Victor Roudometof

Globalization and Orthodox Christianity

ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN RELIGION ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN RELIGION

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 Globalization and Orthodox Christianity Christianity
The Transformations of a Religious Tradition
Victor Roudometof The Transformations of a Religious Tradition

Victor Roudometof

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Globalization and Orthodox
Christianity

In this book Roudometof offers a brilliant examination of the manifold

entanglements between Orthodox Christianity and globalization processes
across history. Broad in scope and rich in material, this book fills a gap con-
cerning a Christian tradition that remained, until recently, mostly untheo-
rized. This is an indispensable book for all those interested not only in the
relations between globalization and religion, but also in Eastern Orthodox
Christianity and its historical transformations. Vasilios N. Makrides, Uni-
versity of Erfurt, Germany

With approximately 200 to 300 million adherents worldwide, Orthodox

Christianity is among the largest branches of Christianity, yet it remains rela-
tively understudied. This book examines the rich and complex entanglements
between Orthodox Christianity and globalization, offering a substantive con-
tribution to the relationship between religion and globalization as well as the
relationship between Orthodox Christianity and the sociology of religion
and more broadly, to the interdisciplinary field of Religious Studies.
Although deeply engaged with history, this book does not simply narrate
the history of Orthodox Christianity as a world religion, and it does not
address theological issues or cover all the individual trajectories of each sub-
group or subdivision of the faith. Orthodox Christianity is the object of the
analysis, but author Victor Roudometof speaks to a broader audience inter-
ested in culture, religion and globalization. Roudometof argues in favor of
using globalization instead of modernization as the main theoretical vehicle
for analyzing religion, an approach that displaces secularization to argue for
multiple hybridizations of religion as a suitable strategy for analyzing reli-
gious phenomena. This approach offers Orthodox Christianity as a test case
that illustrates the presence of historically specific but theoretically distinct
globalizations that are applicable to all faiths.

Victor Roudometof is Associate Professor in the Department of Social and

Political Sciences at the University of Cyprus. His main research interests
include religion, nationalism, culture and globalization. He is the author of
over 30 scholarly articles and two monographs. He has also edited several
volumes and issues of scholarly journals.
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Contemporary Spirituality
Ethnographic Approaches
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Kim E. Knibbe
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The Local and the Global in
Contemporary Faith Traditions
Robert W. Hefner, John
Hutchinson, Sara Mels and
Christiane Timmerman
28 William Jamess Hidden
Religious Imagination
A Universe of Relations
Jeremy Carrette
29 Theology and the Arts
Engaging Faith
Ruth Illman and W. Alan Smith
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Sphere
Edited by Niamh Reilly
and Stacey Scriver
31 An Introduction to Jacob
Boehme
Four Centuries of Thought and
Reception
Edited by Ariel Hessayon and
Sarah Apetrei
32 Globalization and Orthodox
Christianity
The Transformations of a
Religious Tradition
Victor Roudometof
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Globalization and Orthodox
Christianity
The Transformations of
a Religious Tradition

Victor Roudometof
First published 2014
by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roudometof, Victor, 1964
Globalization and Orthodox Christianity : the transformations of a religious
tradition / by Victor Roudometof.
pages cm. (Routledge studies in religion ; 32)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Orthodox Eastern ChurchHistory21st century. 2. Globalization
Religious aspectsOrthodox Eastern Church. I. Title.
BX106.23.R68 2013
281.9dc23
2013013554
ISBN: (hbk) 978-0-415-84373-7
ISBN: (ebk) 978-0-203-75416-0

Maps by Sophia Vyzoviti

Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents

List of Maps ix
List of Tables xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xvii

1 Globalization and Orthodox Christianity:

Preliminary Considerations 1

2 The Fragmentation of Christianity 18

3 From Christian Orthodoxy to Orthodox Christianity 38

4 Transitions to Modernity 59

5 Nationalism and the Orthodox Church:

The Modern Synthesis 79

6 Colonialism and Ethnarchy: The Case of Cyprus 102

7 Orthodox Christianity as a Transnational Religion 119

8 Territoriality, Globality and Orthodoxy 137

9 Religion and Globalization: Orthodox Christianity

Across the Ages 155

Appendix 173
Notes 175
Bibliography 193
Index 219
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Maps

