The Church is commonly spoken of as an institutional reality, but much less frequently recognized as a spiritual and heavenly reality called by God " to make disciples of all nations." (Mt. 28:19) This modest work furthers the development of a structured and integrated Christian Orthodox political thought, whereby the Church is neither sidelined as having no relevance to this present life, nor dominated by temporal questions or popular movements at the expense of its eternal salvific mission. The author (...) seeks to ground the mission of the Church in the present world both on an understanding of God as Trinity and in Her mission to baptize diverse cultures. To do this effectively the Church must recognize and adapt to local and contemporary political and social trends and patterns. It must exemplify the Gospel as a way of communal and social life, not allowing itself to be reduced to an impersonal ideology manifest within the sphere of either imagination, ideology, or a private individualistic existence. (shrink)

Panentheism is the position that the world is in some sense ‘in’ God, and God ‘in’ the world, without the world being identical to God. Thus, it tries, like what I call mainstream theism and against pan- theism, to protect the transcendence of God, while giving greater emphasis to his immanence in creation than the former. I aim to explicate an approach that I call Orthodox Panentheism. The word ‘orthodox’ is to be read in two ways. First, the (...) picture is derived from the writings of some of the most important figures in Eastern Christian thought, so that it is Orthodox in the ‘big “O” sense’. Second, I hope to show that it is a legitimate Christian picture of the God–world relation which is both distinctive and worthy of being called ‘panentheism’ – an orthodox panentheism in the ‘little “o” sense’. (shrink)

It is usually taken for granted that orthodox quantum theory poses a serious problem for scientific realism, in that the theory is empirically extraordinarily successful, and yet has instrumentalism built into it. This paper stand this view on its head. I argue that orthodox quantum theory suffers from a number of serious (if not always noticed) defects precisely because of its inbuilt instrumentalism. This defective character of orthdoox quantum theory thus undermines instrumentalism, and supports scientific realism. I go (...) on to consider whether there is here the basis of a general argument against instrumentalism. (shrink)

The subject of this article is the Orthodox Christianity’s approach to war. Christians of other denomination have developed an elaborate theory of war, so-called “Just War Theory” (JWT), which has also been accepted by non-Christians and even secular thinkers regarding the nature and justification of war. A vast literature has been produced in a dire attempt to render perfect the world by insisting on the claim that war is the act of punishment for breaking the law. The result is (...) an epistemological ease from which everything seems evident in advance including who is right and who at fault, who is and who is not favored by God. By removing from war an essential feature – that it is a form of conflict – JWT takes away the concept of reciprocity and introduces an in advance declared inequality which enables removal of uncertainty about the war’s outcome. In Orthodox Christianity, the situation is different. With still live debate whether to persevere or abandon original Christian pacifism, for Orthodox Christianity, war is always a combination of cataclysm and temptation and far less Manichean than anything present in JWT. The aim of war is peace; but, however necessary, justice is an insufficient condition for justification. The difference between “justness” and “justification” is preserved through the uncertainty whom God, at war’s end, loves more, because both victors and vanquished remain and continue to be in His grace. Losing a war, as such, does not turn the vanquished into criminals, nor does victory give the vanquisher the right of revenge for defending oneself. The latter approach to war has significant potentialities: preserving the distinction of ius ad bellum and ius in bello, preserving reciprocity, mutual respect and trust, impossibility of incrimination of war per se, the possibility of honorable defeat, etc. (shrink)

According to Orthodox theology, philanthropy refers to the love of God toward man, which man is called to imitate by loving his neighbor as himself. This love consists not just in emotions but requires specific acts of philanthropy toward our fellow man in need. The church, in keeping the commandments of Christ, has developed throughout her history a rich philanthropic work. The diaconia of the church has taken many forms, thus responding to historical change and to the specific human (...) needs at different times. Concentrating on diaconia for those who are in need of long-term care, this article presents the Orthodox view of the diaconia of the church, as realized through her own philanthropic organizations as well as through her very specific contribution to the diaconia offered by state sponsored charitable institutions. (shrink)

