. The majority of devotees had this experience several times or often, while the majority of active Catholics (60%) never experienced a similar contact with Jesus. We can also see that the initiated devotees have this experience more often than the non-initiated ones.

Table 12: Experience of personal contact with Krsna/Jesus

(a) There are no significant differences according to gender. sig. P = 0.124

On the other hand devotees also reported feeling more distanced from God than did Catholics. While a large majority of active Catholics (86%) feel fairly or very close to God, 58% of devotees feel the same. Furthermore, 14% of devotees do not feel close to God, whereas 6% of Catholics feel this way.

Table 13: How close to God do you feel?

(a) There are no significant differences according to gender and initiation.

Orthodoxy of Krsna devotees

The orthodoxy of the Slovene devotees was examined by observing the extent to which followers adhere to basic religious rules and commandments. We analysed the extent to which Krsna devotees adhere to the four regulative principles in their everyday life: mercy, exhibited in the consumption of strictly vegetarian food only; austerity, exhibited in prohibition from consuming all kinds of stimulants and drugs, including alcohol, tobacco, coffee or tea; chastity, exhibited in abstinence from sexual intercourse outside marriage and from all intercourse within marriage without the purpose of conceiving; and truthfulness, exhibited in a prohibition of gambling.

Additionally, we surveyed the extent to which they would like these rules to be applied to society as a whole and to what extent the respondents would be willing to conform to social rules which contradict their religious principles.

According to the data, the majority of respondents largely adhere to the four regulative principles. Almost three-quarters of the respondents had not partaken in gambling since joining ISKCON. One fifth of the respondents took part in gambling as an exception. The answers on consuming meat, fish or eggs show similar results.

Table 14: How often do you break the principles of truthfulness and mercy? (%)

(a) There are no significant differences according to gender and initiation.

The prohibition on the consumption of any intoxicating substance is strictly adhered to by a smaller percentage of the respondents. We can also see that brahmanas (adherents with second initiation) follow the principle of austerity to the highest extent, and that the least observant respondents to this principle are the uninitiated members. While a smaller percentage of initiated devotees had only exceptionally consumed any intoxicating substances since they joined the movement, almost a quarter of non-initiated adherents had consumed intoxicating substances at times or often.

Table 15: How often do you break the principle of austerity (by consuming intoxicating substances)? (%)

(a) There are no significant differences according to gender. sig. P = 0.09

The principle of chastity shows the most cases of aberration. Precisely one-half of the respondents did not have any sexual intercourse without the purpose of conceiving since they joined ISKCON. The other half of the respondents had sexual intercourse either often, at times, or exceptionally. There are also differences between men and women: fewer women than men adhere to the principle of chastity.⁷

Table 16: How often do you break the principle of chastity (through illicit sexual activity) (%)

(a) There are no significant differences according to initiation. sig. P = 0.087

The survey also showed that the majority of the respondents (59%) would agree to a general prohibition of meat consumption within the wider Slovene society; 29% would agree with this prohibition only partially; and 12% of the respondents would not agree with this kind of prohibition.

We also asked the respondents what their reaction would be to a law which contradicted their religious principles and their doctrine. Which would they respect: the law or the religious principle? Two-thirds of devotees would adhere to the religious principle. This is similar to the answers of active Catholics who responded to the same question. On the other hand, while only 7% of the responding devotees would respect the law, a considerably higher percentage of active Catholics would decide to follow it.

Table 17: Would you respect the law or your religious principles?

Conclusion

ISKCON has been actively present in Slovenia since the mid-eighties, where it is currently in a phase of intensive change. During the late 1990s the majority of the members left the monastic life in the temple for an active life in society, transforming the so-called ‘temple’ community into a ‘congregational’ community. The consequence of this transition is less tension between the community and its surroundings; at the same time, there has been a decline in public activities of the community, and consequently in its recognition.

In Slovenia, ISKCON has a core of members that is small in number but relatively well connected with each other. The devotees are by no means people who live on the margins of the society. They are mostly young, active, well educated, people who usually live in urban environments.

Compared to the whole Slovene population, ISKCON devotees come from less religious environments. During their childhood they were less religiously socialised and, on average, less religious than Slovenes before they entered ISKCON.

Compared to Catholics, ISKCON’s Slovene devotees are far more active and considerably more consistent in their religious activities. A high level of orthodoxy can be noticed in their attitude toward the generally accepted rules of the wider society.

Notes

1 I compared the characteristics of the members of the Hare Krishna community to the characteristics of the adherents of a majority religion (around 70% of Slovene citizens consider themselves to be Roman Catholic).

2 Ljubljana is the capital and, with about 350,000 inhabitants, is the biggest town in Slovenia (the whole of Slovenia has fewer than two million inhabitants).

3 Two more gurus with a fairly large number of adherents in Slovenia, Somaka Swami and Bhaktivaidurya M€dhava Swami, also left ISKCON in this period.

4 Eight couples have divorced up to the present day; one divorce is in progress while this article is being written.

5 According to the data of the SPO 98/1, 33% of the Slovene population were self-declared religious Catholics and 16% were active Catholics.

6 For that reason, whenever we made comparisons between the data of the ISKCON adherents and the Catholics, the data of the active Catholics was used.

7 We should also consider the fact that men and women might not have been sincere to the same degree when answering this question. Furthermore, it is possible that they have different perceptions of ‘frequency’ of sexual intercourse — thus, what one respondent interprets as ‘at times’, another respondent may interpret as ‘frequent’.