2.1 The Eastern Roman Empire with border changes

between the sixth and 12th centuries 21
4.1 Eastern Europe in 1789: the Ottoman and
Russian empires 60
5.1 Eastern Europe under communism, 19451989 90
5.2 Eastern Europe after the fall of communism (2012) 92
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Tables

2.1 The vernacularization of Chalcedonian Christianity 26

2.2 Indigenizations of Christianity in the Eastern
Mediterranean (3001589 AD) 31
9.1 Historical eras of globalization and
Orthodoxys glocalizations 158
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Abbreviations

EC-PATR Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

EU European Union
OCA Orthodox Church in America
OCG Orthodox Church of Greece
OCL Orthodox Christian Laity
ROC Russian Orthodox Church
ROCOR Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (also known as
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad or ROCA)
UAOC Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
UOC-KP Ukrainian Orthodox ChurchKievan (or Kyivan) Patriarchate
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Preface

This book represents nearly a decade of work in the field of the sociology of
Orthodox Christianity. Attending and presenting papers at the conferences
and congresses of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (Houston,
United States, 2000), the International Society for the Sociology of Religion
(Zagreb, Croatia, 2005; Leipzig, Germany 2007; Aix-en-Provence, France
2011) and the Association for the Sociology of Religion (Philadelphia, 2005;
New York, United States, 2007) offered me the opportunity to meet, talk
and collaborate with the other scholars who form the relatively small but vi-
brant group of people interested in Orthodox Christianity. This interaction
has been a source of inspiration and has contributed greatly to shaping my
thinking about this project. My participation in the 20092010 workshop
series on Nation, State and Religion in the Mediterranean: From 1789 to
1960, sponsored by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, helped me to further
sharpen the scope and aims of this project.
I should publicly express my gratitude to the University of Cyprus Li-
brary, whose resources were extensively used. In particular, my deep ap-
preciation goes to librarian Evie Antoniou, for her invaluable assistance in
delivering books and articles from other libraries. Many thanks also go to
Aleca Spyrou, who supervised the librarys purchases. I further owe a debt
of gratitude to Denise Rothschild for her expert professional assistance in
proofreading and editing the manuscripts final drafts. For their assistance
with the manuscripts final stage, I should thank the publishers staff. Of
course, all mistakes or other shortcomings in the final manuscript are my
own responsibility. For the cartography, I should thank Dr. Sophia Vyzo-
viti (Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly, Greece). Further
thanks go to Robert Swanson for this professional assistance in the con-
struction of the books index.
The text contains numerous references to names, places, organizations
and titles. These require rendering words into English or transliterating from
several languages. This is always a challenging task. For some languages
(such as Greek), no standard transliteration system exists. Sometimes, there
are differences in the names of cities or places (for example, Kiev). Other
xvi Preface
times, different citation styles render the same term differently. To the extent
possible, these matters have been dealt with according to standard scholarly
conventions, and an effort was made to achieve consistency. I would like
to apologize in advance for whatever shortcomings the readers careful eye
detects in the manuscript. The preparation of this manuscript has benefited
from the work and advice of numerous individuals. I would like to thank
my long-term collaborators and co-authors Vasilios N. Makrides (Religious
Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany), Alexander Agadjanian (Russian
University of the Humanities, Moscow, Russia), Michalis N. Michael (De-
partment of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cyprus) and
Anna Karpathakis (Sociology, Kingsborough Community College, New
York) for their assistance, encouragement and help as I have sought their
judgment, advice and expertise on numerous occasions. My warm thanks
also go to my colleagues, Lucian Leustean (Aston University), Tassos An-
astasiadis (McGill University), Effie Fokas (London School of Economics),
Nicos Kokosalakis (University of Liverpool), Lina Molokotos-Liederman
(London School of Economics), Roberto Cipriani (University of Rome III,
Italy), Irene Dietzel (University of Erfurt, Germany), Dimitris Antoniou
(Oxford, UK), Heinz Richter (University of Mannheim, Germany), Athena
S. Leoussi (University of Reading), Catharina Raudvere and Trine Stauning
Willert (University of Copenhagen), George Kourvetaris (Northern Illinois
University) and Gavril Flora (Partium Christian University, Oradea, Roma-
nia) for all their generous offers of knowledge, expertise and assistance over
the years.
I should extend my gratitude to Elisabeth Arweck, editor of the Journal
of Contemporary Religion; David Yamane, editor of Sociology of Religion;
Khacig Tololyan, editor of Diaspora; and Gerard Delanty, editor of the Eu-
ropean Journal of Social Theory, for their constructive role and useful feed-
back in the process of submission and evaluation of the articles published
in these journals. Further thanks go to the anonymous reviewers of these
journals for their sound criticism and useful remarks that contributed to
improving the quality of the work. These articles offered me the opportu-
nity to develop ideas and interpretations that ultimately coalesced into this
manuscript.
Finally, I would like to thank Dimitris Vogiatzis, Giota Politi, Marios
Constantinou, Marianna Papastephanou, Nikitas Hadjimichail, Elisa Dia-
mantopoulou, William Haller, Fabienne Baider, Monica Andreou, Daphne
Halikiopoulou, Nikolaos and Panayiota Roudometof, Costas Danopoulos
and Panagiotis Christias.
Acknowledgments