The views on in vitro fertilization within Russian Orthodox Christian society are diverse. One reason for that variation is the ambiguity found in “The Basis of the Social Concept,” the document issued in 2000 by the Russian Orthodox Church and considered to be the primary guidelines for determining the Church’s stance on bioethics. This essay explores how the treatment of infertility reconciles with the Orthodox Christian faith and what methods of medical assistance for infertility may be appropriate (...) for Orthodox Christians. The focus here is on IVF because it is among the most widely used methods to overcome childlessness, and the permissibility of IVF is the object of disagreement among Orthodox. The article defines criteria that can help to discern what is absolutely wrong and must be avoided from what only falls short of the mark, but not very far, for Orthodox Christians. If treatment of the underlying causes of infertility has failed or promises no hope and a husband and a wife do not feel able to carry the Cross of infertility, then from pastoral dispensation they might be blessed to use ethically acceptable variants of IVF. IVF has many variants that are different in their spiritual influence on a person. Orthodox Christians pursuing IVF should seek spiritual guidance and a blessing to pursue IVF. They must not form more embryos than will be transferred in the same cycle. Freezing, discarding, or reduction of embryos is forbidden. Infertile couples ought to use only their reproductive cells. The use of donor gametes is unacceptable. Any embryo formed ought to be transferred into the wife’s womb, and the use of surrogates is impermissible. Only a husband and wife who are able to maintain their marital union and where the wife is still of childbearing age should be blessed to use IVF. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, by Marcus Plested.

More than three centuries after Baruch Spinoza's excommunication from the Jewish community of Amsterdam, his legacy remains contentious. Born in 1632, Spinoza is one of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment and arguably the paradigm of the secular Jew, having left Orthodoxy without converting to another faith. One of the most provocative critiques of Spinoza comes from an unexpected source, the influential twentieth-century political philosopher, Leo Strauss. Though Strauss was not an Orthodox Jew, in a well-known essay that (...) prefaced his study of Spinoza, he critically examines modern philosophy's challenge to traditional religion. There he argues that while the Enlightenment had failed to decisively refute Orthodoxy, at the same time, Orthodoxy could only claim to believe its core tenets were true but could not claim to know they were true. Strauss leaves the question at an impasse; both the Enlightenment and Orthodoxy rest on axioms that neither side can fully prove or fully refute. Curiously, Strauss never asks Orthodox Jewish thinkers if his approach to defending Judaism against the claims of the Enlightenment is the same as theirs. This volume poses the question to a group of serious Orthodox Jewish thinkers in an attempt to find out if Orthodoxy has a better answer to the questions raised by Strauss than the one Strauss advanced on its behalf. The seventeen essays in this volume use a variety of approaches, drawing on traditional primary Jewish sources like Scripture, Talmud, and Midrash; medieval rationalists like Maimonides; Enlightenment-era Orthodox sources; Jewish mystical writings like Kabbalah and Chasidut; modern philosophical movements including postmodernism and analytic philosophy; and contemporary Jewish Bible interpretation. While the answers differ, what unites these essays is the willingness to take Strauss' question seriously and to provide "inside" answers, that is, answers given by Orthodox Jews. Much of modern thought tries to square the circle of how to live in a world without belief. The better question is whether it is possible to recover authentic religious belief in the modern world. This volume is an Orthodox Jewish attempt to answer that question, one that no serious person can approach with indifference. (shrink)

Jeremiah Carey presents a version of panentheism which he attributes to Gregory Palamas, as well as other Greek patristic thinkers. The Greek tradition, he alleges, is more open to panentheistic metaphysics than the Latin. Palamas, for instance, hold that God’s energies are participable, even if God’s essence is not. Carey uses Palamas’ metaphysics to sketch an account on which divine energies are the forms of created substances, and argues it is open to Orthodox Christians to affirm that God is (...) in all things as their formal cause. I argue Carey’s reading is premised on a superficial examination of the patristic literature. More importantly, Palamas’ metaphysics is opposed to that of Carey, since Palamas’ distinction aims to uphold that created persons are only contingent participants in God. On this, Palamas and the Latins are in complete accord. In conclusion, I propose panentheistic metaphysics begins from a false dilemma. (shrink)

Distinguishing between ‘analytical’ or ‘orthodox’ and ‘dialectical’ readings of first-wave critical realism, this review essay engages critically with the former as exemplified in Critical Realism and the Social Sciences: Heterodox Elaborations, edited by Jon Frauley and Frank Pearce. It argues that the ‘orthodox’ reading is fixist and endist and that this is conducive to an ill-informed and unconstructive attitude of hostility to dialectical critical realism and the philosophy of meta-Reality that is at odds with the critical realist embrace (...) and that in turn helps to reproduce the stasis of the reading. If the dynamism that goes hand in hand with the method of immanent critique is embraced, however, the possibility of flourishing two-way constructive critical engagements among the moments of the system is opened up, leading to the invigoration of each and the whole. Notwithstanding limitations - indeed, partly in virtue of them -, Critical Realism and the Social Sciences provides a promising basis for the unfolding of that possibility. (shrink)

