Neo-Protestant movements (Pentecostal, Baptist, and Seventh Day Adventist) have recently come to the attention of social researchers, particularly as a consequence of their world wide exponential growth. The establishment of new religious institutions and confessional education, from a primary to a university level, seeks to counter the perceived negative effects of the forced secularization in modern societies. My paper focuses on the newly emerging neo-protestant confessional schools- with a focus on post-communist South Eastern European countries- and is looking at their impact on reconfiguring religious values among students. Through their institutionalization, an autonomous socio-religious space emerges, one in which minority religious groups are free to construct their specific moral values. Alternatives are offered to secular public institutions which provide an opportunity not only for a reconfiguration of moral values in a religious world view but also for the development of religious social networks that influence the path of students in future life: specific conceptions of family life, career choices and even social mobility. Taking into consideration that adult church attendance is influenced by a religious socialization during childhood, confessional education also has as its result the development and maintenance of church and religious attachment through the emphasis placed on community life and close knit social networks. The institutionalization of confessional education in modern societies, particularly in post-communist societies, becomes one of the primary means in which individuals belonging to minority religious groups construct their identity and life worlds, respond to social changes and reconfigure notions such as religiosity, spirituality and orthodoxy.
