Political Theologies in Orthodox Christianity: Common Challenges and Divergent Positions

Description

This book gathers a wide range of theological perspectives from Orthodox European countries, Russia and the United States in order to demonstrate how divergent the positions are within Orthodox Christianity. Orthodoxy is often considered to be out-of-sync with contemporary society, set apart in a world of its own where the church intertwines with the state, in order to claim power over the populace and ignore the individual voices of modern societies. As a collective, these essays present a different understanding of the relationship of Orthodoxy to secular politics; comprehensive, up-to-date and highly relevant to politically understanding today's world. The contributors present their views and arguments by drawing lessons from the past, and by elaborating visions for how Orthodox Christianity can find its place in the contemporary liberal democratic order, while also drawing on the experience of the Western Churches and denominations. Touching upon aspects such as anarchism, economy and political theology, these contributions examine how Orthodox Christianity reacts to liberal democracy, and explore the ways that this branch of religion can be rendered more compatible with political modernity. Contents Foreword Introduction • Ingeborg Gabriel, Aristotle Papanikolaou, and Kristina Stoeckl Part I: Orthodox Political Theology and Modernity 1 Modernity and Political Theologies • Kristina Stoeckl 2 Political Theology in Orthodox Christian Contexts: Specificities and Particularities in Comparison with Western Latin Christianity • Vasilios N. Makrides 3 Political Theology under the Conditions of Modernity: A Catholic Perspective • Ingeborg Gabriel 4 European Religious Freedom Norms as a Challenge to Orthodox Churches • Effie Fokas Part II: Prophetic Political Theology 5 The Politics of a “Weak Force” • Athanasios N. Papathanasiou 6 Orthodox Political Theology: An Anarchist Perspective • Davor Džalto 7 Eschatological Anarchism: Eschatology and Politics in Contemporary Greek Theology • Brandon Gallaher 8 Toward an Orthodox Political Theology: The Church’s Theological Foundations and Public Role in the Context of The Greek Economic Crisis • Pantelis Kalaitzidis Part III: Ecclesial Political Theology 9 On the Possibility/Impossibility of an Eastern Orthodox Political Theology • Alexander Kyrlezhev 10 The Problematic Issues of Eucharistic Ecclesiology in the Context of Contemporary Political Theology • Andrey Shishkov 11 “Revolt Against the Modern World”: Theology and the Political in the Thought of Justin Popović • Bogdan Lubardić Part IV: Civic Political Theology 12 Whose Public? Which Ecclesiology? • Aristotle Papanikolaou 13 Orthodoxy Facing the Modern Secular State • Konstantinos Delikostantis 14 Civil Religion in the Orthodox Milieu • Cyril Hovorun Part V: Symphonic Political Theology 15 Orthodox Theology, Politics, and Power • Elena Namli 16 Orthodoxy and Democracy in Post-1989 Romania • Radu Preda 17 The Church and the Bulgarian Modernities • Mariyan Stoyadinov Bibliography List of Contributors Index