DEFINITION OF RELIGION THROUGH THE DICHOTOMY OF THE SACRAL AND PROFANE: CONCEPTS OF E. DURKHEIM AND M. ELIADE
The article is devoted to the analysis of definition of religion through the dichotomy of the sacral and profanein the works by E. Durkheim and M. Eliade. E. Durkheim in his book “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life: Totemic System in Australia” on the base of broad empirical material has analyzed religion from the point of view of sociology. The specificity of religion is characterized through differentiation of the sacral and profane where the sacral is the expression of the collective. M. Eliade in his work “The Sacred and the Profane” from the positionsof phenomenology has analyzed the phenomenon of the sacral and compared the sacred and profane ways of life. The sacred possesses the status of unconditional and genuine reality which the profane world does not have.