Using a religious studies methodology, this paper offers a detailed contextual mapping and a structural configuration of how collective violence is justified in Orthodox Christianity. The research design is explanatory, whereby the functional perspectives of doctrine, ethics and worship are all investigated and probed as phenomena of lived religion and orthopraxy. While predominantly initiatory and pedagogical, the paper also proposes a systematic platform for advanced research on this subject, by flagging contexts, themes and areas of inquiry that a researcher (...) might examine in order to untangle the inner workings of the justification of violence in the mind of the Orthodox. Given the ongoing Russian War on Ukraine, relevant samples are drawn from this case.Contribution: This paper outlines the Orthodox Christian justification of violence from the perspectives of doctrine, ethics and ritual and identifies pivotal areas of ambiguity between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. (shrink)

En France, Lukács est considéré aussi bien comme un représentant de l’orthodoxie marxiste que comme un auteur subversif fondateur de la tradition du marxisme hétérodoxe. Cet article revient sur la genèse de cette appréciation ambivalente, qui trouve ses sources dans les années 1940 et 1950. C’est durant ces années que s’élaborent les cadres et présupposés de la réception française de son œuvre, à travers une série d’épisodes dont les enjeux sont à la fois théoriques, éditoriaux et politiques : l’intervention de (...) Lukács en France dans la bataille idéologique de la Guerre froide en 1948-1949 et sa polémique menée avec l’existentialisme français, l’éclatement international de « l’affaire Lukács » en 1949-1950 et ses retombées hexagonales, enfin le changement de statut de Lukács au cours des années 1950. (shrink)

The Orthodox Christian thought is the most modally rigorous way of inferring. The subject of the book is to investigate possibilities of explicating the Orthodox thought from the viewpoint of analytic philosophy and symbolic logic. The claim that Orthodox thinking is just mystic and illogical is not true. The logical culture of Orthodox Christian thinking is unknown and ununderstandable for the West, although its schemata are very influential in Eastern Europe till now (Marxism-Leninism is just one (...) of their possible instances). This thought can be called totalistic or even totalitarian. For this thought any truth or falsity is necessary. As a result, the whole world is presented as logical and nomothetic and there is no place for contingency. (shrink)

The article traces possible channels of influence of a religious factor on the formation of a specific Russian version of socialism. Using the logics of the M. Weber?s work?The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism?, I. Zabaev reveals the categories that played a dominating role in the people?s consciousness in the pre-revolutionary Russia. According to his conclusion, these categories were?obedience? and?resignation?. It was obedience and resignation that assured the salvation of an Orthodox person. In everyday life such orientations (...) were easily transformed into the readiness to obey the?superior?. Once elaborated, they turned to be quite stable and, being separated from their religious roots, ensured a sort of asceticism on the secular path. (shrink)

In their book, Roman but Not Catholic, Kenneth Collins and Jerry Walls make the case that certain beliefs central to the Roman Catholic faith are unreasonable. This article evaluates, from the point of view of Eastern Orthodoxy, some of the arguments Collins and Walls make. In particular, it argues first that Collins and Walls are correct to criticize John Henry Newman’s theory of the development of doctrine as a reason to accept otherwise insufficiently supported Catholic doctrines. Secondly, it offers some (...) points of clarification concerning the matter of sacred tradition and attempts to show the areas of agreement and disagreement between Eastern Orthodoxy and the position that Collins and Walls articulate. Thirdly, it argues that Collins and Walls rely on what is, from an Eastern Orthodox point of view, a questionable view about the interpretation of scripture by assuming without good reason that the clear meaning of scripture is equivalent to the literal interpretation. (shrink)

Several authors, e.g. Patrick Suppes and I. J. Good, have recently argued that the paradox of confirmation can be resolved within the developing subjective Bayesian account of inductive reasoning. The aim of this paper is to show that the paradox can also be resolved by the rival orthodox account of hypothesis testing currently employed by most statisticians and scientists. The key to the orthodox statistical resolution is the rejection of a generalized version of Hempel's instantiation condition, namely, the (...) condition that a PQ is inductively relevant to the hypothesis $(x)(Px\supset Qx)$ even in the absence of all further information. Though their reasons differ, it turns out that Bayesian and orthodox statisticians agree that this condition lies at the heart of the paradox. (shrink)

Review of Kristina Stoeckl, Ingeborg Gabriel, Aristotle Papanikolau, eds., Political Theologies in Orthodox Christianity. Common Challenges – Divergent Positions,, Edinburgh: T&T Clark and Bloomberg, 2017.

