Orthodox Church Research Articles

Postcolonial and decolonial perspectives on Eastern Orthodoxy

Postcolonial and decolonial perspectives on Eastern Orthodoxy

Studying Eastern Orthodoxy in the context of war in Ukraine: forum introduction

Studying Eastern Orthodoxy in the context of war in Ukraine: forum introduction

“I Have Never Visited a Health Center”: Ethiopian Centenarians’ Perceptions of Their Health Conditions

The global centenarian population is expected to reach 4 million by 2050, yet little is known about the health status of centenarians in Sub-Saharan Africa. A case study examined the health conditions and functionality of nine Ethiopian centenarians. In-depth interviews revealed that all nine were Orthodox Christians and lived with extended family; eight were male. Aside from minor health complaints, centenarians in rural Ethiopia perceived that their sensory/cognitive functionality was normal until their late 90s. Despite a lack of medical care, the centenarians included two survivors, four delayers, and three escapers. Centenarians in rural Ethiopia were embedded in closely knit, religious, multigenerational households and communities and aspired to live resiliently. These findings call for the consideration of the unique health status of centenarians in Global South nations in their own cultural context.

Orthodox Church Architecture of the Kuban Settlements of the Late 18th – First Half of the 19th Century

A retrospective analysis of the history of the architecture of Orthodox churches in Kuban from the end of the 18th to the first half of the 19th century was carried out on specific objects of religious architecture. The historical approach allows us to consider these objects as unique elements of the architectural and urban heritage of the period under study. The special value of Orthodox churches in the concept of forming a holistic environment of urban and rural settlements is indicated. The main means of artistic expression based on volumetric planning techniques, with the help of which the compositional image of the temple is created, are noted. The presented illustrative material graphically displays the scientific content, executed on certain visual images of religious architecture structures and visually complements the text material. Great importance is given to the current issues of integrity and sustainable balance of modern buildings and structures with previously erected religious architecture objects and monuments of historical and cultural heritage.

Trust and the Russian Orthodox Church: the dependence of dynamics on the socio-political context and the problem of accurate measurement

Trust and the Russian Orthodox Church: the dependence of dynamics on the socio-political context and the problem of accurate measurement

Property status of the Orthodox Church on the territory of the BSSR (1917–1939)

Property status of the Orthodox Church on the territory of the BSSR (1917–1939)

The Romanian Orthodox Church under the communist regime in post-december historiography

The thorough study of the historiography reveals the diversity of aspects of the subject, thus allowing us to outline a broad vision of the topic, identifying for certain subjects a series of historiographical ”overloads”, but also gaps in the bibliography of the researched subject. It started from the general context, of the impact of the communist totalitarian regime on religious life, and the situation of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the post-war period. The analysis of scientific works gives us a general overview of the essence of the totalitarian regime, following the thread of its application in Romania through the ecclesiastical institution.

What a beautiful name it is: A theological & practical comparison of glossolalia and the Jesus Prayer

ABSTRACT This paper critically compares the Jesus Prayer as it is practised in Eastern Orthodoxy with devotional glossolalia as it is practised in the Pentecostal/charismatic movement. It is argued that, while there are clear differences between them, the two forms of prayer nevertheless display extensive commonality. This overlap is explicable on the basis that glossolalia is a form of apophatic prayer as it is understood by Orthodox theologians, and of which the Jesus Prayer is a paradigmatic example. Finally, the missional implications of this argument are explored with a focus on pastoral leadership and pastoral care in the Pentecostal/Charismatic tradition. Particular attention is given to the development of the practice of praying in tongues and the pastoral care of non-glossolalics and introverts.

A Bridge Over Times – The History and Modernity of Choral Chant in the Orthodox Church of Bessarabia, From Creation to Reception

This study aims at highlighting the choral chant in the Orthodox church of Bessarabia. Sacred music is a cultural area that covers the fundamental human values able to build and to perfect the complex cultural approach of human life. The spiritual history of Moldavia is definitely marked by an ancient original musical art, incorporated in an infinite gamut of emotions. Keywords: Sacred music, Bessarabia, Moldova, Bessarabian composers, choral chant

