Inter-Orthodox Relations and Transborder Nationalities in and around Unrecognised Abkhazia and Transnistria

Abstract

Religious aspects of the problem of unrecognised states are important. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are located between the jurisdictions of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of Georgia, while the competition between the Russian and Romanian Orthodox Churches over Moldova inevitably affects Transnistria. This paper tries to elucidate the features of politics on the Black Sea rim in general, and in the unrecognised states in particular, by focusing on two kinds of transborder actors – Orthodox churches and transborder nationalities. The rules of the game in Orthodoxy determined by the seven Ecumenical Councils (held from the fourth to the eighth centuries) inevitably make Orthodox politics supra-national and relatively independent from secular politics; thus the widespread understanding of Orthodoxy as a caesaropapist religion should be questioned. Unrecognised states try to incorporate transborder nationalities – in this paper I take the examples of the Mingrelians and Moldovans – to legitimise their statehood domestically and internationally, while the transborder nationalities exploit this situation for their security and social promotion.