Starting from the investigation of the documents issued by the Bishops who participated in the Holy Pan-Orthodox Council held in June 2016 in Crete, the author speaks in this research about the way in which ecumenism is understood from the perspective of this important event. The article tries to answer the question 'How did the event influence the Orthodox attitude towards ecumenism?' analysing documents, Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today's World and Relations of the Orthodox (...) Church with the Rest of the Christian World, he shows that the dialogue entailed by ecumenism is perceived nowadays, according to the documents of the World Council of Churches, like a pilgrimage of justice and peace, and he highlights the main topics of this perception. Therefore, he shows that, according to the documents, a real and fruitful dialogue with other Christian faiths must be based on the Trinitarian witness, the Bible, the Tradition, the Creed and the teaching of the Seven Councils and that, among its main topics, one must definitely mention the witness, love, dialogue, the fight against discrimination or the care for the future of the Earth. The relevance of the ecclesiological background and of its understanding for the future of this dialogue is also mentioned. The documents are investigated in a deductive and comparative-analytic way by the author. If before the Council there was no official general attitude of the Orthodox space regarding ecumenism, nor an official document on this topic - although between 1968 and 1998, all the Orthodox Churches were members of the WCC - after this event, there is an official position and a list of main topics that could be developed and principles that should be respected for a fruitful dialogue in the future, at least for the Churches that took part in the Council. By analysing the aforementioned topics, by correlating them with other texts dedicated to the Council of Crete, and also by emphasising the perception of the Orthodox Church about ecumenical dialogue and its developments starting from the aforementioned event, the research brings into attention a sensitive topic and highlights some of its important, but not enough highlighted, aspects. (shrink)

This article presents the development of elementary schools supported by the Orthodox Church in Transylvania between 1868 and 1921. Until 1918, Transylvania belonged to Hungary. In 1918, it was united with the Kingdom of Romania. As Hungary was a particularly complex state in ethnic and confessional terms before 1918, the school system developed under the coordination and financing of the churches. The government intended to gradually replace them with schools run by communities or state. It was not until the (...) end of the 19th century that radical measures were taken. The situation was fully resolved just after the unification of Transylvania with Romania when Romanian Orthodox denominational schools were nationalised and transformed into state schools. Contribution: Although summary works on the history of education in Romania or various research on the history of schools at the local level have appeared in Romanian, the impact of governmental and legislative decisions in Hungary on Orthodox confessional education in Transylvania has not been analysed. In German, the historian Joachim von Puttkamer has dealt with this perspective but especially concerning the schools in the Slovak areas of Greater Hungary. This PhD thesis of the author, P Brusanowski, was the first approach in this direction regarding the Romanians in Transylvania. The article presents for the first time in English a short analysis of the relationship of the Orthodox Church authorities in Transylvania to the educational policy decisions of the central authorities in Budapest. The parallel use of the reports of the Ministry of Education to the Hungarian Parliament, and the reports of the school councils of the executive body of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Transylvania to the ecclesiastical legislative forum, is an important part of this article. (shrink)

This article presents the development of elementary schools supported by the Orthodox Church in Transylvania between 1868 and 1921. Until 1918, Transylvania belonged to Hungary. In 1918, it was united with the Kingdom of Romania. As Hungary was a particularly complex state in ethnic and confessional terms before 1918, the school system developed under the coordination and financing of the churches. The government intended to gradually replace them with schools run by communities or state. It was not until the (...) end of the 19th century that radical measures were taken. The situation was fully resolved just after the unification of Transylvania with Romania when Romanian Orthodox denominational schools were nationalised and transformed into state schools.Contribution: Although summary works on the history of education in Romania or various research on the history of schools at the local level have appeared in Romanian, the impact of governmental and legislative decisions in Hungary on Orthodox confessional education in Transylvania has not been analysed. In German, the historian Joachim von Puttkamer has dealt with this perspective but especially concerning the schools in the Slovak areas of Greater Hungary. This PhD thesis of the author, P Brusanowski, was the first approach in this direction regarding the Romanians in Transylvania. The article presents for the first time in English a short analysis of the relationship of the Orthodox Church authorities in Transylvania to the educational policy decisions of the central authorities in Budapest. The parallel use of the reports of the Ministry of Education to the Hungarian Parliament, and the reports of the school councils of the executive body of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Transylvania to the ecclesiastical legislative forum, is an important part of this article. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

The Orthodox Church in the Arab World 700–1700: An Anthology of Sources. Edited by Samuel Noble and Alexander Treiger. Orthodox Christian Studies. Dekalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014. Pp. viii + 375. $35.

