Chornoyvan Y. The Concept of Education in the Baha'i Faith: Content, Structure, Peculiarities of the Development and Implementation

The dissertation considers peculiarities of the development and implementation of education in the Baha'i Faith and comprehensively discloses contents and structure of the educational activities of the Baha'i community in Ukraine and worldwide. The author of the dissertation revealed the significance of the principle of universal education as a central principle of the Baha'i religious teaching, considered the historical development of education concepts in the Baha'i Faith, defined the current state of the educational process in the Baha'i Faith through the exposure of the functioning structures which ensure implementation of the education concept in the Baha'i Faith, particularly in modern Ukraine. The concept of education is a central category of the Baha'i religious teaching, since it involves a New world community building through improvement of the humanity's moral and material conditions by means of education. The Bahai's educational system is an novel type of religious education, which includes continual education of its adherents without professional training of the priests. The Bahai's confessional education results in increasing number of believers, consolidation and spiritual elation of the community based on religious Revelation of Baha'u'llah.