Orthodox Churches and Politics in Southeastern Europe

Nationalism, Conservativism, and Intolerance

Sabrina P. Ramet

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030241384
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030241391
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

Orthodox Churches, like most religious bodies, are inherently political: they seek to defend their core values and must engage in politics to do so, whether by promoting certain legislation or seeking to block other legislation. This volume examines the politics of Orthodox Churches in Southeastern Europe, emphasizing three key modes of resistance to the influence of (Western) liberal values: Nationalism (presenting themselves as protectors of the national being), Conservatism (defending traditional values such as the "traditional family"), and Intolerance (of both non-Orthodox faiths and sexual minorities). The chapters in this volume present case studies of all the Orthodox Churches of the region.

© The Author(s) 2019

S. P. Ramet (ed.)Orthodox Churches and Politics in Southeastern EuropePalgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24139-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. The Orthodox Churches of Southeastern Europe: An Introduction

Sabrina P. Ramet¹

(1)

Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

Sabrina P. Ramet

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Whether in Southeastern Europe or elsewhere, the Orthodox Church has been characterized by profound conservatism and an enduring conviction of its unique monopoly on religious truth. From these two features spring also an intolerance of other religious bodies as well as of sexual minorities, who, according to Orthodox doctrine, defy God’s eternal law. But the Orthodox Church does not restrict itself to broadly understood theological and moral matters, but has also, across the centuries, presented itself as the champion of the various nations of Southeastern Europe. These themes—conservatism, intolerance (extending to both religious intolerance and homophobia), and nationalism provide the thematic underpinnings of this volume.

End Abstract

Every religious faith is characterized by both continuity and evolution. Factors promoting continuity in the Orthodox communion have included Scriptures, documents adopted to define the faith (such as the Orthodox Church’s Social Concept¹), the formal training of clergy at seminaries and schools of theology, and the socialization of the young. To this set of factors promoting continuity, one may add “Clifford Geertz’s concept of ‘spiritual afterimages’ which refers to ‘reflections, reverberations, [and] projections’ of religious experience in daily life. Formed in an earlier point in the nation’s history as moral imperatives and sentiments that continue to guide national development” these afterimages “leave a distinct mark on the country’s political, social, and economic practices.”² Factors promoting evolution have included reforms (such as Patriarch Nikon’s reform of Russian Orthodoxy in the seventeenth century), councils at which articles of the faith have been defined (such as the Council of Chalcedon held in 451, which decreed that Jesus of Nazareth had two natures—divine and human—rather than one nature which was simultaneously divine and human³), and internal dissent (among which the abortive Living Church movement within the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1920s may be recalled).

However, Orthodox believers interpret the deliberations of the councils above all as clarifications or judgments and prefer to stress the unchanging core of the Orthodox faith, while acknowledging that the world in which the Church lives continues to change. The Orthodox are convinced that they hold a monopoly on doctrinal Truth and, for the Orthodox, doctrine is crucial. The intense quarrel with the Western (Catholic) Church about the filioque—whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, as Catholics maintain, or just from the Father, as Orthodox maintain—was one of two decisive arguments (the other being the pope’s claim to primacy in the Christian world) which finalized the split between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in the eleventh century⁴ and it is still a point of dispute between these two ancient Churches. It was, furthermore, and still is a dispute about doctrinal Truth, and the Orthodox Church, as a body which stresses doctrine and prizes Truth, wants nothing less than to bring all Christians into communion with itself, which in practice means that all Christians should accept Orthodox doctrine.⁵

The Orthodox Church prides itself on being a conservative Church, doing its best to safeguard what it considers traditional values. But this has not prevented the appearance of alternative voices, even currents, within the Church, such as pro-European moderates within the Serbian Orthodox Church who appeal to “Orthodox notions of a God-given, unique personality” and theological arguments to promote the idea of a “voter-citizen” in a democratic setting.⁶ More particularly, moderates anywhere in the Orthodox world do not exclude the possibility that non-Orthodox could be members of the one true Church—understood as transcending any earthly embodiments—and argue that “there are many different ways of being related to this one Church, and many different ways of being separated from it.”⁷ But conservatives, who constitute the majority of Orthodox bishops and ordinary clergy, argue on the contrary that only the Orthodox are members of the one true Church. Thus, moderates have remained in a minority; indeed, anti-Westernism in the Serbian Church, for example, increased between the two world wars, with Serbian clergy engaging in dysphoric rumination about their Church’s alleged “centuries-long suffering and martyrdom.”⁸ Against the moderates, the anti-Westernizers have promoted values of humility, obedience, and national pride, which is easily translated into nationalism. Indeed, in viewing the Orthodox Churches of Southeastern Europe, one can identify three syndromes which are common throughout the region: nationalism, conservatism, and intolerance of other religious bodies but also of sexual minorities, both of which are seen as threatening, if not undermining, traditional values.

