Orthodox Religion and Politics in Contemporary Eastern Europe

This book explores Orthodox religion and politics in Eastern Europe, Russia and Georgia. It shows how the relationship between religion and politics is complex, and how they complement, reinforce, influence, and sometimes contradict each other.

This book explores the relationship between Orthodox religion and politics in Eastern Europe, Russia and Georgia. It demonstrates how as these societies undergo substantial transformation Orthodox religion can be both a limiting and an enabling factor, how the relationship between religion and politics is complex, and how the spheres of religion and politics complement, reinforce, influence, and sometimes contradict each other. Considering a range of thematic issues, with examples from a wide range of countries with significant Orthodox religious groups, and setting the present situation in its full historical context the book provides a rich picture of a subject which has been too often oversimplified.

Autorentext
Tobias Köllner is assistant professor at the Witten/Herdecke University and board member in the Centre for Research on Transformation at Otto von Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany

Inhalt

1. Introduction On Multiple Secularisms and Entanglements: Orthodox Religion and Politics in contemporary Eastern Europe and Beyond - Tobias Köllner

2. Symphonia and the Historical Relationship between State and Church: Legacies from Byzantine Times until Today - Daniel Jianu

3. 'Proud to be Orthodox': Religion and Politics during the 2014 presidential elections in Romania - Lucian Cîrlan

4. The Temple Mount Comparison A new Paradigm of the Relationship between State and Church? - Marten Stahlberg

5. A Resilient Harmony, or How the Politics of Social Inequality in Post-Soviet Russian Society Have Informed Orthodox Parish Life - Detelina Tocheva

6. National Heroes, Martyrs of the Faith and Martyrs of the People: Mixing Political and Religious Discourse in the Post-Communist Romanian Orthodox Religious Education Textbooks - Ana Raluca Bîgu

7. The Shifts Between: Multiple Secularisms, Multiple Modernities and the Post-Soviet School - Agata adykowska

8. Religious Education in Russian School: The False Symphony - Anna Ozhiganova

9. The Dichotomy between Europeanisation and the Revival of Moldovan Orthodoxy: The Strategy of the Moldovan Orthodox Church in Relation to Equality Legislation - Romania Iordache

10. Between Europeanisation and the Russian-Georgian Brotherhood: Nationalism, Orthodoxy, and Geopolitics of the Georgian Church - Nutsa Batiashvili

11. The End of the Pro-Orthodox Consensus: Religion as a New Cleavage in Russian Society - Dmitry Uzlaner

12. Guided by a 'Symphony of Views': The Russian Orthodox Church's Role in Building Russia's Symbolic Capital - Alicja Curanovi

13. Surrendering to Public Pressure: The 'Macedonian Orthodox Church' and the Rejection of the Ni Agreement in 2002 - Nenad ivkovi

14. Orthodox Christianity and State/Politics Today: Factors to Take into Account - Vasilios N. Makrides