Inhumation as Theophanic Encounter: The Eastern Orthodox Rejection of Cremation

Abstract This essay aims to articulate why the Orthodox have historically, and to the present, opposed cremation. Its primary line of argument is that inhumation is a site of “theophanic encounter”: a manifestation of the Glory of God. This theophanic quality is borne out in the scriptures and the Church’s liturgical experience. In particular, the connections between the funeral service and the entombed Christ on Holy Friday and Saturday properly situate the meaning of the post-mortem body. This intimate connection between the deceased and their body is clear in Orthodoxy’s “hylomorphism,” the soul-body unity, which champions the eschatology of resurrection. Finally, all of the above is concretely experienced in the cult of the saints and their relics, which become vehicles for the divine energies: a theophany of Christ’s ongoing conquest of sin and death. Thus, cremation can only be viewed as a tragic misunderstanding of the dual meaning of “doxa” in Orthodoxy: right-belief and right-glory.

Religious Socialization among dutch Orthodox Christians

Religious Socialization among dutch Orthodox Christians

Антирелигиозная кампания Н.С. Хрущева как неотъемлемая часть идеологической составляющей СССР в 1953–1964 гг.

The article presents an analysis of the policy pursued by N.S. Khrushchev in 1953–1964 in the aspect of state-confessional relations. The normative legal acts contributing to the implementation of the anti-religious campaign are investigated. The methods by which the named policy was supposed to be implemented are listed. The article shows the situation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the period under study: statistical data on the number of Orthodox churches and monasteries in the USSR are presented. The authors of the study concluded that the policy is ineffective: the results of the policy are presented, the reasons for its failure are indicated.

Ментальные репрезентации рая и ада у православных верующих

<p>The paper studied the content of mental representations of paradise and hell in Orthodox believers. We searched for differences in detailing of the representations and correlations with the religiosity of the subjects. After pre-selection, the final sample for analysis was: 62 people of Orthodox Christianity, residents of Russia (67.74% women and 32.26% men), age from 18 to 57 years (<em>M</em> = 34.32; <em>SD</em> = 11.03). The following research methods were used: The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (S. Huber & O. Huber), method of directed associations, mini-essay. Orthodox believers are found to produce a significantly greater number of associations with the concept of hell than with the concept of paradise (p = 0.001); the effect size is above average (Cohen’s <em>d</em> = 0.574). The mental representations of hell at the associative level are more detailed and ordered compared to those of paradise. This can be regarded as an indicator of subjective experience at the unconscious or weakly realized level that hell is farther from believers than paradise (in the sense of psychological distance). The degree in which these religious concepts are detailed at the associative level is not related to the level of religiosity of Orthodox believers, but is related to other factors: presumably, to the cultural background of the concepts, individual characteristics of believers, etc.</p>

Justice at home and abroad: the vision of the Russian Orthodox Church1

ABSTRACT Since the beginning of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, numerous articles have been written about the reasons why the Moscow Patriarchate supports it and how the church is legitimising the aggression. The usual ideational suspects were named, i.e. russkiy mir, ‘Holy Rus’ and ‘Moscow, the Third Rome’. In this paper I draw attention to an important yet overlooked concept which allows the church’s leadership to present their support for the war as a noble act. I analyse how the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church understands justice in relation to politics, especially the international order and foreign relations. The goal of the paper is to reconstruct the justice narrative of the Moscow Patriarchate – its content, the context in which it appears and its role. The findings are based on interpretative discourse analysis of a sample of 403 documents retrieved from the official websites of the Moscow Patriarchate (2000–2023).

The Fathers of the Church, the Reformation, and the Failed Attempts at Union between the Tübingen Theologians and the Patriarchate of Constantinople: A Broad Perspective

The sixteenth century witnessed dramatic upheavals in Eastern and Western Europe in both the ecclesiastical and political domains. In the previous century, Constantinople had fallen to the Ottoman Turks, meaning that its Eastern Orthodox inhabitants were severed both politically and religiously from their Western Christian neighbors, who were ruled over by sovereigns that derived their spiritual authority from the Papacy. Meanwhile, the Reformation endangered the unity of the political and religious spheres of the Catholic West. As it soon became clear that the mainstream Reformers were neither united nor consistent in their ecclesiological views, one thing remained a constant: a recourse to the Fathers of the Church for the confirmation of Reformed tenets such as sola scriptura and sola fide. The use of Patristic proof texts played an important role in the attempt of the Lutherans to unite with the Orthodox, the former reading the writings of the Fathers in a very different way to the latter. This article analyzes why this attempt at union failed, with specific focus on the correspondence between the Tübingen theologians and the Patriarch of Constantinople, Jeremiah II Tranos, in their respective reading of the Augsburg Confession which represents the main Lutheran articles of faith.