Nationalism. On the one hand, it may be conceded that joy in the achievements of one’s people and care for their welfare is a positive thing (as the Roman philosopher Cicero, among others, noted). So too are treasuring of one’s culture and the engagement to remember the history of the nation (as recommended in his Considerations on the Government of Poland by Jean-Jacques Rousseau). On the other hand, nationalism, when understood as entailing hostility or mistrust or resentment toward other nations or simple prejudice, as well as the claim that the desires and needs of one’s own nation and its members take precedence over the rights and needs of other nations and their members, is dangerous. Anti-Semitism may still be found in the Orthodox Churches of Southeastern Europe. For example, in Romania, there were reports, in 2014, “of a range of anti-Semitic incidents, including desecrations of synagogues, anti-Semitic sermons by Orthodox priests, Holocaust denials, and events commemorating former pro-Nazi leaders of the Legionnaire Movement.”⁹ But there are also other “out-groups” specific to each respective Orthodox Church, whether Macedonians and Turks in the case of the Greek Orthodox Church, Croats and Albanians in the case of the Serbian Orthodox Church, or the hostility found among at least some Macedonian Orthodox vis-à-vis the Albanian Orthodox Church.¹⁰ Where the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is concerned, Spas T. Raikin has highlighted the nationalism of that religious body as its defining characteristic.¹¹

Vladimir Solov’ev (1853–1900), one of the greatest Orthodox theologians of the nineteenth century, distinguished between nationality or nationhood and nationalism. In an 1884 essay, Solov’ev characterized nationhood as “a living force, both natural and historical, which itself must serve the highest idea, and by that service give meaning to and justify its own existence.”¹² Referring to the Gospels, Solov’ev further argued that nurturing and celebrating one’s own national culture and people can be positive, so that nationhood “ceases to be a boundary, and becomes the basis of a positive union” with all the rest of humankind.¹³

Conservatism. Whether one thinks of Orthodox Churches in Southeastern Europe or Orthodox Churches in Russia or elsewhere, the defense of “traditional values” looms large. Traditional values are usually understood, nowadays, as including heterosexual marriage, sex for procreation not for pleasure, abstinence from sex before or outside marriage, hostility to feminism, a ban on abortion, and the doctrine of complementarity in the roles of men and women.¹⁴ But to this list of contested values, one may also add honesty, truthfulness, honor, and personal morality, which have been championed, for example, by the Russian Orthodox Church.¹⁵ Summarizing the perspective of Serbian theologian Justin Popović (1894–1979), Mirko Ðorđević wrote that

For his theanthropic philosophy of life, death, and the sacred, human being[s], society, the nation, and the state must accommodate themselves to the Church as the eternal ideal, but under no circumstances need the Church seek accommodation with them, and even less should it serve them.¹⁶

Just to repeat: for Popović, the Church was not supposed to serve human beings or society. It is, rather, the Kingdom of God on earth.

Like the Catholic Church and other Christian faiths, the Orthodox Churches reject the notion that two people of the same sex have any business sharing a life together, but typically balance this by underlining that gays and lesbians should not be hated or ridiculed. One ex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. The Orthodox Churches of Southeastern Europe: An Introduction
• 2. Faith, Nation, and Structure: The Diachronic Durability of Orthodox Churches in the Balkans
• 3. Conservative Orthodoxy in Romania
• 4. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church: Authoring New Visions About the Orthodox Church’s Role in Contemporary Bulgarian Society
• 5. The Church, the Nation, and the State: The Serbian Orthodox Church After Communism
• 6. RETRACTED CHAPTER: Orthodoxy and Antisemitism: The Relationship Between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Jews
• 7. The Orthodox Church of Greece
• 8. The Macedonian Orthodox Church in the New Millennium
• 9. Navigating the Challenge of Liberalism: The Resurrection of the Orthodox Church in Post-Communist Albania
• 10. The Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia: Survival of a Minority Faith in a Secular Society
• Retraction Note to: Orthodoxy and Antisemitism: The Relationship Between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Jews
• Back Matter