In a recent article, Gauthier rejects orthodox rational choice contractarianism in favor of a revisionist approach to the social contract that, according to him, justifies his principle of maximin proportionate gain as a principle of distributive justice. I agree with Gauthier that his principle of maximin proportionate gain cannot be justified by orthodox rational choice contractarianism. I argue, however, that orthodox rational choice contractarianism, before and after Gauthier, is still a viable approach to the social contract, although (...) the scope of this approach is limited. Orthodox rational choice contractarianism can be applied fruitfully to moral philosophy only in situations of deep moral pluralism in which moral reasoning is reduced to instrumental reasoning, because the members of society do not share, as assumed by traditional moral theories, a consensus on moral ideals as traditionally conceived as a starting point for the derivation of moral rules but only an overarching end that they aim to reach. If orthodox rational choice contractarianism is applied adequately, then it offers a viable approach to the social contract that, in contrast to Gauthier’s theory, justifies a rival principle for distributive conflicts that is valid for deeply morally pluralistic societies. (shrink)

In Russia a monotheism - Orthodox Christianity - and atheism in its Marxist version have succeeded each other as state systems of rites and representations. Rather than contrasting one with the other, term with term, this paper proposes to bring in a third term: the local religious systems of Russia’s animist minorities. We examine how Christianity and atheism tried one after the other to get established there and also consider the reactions they encountered. The analysis as planned is undertaken (...) on two levels: on an overall level we look at the strategies and aims of the state and its representatives, and on the local level - illustrated by the particular example of the Nenets - concrete and always specific mechanisms are presented, which application of general policy has implemented on the ground. (shrink)

Just as the physics of Newton and Einstein are separated by foundationally different paradigms, so that key terms such as time, space, mass, and energy have different meanings in the different physics, this is also the case with respect to the various Christianities. Given different theological frameworks, the ‘same term’ can have different extensions and intensions. This essay explores the implications of the differences in the theological paradigm shaping Orthodox Christianity in contrast to Western Christianity, in particular Roman Catholicism, (...) with a special focus on the differences in the communities’ appreciation of the wrongness of abortion. Using the example of abortion, the contrast between Orthodox Christianity’s noetically grounded approach to moral-theological issues and that which developed in the West and gave centrality to a philosophically shaped moral theology is explored. (shrink)

This paper deals with the role of Judaism in Walter Benjamin's famous 1921 essay on violence and law, Zur Kritik der Gewalt. Despite the intense attention devoted to this essay, the role of Jewish myth in it has not yet been thoroughly explained. This study contends that the association between what Benjamin termed revolutionary violence and the Jewish messianic tradition, which plays a central role in the evaluation of Benjamin's text, is far more problematic than has hitherto been assumed, and (...) poses a serious challenge, which has not been fully examined in its historical context. Second, this essay claims that the subversive elements that many have supposedly found in Benjamin's text and the attempts to link these elements to messianic traditions are also unconvincing. Third, the paper contextualizes Benjamin's thought within the framework of the Jewish political–theological debate of the period. It contends that Benjamin's theory of law and justice should be understood not as a revolutionary, anti-republican text, as has been generally accepted, but as a secularized conservative orthodox one. In doing so, it seeks to shed light not only on Benjamin's early thinking and its influences, but also on the neglected element of Jewish orthodoxy within the broader topic of political theology. (shrink)

In the context of the Union of Greater Romania, a problem specific to the development of the Romanian society and of the re-united national state was the regulation of the status or the varied religious cults. It is well known that under the Older Romanian Kingdom, the Orthodoxy was a state religion. The other cults – Lutheran, Catholic, Mosaic, and Moslem – represented small numbers of believers and had not been regulated under the law; they were tolerated. Following the Union (...) of 1918, the Romanian State came to accommodate not just one, but several denominations. Consequently, it had to clarify its relations with the cults in the Romanian provinces of Bucovina, Basarabia, Banat, and Transylvania. These cults which had not existed in the Older Kingdom functioned according to the legislative systems they had belonged to before 1918. Thus came the necessity of establishing the unitary status for the minority cults, which, given the diversity of their religious doctrines, rituals and interests, posed new problems to be settled for the government policy. This also should be the focus of the debates surrounding the forthcoming law of the cults in Romania. (shrink)

The paradoxes of globalization and the efforts toward the establishment of a consolidated healthcare ministry have caused tensions while affording the possibility for true ecumenical dialogue. As today's societies become more pluralistic, Orthodox Christian healthcare ministry finds itself amongst these paradoxes and tensions. The content of Orthodox healthcare chaplaincy, which is centered in its Eucharistic expression, maintains a sense of catholicity and unity. This though differs from a “psychological” understanding of pastoral care, which has developed. Therefore, there is (...) a question of the chaplain's identity, a crisis of theology and ecclesiology, which must be faced so that true unity can be attained. This article explains the content of Orthodox healthcare chaplaincy and addresses the issues of pastoral identity, theology and psychology, together with the crisis of ecclesiology. It is written with a true agony for unity. (shrink)