Scattered throughout the books chapters are paragraphs and sentences that
have been previously published in various articles, chapters and books. This
material has been extensively revised or extended into its current format to
form part of this books broader arguments. In all these instances, references
to the earlier publications are made in the text or in each chapters notes. It
is nonetheless necessary to acknowledge that material previously published
is included in all or parts of the following chapters.
Chapters 1 and 9 include material from my article The Glocalizations of
Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which appeared in the European Journal
of Social Theory 2013 (Vol. 2) 2, pp. 22645. Chapter 6 incorporates most
of Church, State and Politics in 19th Century Cyprus (co-authored with
Michalis N. Michael), published in Thetis: Mannheimer Beitrge zur Klas-
sischen Archologie und Geschichte Griechenlands und Zyperns 2010 (Vol.
16/17), pp. 97104. Chapter 6 also includes material from The Trans-
formation of Greek Orthodox Religious Identity in 19th century Cyprus,
published in Chronos: Revue dHistoire de lUniversit de Balamand 2010
(Vol. 22), pp. 723.
In Chapter 5, the section on Orthodox institutions in the Ottoman Em-
pire includes material previously published in The Evolution of Greek-
Orthodoxy in the Context of World-Historical Globalization in Orthodox
Christianity in 21st Century Greece: The Role of Religion in Politics, Eth-
nicity and Culture, edited by V. Roudometof and V. N. Makrides (Alder-
shot, UK: Ashgate, 2010, pp. 2138).
In Chapter 7, a portion of the section on the Greek American experience
includes material previously published in From Greek-Orthodox Diaspora
to Transnational Hellenism: Greek Nationalism and the Identities of the
Diaspora in The Call of the Homeland: Diaspora Nationalisms, Past and
Present, edited by A. Gal, A.S. Leoussi and A.D. Smith (London: Brill/UCL,
2010, pp. 13966). In the same chapter, the section on the dilemmas of
ethnic and religious identity in the United States includes updated and re-
vised material from the chapter Greek Americans and Transnationalism:
Religion, Class, and Community (co-authored with Anna Karpathakis)
xviii Acknowledgments
in Communities Across Borders: New Immigrants and Transnational Cul-
tures, edited by P. Kennedy and V. Roudometof (London: Routledge, 2002,
pp. 4154).
Finally, Chapter 8 is a heavily revised and extended version of Greek-
Orthodoxy, Territoriality and Globality: Religious Responses and Insti-
tutional Disputes, published in Sociology of Religion 2008 (Vol. 69) 1,
pp. 6791.
1 Globalization and Orthodox
Christianity
Preliminary Considerations

