Introduction. The article examines the problem of searching for effective mechanisms for educating the younger generation and its social integration in the context of the discrepancy between the model of youth socialization and the changed conditions of social relations, which are affected by the ongoing "new wars" and escalating social conflicts. The purpose of the study is to reconstruct and substantiate the model of youth education of the Russian Orthodox Church as a special methodology and technology for the socialization of the younger generation, which has significant potential for the use of its elements in the system of secular institutions of social education.
Materials and Methods. The methodological basis of the study is the dialectical method, with the help of which the model of education of the Russian Orthodox Church is considered in its development, contradictions are taken into account, common and special features are established, and the potential of typology is provided.
The historical approach ensured the identification of the nature of the evolution and development trends for the model of youth policy of the Russian Orthodox Church. The ideas of the cultural approach determined the work with the meanings of cultural phenomena. Equally, the axiological approach made it possible to take into account the value assimilation of reality, the attitude towards Orthodoxy, and, based on the consideration of behavioral motives, projection onto the process of education. At the same time, included observation gave an understanding of the relationships and behaviors that constitute the cultural norm among believers.
The opportunity was used to consider the socialization of the young generation on the basis of the cognitive and existential image (paradigmatic approach), formed in the tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In order to describe the macro-structures and processes of institutionalization, the methodological premises of structural functionalism were used. This approach was combined with the activity-based direction of sociological theory in the study of the micro-level of the process under study. From the standpoint of the systemic approach, the considered model of education appeared as a phenomenon occupying a separate place in social reality as a single whole, which determined the understanding of its elements as a hierarchically organized system of the entire youth policy of the Russian Orthodox Church. The functional method determined the action and role of the socialization model as a separate link in the system of other phenomena in their interconnection and interdependence.
Results. The article analyzes the youth policy of the Russian Orthodox Church in the modern history of Russia. In the context of escalating global threats and challenges, an effective mechanism for social education of the younger generation and its social integration has been established.
A number of deficiencies in the state youth policy have been identified, the most significant of them are: the reproduction of a hedonistically oriented discourse, the normative ambivalence of the youth transit management system, the underdevelopment of activity-based technologies for working with young people, as well as the lack of continuity and synchronization between the institutions of supporting childhood and youth. The conclusion is substantiated that the search for sources for their elimination in the Soviet model of working with young people is not constructive.
The paper addresses the experience of implementing social education of young people, implemented by the Russian Orthodox Church. Its generalization made it possible to distinguish three stages of development: the first stage (1991-2000) is formation; the second stage (2000-2014) is institutionalization; and the third stage (2015 - present) is adaptation under the influence of global threats and geopolitical instability.
Based on the analysis of key documents regulating work with youth, the authors reconstructed and verified the model of social education, which is implemented by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Conclusions. The model of youth education implemented by the Russian Orthodox Church is based on a clear system of principles and involves the creation of a comprehensive set of sample situations that allow young people to internalize the normative and value model of Orthodoxy and transmit it to other youth communities. In this regard, this model is an effective tool for the socialization of the younger generation, the formation of their life philosophy and inclusion in real activities to transform their lives, as well as an opportunity to transform state youth policy and develop new forms of social education of the younger generation in a situation of geopolitical instability and social crises.