The third millennium set new requirements for the Orthodox Church, the decision of which depends on its role and place in the future. The question is whether the Church will be really catholic, universal or remain purely local. New demands of a modern man put Orthodoxy in a dilemma - whether to preserve traditionally conservative status, but whether to go through the adaptation of believers and to the requirements of modern times, as it did, for example, the Roman Catholic (...) Church. (shrink)

The Jewish religious tradition summons its adherents to save life. For religious Jews preservation of life is the ultimate religious commandment. At the same time Jewish law recognizes that the agony of a moribund person may not be stretched. When the time to die has come this has to be respected. The process of dying should not needlessly be prolonged. We discuss the position of two prominent Orthodox Jewish authorities – the late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rabbi J David (...) Bleich – towards the role of life-sustaining treatment in end-of-life care. From the review, the characteristic halachic and heterogeneous character of Jewish ethical reasoning appears. The specificity of Jewish dealing with ethical dilemmas in health care indicates the importance for contemporary healthcare professionals of providing care which is sensitive to a patient’s culture and worldview. (shrink)

This article explores a specific case of premodern social thought, the Middle Persian Zoroastrian system of estates, MP pēšagān, sg. pēšag, which originated in Sasanian Iran, and its link to the social position of priests in the empire. It is argued that Zoroastrian religious experts tried to impose a totalizing system of social organization and heuristic possibility in a situation characterized by competition for resources in a tributary society. Against a widely held belief, it will be shown that this system (...) was only loosely based on an Avestan predecessor—an observation that should caution against broader attempts to project Middle Persian concepts onto the Avesta and vice versa. The findings also contribute to our understanding of the relationship between the Sasanians and the Zoroastrian tradition. (shrink)

This article examines how the key Orthodox actors in Moldova have reacted to challenging equal opportunities legislation. The author suggests, on the basis of an economic approach to religion, that under the conditions of a deregulated religious market they use various strategies to promote their agendas. The Moldovan Orthodox Church, autonomous within the Russian Orthodox Church, previously relied on making private bargains with the government; but this policy ended with the adoption of the 2013 Law on Ensuring (...) Equality in the Republic of Moldova. Now the Metropolitanate tries to assimilate the strategies of direct action, but without success. The so-called ‘non-mentioning’ radicals, technically being part of the Metropolitanate of Moldova, but not praying for its bishop, are involved in direct political activism – from setting up protest camps to street fighting – to confront de-stigmatization of homosexuality. The Bessarabian Metropolitanate of the Romanian Orthodox Church utilizes the strategies of European ‘public’ churches and gains influence through performing some useful social functions. This article concludes that all actors have their own advantages and weaknesses; nevertheless, so far the Metropolitanate of Moldova remains the strongest; while the other competitors are serving specific religious niches, it is this body which still possesses the potential to influence society more broadly. (shrink)

If there is one pivotal epistemological issue the Eastern and the Western Christian churches have agreed upon, this must be the understanding that God’s essence is inherently and conclusively unavailable to humans. This settlement is based on the shared assumption that there is no possible mode of accessing this or any essence, other than either from objective or subjective knowl­edge. Neo-Orthodoxy has preserved the heritage of Pateric apophaticism and has built upon the shared assumption its own, ecclesial accessibility instead to (...) God’s existence. In this exclusivist orientation Neo-Orthodoxy has further proclaimed itself the only true heir to ancient Greece, cutting off the West and criticizing it as a bastion of rational alienation. A phenomenological investigation of Greek statuary art, however, addresses prosody as a third, hitherto unexplored mode of epistemological intelligibility for an access to the essence of “God.” Through the implementation of suprasegmental theory in the phenomenological reduction of a certain statue, we revisit certain key concepts in the discussion between Christos Yannaras, whose works comprise the Neo-Orthodox manifesto, and Martin Heidegger, who claimed that the Greek statue “is the god himself.” Amongst the conclusions emerging from this comparative hermeneutics is the idea that in fact the West may have remained all along more ready than the East to move into the next historical step of man’s self-elucidation in the light of what is Holy. (shrink)

This essay suggests the possible form of an orthodox historicism. The essay begins by examining the historicism of Heidegger and Gadamer. It then proposes how a theology might appear which places the faith in conversation with this historicism.

