Nationalism and the Local Church: The Source of Ecclesiastical Conflict in the Orthodox Commonwealth

Abstract

Much of the social science literature pertaining to the development of civil society in post-communist Eastern Europe focuses on the issue of religious pluralism, especially the relationship of religious minorities and new religious movements (NRMs) to the state and their established Orthodox churches. Their findings suggest that the equation of ethno-religious nationalism, cultural identity, and the state becomes a hindrance to religious pluralism and the development of civil society in these nation-states. As a result, social scientists depict these national churches, and in most cases rightly so, as being the caretakers and fomenters of ethno-religious nationalism in their particular states. A factor in this debate that is often overlooked, however, is the role of the local church in intra-ecclesial relations. Is the concept of the “local church,” which developed in the time of the Roman and Byzantine Empires, to be identified with the modern national church? If this is the case, these churches may be guilty of the sin of ethno-phyletism, which the Council of Constantinople condemned in 1872 in regards to the Bulgarian schism. Additionally, while the development of religious pluralism in post-communist society with the proliferation of Protestant Christian sects and NRMs challenges the religious hegemony of the national churches, even more problematic has been the issue of inter-territorial Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe. The existence of a plurality of national Orthodox churches in the same territory violates the ecclesiological principle of the “local church” as well as perpetuates the sin of ethno-phyletism. While some social scientists may laud the development of a multiplication of churches in the same territory, from an ecclesiastical standpoint such a multiplication denies the unity and identity of the Orthodox Church as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, which it confesses to be. What social scientists have failed to discuss is this important self-understanding of the Orthodox churches, especially as it pertains to inter-Orthodox ecclesial relations. Only with this self-understanding of the church blended with the issue of ethno-nationalism can the problems pertaining to the relations and development of ethno-national churches be properly understood.