ABSTRACT

The article examines how, in contemporary Europe, the concept of militant democracy—initially designed to prevent anti-democratic political movements—has increasingly shifted toward the religious sphere, transforming freedom of religion into a tool for controlling and filtering pluralism. Building on the Refah Partisi case and on the erosion of the Westphalian model of state–religion separation, the paper shows how the rising perception of "religious extremism" has led European states to reinterpret religious freedom defensively. This shift has produced new inequalities, discriminatory practices, and an expansion of the ideological dimension of public order. The article ultimately argues for an alternative approach: an "ordinary militancy of pluralism," in which religious freedom serves not as a repressive mechanism but as a foundational component of an inclusive democratic ethos capable of sustaining a genuinely pluralistic society.