The article explores the semantic potential of social narratives associated with the creation and constitution of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which caused a interpretations conflict, marked by conflicting interpretations and differences in meanings that are applied in different contexts. The narrative arranges events in a certain time sequence, accumulates and translates meanings, individual and social experience. The presence of meanings in the interpretation of the narrative depends on the perspective, interpretation horizons and the subject's ability to analyze information (...) and its correct application. The social narrative accumulates a set of stories and messages that are fragmentary and disordered, constructs a coherent plot aimed at finding and defining meanings, and forming social discourse. Social narratives materialized in social structures, orientations, expectations, and stereotypes of their bearers due to everyday modification in the form of simple images, attitudes, and principles. Since each social narrative claims to be exclusive and correct in its own way of understanding events, a clash of narratives and their interpretations is inevitable. A large-scale event determines the modification of social structures, standards, and evaluation criteria, is accompanied by the transformation of everyday life, reveals deep mental layers, and opens up new perspectives. The extraordinary event that was marked by the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is accompanied by diametrically opposite assessments from the clergy, believers, politicians, experts – from the statement about autocephaly as the only opportunity to achieve unity and recognition of Ukrainian Orthodoxy to the political subtext justification of the new religious organization creation. Church circles represented by representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate claim that the state interferes in the internal Affairs of the Church. The Constitution of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine takes place in the context of the confrontation of two social narratives – the «ukrainian world» and the «russian world». The social narrative «ukrainian world» is based on values rooted in the national soil, but the social narrative «russian world» denies the existence of the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian state. Under the patronage of the Russian Orthodox Church, the expression of the ideas of the «russian world» is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which enshrines in the minds of believers ideologies about «the common origin of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples», «the common baptismal font», «the unity of the historical space of Holy Rus», «the identity of the East Slavic Orthodox civilization». The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate did not support the decision of patriarch Bartholomew to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Metropolitan Onufriy did not give his blessing to the hierarchs to participate in the Unification Council, which is called «a non-canonical assembly of schismatic groups». The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, according to its primate, has de facto autocephaly, so it is the only canonical local Orthodox Church in Ukraine. In the face of the conflict of public narratives, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, along with meeting the spiritual needs of believers, contributes to the formation of national identity, the formation of a worldview matrix that will determine the vision of the future development of the country. (shrink)

Throughout the years, there has been an extensive engagement with the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard from the perspective of Western philosophy and theology. Kierkegaard's thought has been examined through the lenses of Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, existentialism, post-modernism, feminism, and literary theory, to name just a few. Scholars have also offered fruitful comparative analyses of Kierkegaard's work in relation to Asian philosophical and religious traditions such as Buddhism. It is therefore surprising that the engagement between Kierkegaard's philosophy and that of Eastern (...) Orthodox philosophy and thought has heretofore been minimal. This volume offers a comparative analysis of Kierkegaard's philosophy in relation to the philosophy, theology, and spiritual practices of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Kierkegaard's philosophy of sin, his epistemology, and his philosophy of personhood are all analyzed in light of the Eastern Christian tradition. This hermeneutical lens allows important elements of Kierkegaard's philosophy to shine forth, many of which have heretofore not received their due attention in studies of his works. (shrink)

A consideration of how segments of Orthodox society rewrite the past by eliminating that which does not fit in with their contemporary world-view. This wide-ranging and original review of how this policy is applied in practice adds a new perspective to Jewish intellectual history and to the understanding of the contemporary Jewish world.

In the 16th century, Moscow proclaimed itself to be the the third Rome and discovered the special way or Russian Orthodox Messianism doctrine. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of Russia's unique global historical role went beyond exclusively church discussions, and the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome acquired an important place in the structure of imperial ideology. Even after a break with the past, after the 1917 October Revolution, the country did not abandon the idea of Messianism, (...) which organically fitted into the structure of Soviet ideology. At the same time, reanimation of messianic moods was carried out here in the format of the doctrine of the World Republic of Soviets and/or World Revolution. Of course, some backbone elements of old Messianism underwent a significant transformation, which can hardly be called secularization. The purpose of this article is to show that the time 1917 mid-1930s may be described with the help of a peculiar dialectic, as the unity of a radical break with the past and the specifically manifested continuity with it. Subsequently, despite large-scale changes, the idea of the peculiarity of the Russian way, firstly in Soviet and then in Russian society, including the specific perception of its past, continued to remain an influential political brand. This kind of discourse should be considered highly archaic today; however, it does not become an attribute of the distant past, retaining the attractiveness and even acquiring state ideology. (shrink)

The concept of 'liturgical year' indicates a reference to the meaning of the measuring units of civil time, and especially to the cosmic entities that determine the general rhythm of time - the sun and the moon. Interestingly, the liturgical time depends both on the structure of civil time, and, on the two discrete systems of the solar and lunar cycles, which have always been underpinnings of time measuring. The special importance and influence that the cosmical rhythms exert on the (...) entire human life are also felt in the structure and theology of the liturgical time, where it signals the attempt to merge and reconcile the cosmical solar and lunar cycles within the liturgical year. This leads to a unique theology, expressing the powerful synthesis of the variability of the lunar cycle compared to the structure of the solar year's fixed dates. CONTRIBUTION: This research reveals the unique orthodox perspective on both civil and liturgical time, expressing their profound theological meaning, as a conscious, permanent reflection upon the mysterious, yet real, presence of Christ in the divine services of the Church. (shrink)