Differentiated secularism: discourse shaping of immigrants from different religious backgrounds in the French media

This paper examines the mechanisms of differentiated discursive disciplining for immigrants of different religious backgrounds in the French media. Based on a sample of 120 articles on immigration in the French mainstream media, textual analyses and comparisons were conducted. Results show that influenced by religious factors, the French media use secularism as a tool to portray completely different images of immigrants through different discursive logics. Muslim immigrants present a paradoxically biased negative image in the French media discourse as a collection of invaders and the disciplined. In contrast, the media image of Ukrainian immigrants of Orthodox Christian background is positive on the whole, with a certain degree of deliberateness in the details of its construction. The difference in the symbolic characterization between Catholicism and Islam enables the exclusionary media discourse against Muslim immigrants. The paper also discusses French media discourse flaws and policy dilemmas. The logic of French media discourse is paradoxical in its inability to maintain an intact secularist identification and to effectively influence political issues to the detriment of promoting immigrant integration.

Women and Religiosity in Orthodox Church, by Ina Merdjanova (ed.)

Women and Religiosity in Orthodox Church, by Ina Merdjanova (ed.)

Orthodox Christians in Lithuania

Abstract In this article we will examine how ethnicity (Russians and Russian speakers of mixed ethnic identities) and religion (Orthodoxy) interact and construct ethnoreligious identity in the case of Orthodox Christians in Lithuania. To investigate these aspects, the article will draw on data from qualitative fieldwork (2019–2021) and the analysis of articles from the official journal of the archdiocese of Vilnius and Lithuania. We argue that for the Orthodox community in Lithuania, the historically established close links of Orthodoxy with Russian Orthodox tradition and Russian identity are important today. However, a significant part of the Lithuanian Orthodox community identifies with the global (Byzantium) and/or local (Grand Duchy of Lithuania) Orthodox tradition and faces the challenge of including the Lithuanian language in religious education and practices.

Anatolian genetic ancestry in North Lebanese populations

Lebanon’s rich history as a cultural crossroad spanning millennia has significantly impacted the genetic composition of its population through successive waves of migration and conquests from surrounding regions. Within modern-day Lebanon, the Koura district stands out with its unique cultural foundations, primarily characterized by a notably high concentration of Greek Orthodox Christians compared to the rest of the country. This study investigates whether the prevalence of Greek Orthodoxy in Koura can be attributed to modern Greek heritage or continuous blending resulting from the ongoing influx of refugees and trade interactions with Greece and Anatolia. We analyzed both ancient and modern DNA data from various populations in the region which could have played a role in shaping the current population of Koura using our own and published data. Our findings indicate that the genetic influence stemming directly from modern Greek immigration into the area appears to be limited. While the historical presence of Greek colonies has left its mark on the region’s past, the distinctive character of Koura seems to have been primarily shaped by cultural and political factors, displaying a stronger genetic connection mostly with Anatolia, with affinity to ancient but not modern Greeks.

Sites of the Memory of the Serbian Nation in Kosovo and the Place of Kosovo in the Collective Memory of the Serbs

Drawing on the conceptual framework of sites of memory and collective memory, the study examines Kosovo as a crucial site of Serbian national memory, focusing on the historic Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Through a qualitative analysis based on primary and secondary sources, it addresses the question of why, when, and how Kosovo became a prominent part of the Serbian collective memory. In this regard, the study explores the contribution of the Serbian Orthodox Church, historical narratives, myths, monuments, memorials, songs, poems, and other cultural expressions in both achieving and maintaining Kosovo's distinctive position within the collective memory of the Serbian nation. Moreover, the study explores Serbian perceptions and socially constructed images related to Kosovo, the Battle of Kosovo, and the national heroes central to this significant event. Finally, it scrutinizes the resurgence of the Kosovo narrative for political objectives orchestrated by Serbian political elites, with particular attention given to the influence of Slobodan Milosevic.