This article assesses the role of an important Russian public institution, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), in shaping the religious discourse on bioethics in Russia. An important step in this process was the approval of ‘The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church’ (2000), one chapter of which is devoted to bioethics. However, certain inadequacies in the creation of this document resulted in the absence of a clear position of the Russian Orthodox Church on (...) some end-of-life issues, reproductive technologies, embryo stem cells, and other topics.Using the example of reproductive dilemmas, the author researches how the ROC clarifies its teaching on issues relating to bioethics. In the 2010s the ROC introduced a new method of taking into account the views of believers and the articulation of the church’s position. This article examines the extensive public discussion of a new document, ‘Ethical issues Associated with In Vitro Fertilization’. (shrink)

Résumé En Russie, un monothéisme – le christianisme orthodoxe – et l’athéisme dans sa version marxiste ont successivement été des systèmes de rites et de représentations d’État. Plutôt que de les opposer terme à terme, cet article propose de faire intervenir un troisième terme : les systèmes religieux locaux des minorités animistes de Russie. On examine comment le christianisme et l’athéisme ont l’un après l’autre tenté de s’implanter sur ces terrains, tout en prenant également en compte les réactions qu’ils ont (...) suscitées. L’analyse envisagée se déploie sur deux niveaux : au niveau global sont évoquées les stratégies et les objectifs de l’État et de ses représentants, et au niveau local – illustré par l’exemple précis des Nénètses – sont présentés des mécanismes concrets, toujours particuliers, que l’application de la politique générale a activés sur le terrain. (shrink)

The most common understanding of Orthodox Christianity and the attitude of its members to the Bible is that they do not read it critically. This brief article attempts to address this issue and to show that the view expressed above is a misunderstanding. In doing so, it will touch on the role of Tradition in interpreting the Bible and will also discuss the method used in such an endeavour.

We cannot ignore the multitude of differences in Christian doctrines. There are more and more divisions and autogenetic beginnings. In talking about religion, we cannot ignore these differences, especially when we are trying to help the seeker. Neither can we ignore these differences when we talk about medical ethics. Care demands that we address both religious and medical issues. We must not, however, attempt to formulate a new religious bioethics in the context of any failure to address the differences and (...) similarities as the record of Christian history reveals. History can reveal to us many things we may not know about ourselves as Christian. Understanding our Christian heritage is essential in order to understand our approach to any Christian bioethic. This essay will look at Christian history to articulate the differences in Orthodox and non-Orthodox formation. Primary focus will be on the Great Schism and the value of natural law theology in the development of Christian bioethics. Reference will be made to end-of-life decision making to clarify the issues. (shrink)

This paper deals with the role of Judaism in Walter Benjamin's famous 1921 essay on violence and law, Zur Kritik der Gewalt. Despite the intense attention devoted to this essay, the role of Jewish myth in it has not yet been thoroughly explained. This study contends that the association between what Benjamin termed revolutionary violence and the Jewish messianic tradition, which plays a central role in the evaluation of Benjamin's text, is far more problematic than has hitherto been assumed, and (...) poses a serious challenge, which has not been fully examined in its historical context. Second, this essay claims that the subversive elements that many have supposedly found in Benjamin's text and the attempts to link these elements to messianic traditions are also unconvincing. Third, the paper contextualizes Benjamin's thought within the framework of the Jewish political–theological debate of the period. It contends that Benjamin's theory of law and justice should be understood not as a revolutionary, anti-republican text, as has been generally accepted, but as a secularized conservative orthodox one. In doing so, it seeks to shed light not only on Benjamin's early thinking and its influences, but also on the neglected element of Jewish orthodoxy within the broader topic of political theology. (shrink)

Iurii Kovalenko.Orthodox theological understanding of church-state relations in Ukraine at the time of development of Media and Information Technology. The author, who for many years was the press-secretary to the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, considers continuity UOC position on the principles of church-state relations and their genesis in accordance with the socio-political processes taking place in Ukraine, the development of media and information technology.

This in-depth case study examines the Russian Orthodox Church's influence on federal-level policy in the Russian Federation since the fall of communism. By far more comprehensive than competing works, The Orthodox Church and Russian Politics is based on interviews, close readings of documents--including official state and ecclesiastical publications--and survey work conducted by the author.