With approximately 200 to 300 million adherents worldwide, Orthodox

Christianity is among the largest branches of Christianity, yet it remains
relatively understudied.1 Orthodox Christianity is still often cast in the role
of the subaltern Other and falls victim to a latent yet widespread Orienta-
lism. In Western Europe and North America, knowledge of Orthodox Chris-
tianity is all too frequently tainted by negative stereotypes, partiality and
partisanship.2 This volume examines the variety of entanglements between
Orthodox Christianity and globalization. At the heart of the arguments
pursued in the books chapters lies an effort to show the rich and complex
nature of these entanglements. With this effort, the book aims to make a
substantive contribution to the relationship between religion and globaliza-
tion as well as to the relationship between Orthodox Christianity and the
sociology of religionand more broadly, to the interdisciplinary field of
religious studies. To the extent possible, the book has been written with the
goal of rendering the arguments accessible even to nonspecialist readers.
Although the book is deeply engaged with history, its objectives are not to
offer a history of Orthodox Christianity as a world religion, to address theo-
logical issues or to exhaustively cover all the individual trajectories of each
subgroup or subdivision of the faith. Orthodox Christianity is the object of
the analysis, but the goal is to speak to a broader audience interested in the
general themes of culture, religion and globalization. The broader objective
is to use the historical record of Orthodox Christianity as empirical material
to theorize the varied historical entanglements between local cultures and
world religions within the context of world-historical globalization.
This introductory chapter begins with a critique of widely held precon-
ceptions about Orthodox Christianity. Rejecting these preconceptions, the
chapter views Orthodox Christianity as capable of adapting to various eras
and settings. To contextualize the books topic within the scholarly tradi-
tions on the study of religion in the social sciences, this chapter examines
the recent re-evaluation of the secularization paradigm and the emergence
of globalization as a distinct problematic for analyzing the relations among
religion, culture and social change. The use of globalization as the overarch-
ing framework offers a new way to understand the historical trajectories of
2 Globalization and Orthodox Christianity
Orthodox Christianity and has the potential to offer a more evenhanded
treatment of this religious tradition. This chapter concludes with a discus-
sion of various issues regarding historical periodization in relation to the
books topic and outlines the themes pursued in the following chapters.
Readers unfamiliar with the hierarchical order of the faith may consult the
appendix for a brief outline of Orthodox Christianitys hierarchal structure.

BEYOND THE CONVENTIONAL IMAGE

OF EASTERN ORTHODOXY

Traditionally, most of the Orthodox countries have been included in the cat-
egory of Eastern Bloc nations and, following 1989, in the ambiguous category
of postcommunist Eastern Europe. Since the 17th century, Western ob-
servers have, in general, negatively evaluated the Orthodox religious tra-
dition (Wolff 2001). These evaluations were part of the broader Western
European prejudice against Eastern European countries, which were viewed
as backward and failing the Western European standards of civilization
(Wolff 1994). During the Cold War era, this long-standing assumption in
public and academic opinion was expressed by holding the Orthodox cul-
tural legacy, at least in part, responsible for the political imposition of com-
munism. During the 1990s, influential commentators (Kaplan 1993; Kennan
1993; Huntington 1996) suggested a link between the cultural traditions of
Eastern Europe and the failure of most of these countries to successfully
transition to democracy or to successfully integrate into the new post-1989
Europe (Clark 2000). According to this essentialist approach, communism
was but a temporary manifestation of an anti-Western and antimodern re-
action that is deeply encoded in the Orthodox cultural tradition. Extended
to the postcommunist era, this line of reasoning suggests that this cultural
tradition has endorsed the two most recent forms of anti-Western and anti-
modern reaction: ethno-nationalism and fundamentalist protectionism. The
special link of Orthodoxy with local national identities is frequently used
to support this thinking. As Kitromilides (2007a: xiii) insightfully observes,
[Western] prejudice dies hard and is often rekindled by power politics and
an inability to understand the Eastern half of a shared continentto the
point that iron curtains are imagined to be replaced by velvet curtains as-
sociated with the aesthetics of Orthodoxy.
With the collapse of communism, sociological research has to some de-
gree focused on the contemporary situation within Orthodox Christianity
(Borowik 1999, 2006; Borowik and Tomka 2001; Roudometof, Agadjanian,
and Pankhurst 2005; Byrnes and Katzenstein 2006, part III; Naumescu 2007;
Rvay and Tomka 2007). In most cases, however, the combination of the
experience of communism in the former Soviet Union, Romania, Albania,
Bulgaria and former Yugoslavia and the cultural heritage of Orthodox
Christianity in Eastern and Southeastern Europe has made it quite difficult
 Globalization and Orthodox Christianity 3
to discern the role of Orthodox Christianity as such on contemporary politi-
cal and cultural developments.3 Instead of focusing on historical specificity,
in many cases, generalizations are made about the faith. Ramet (2006:148)
writes, Whatever changes may impact the world, the Orthodox Church
refuses, for the most part, to accommodate itself to change, standing fixed
in time, its bishops gaze riveted on an idyllic past which serves as their
beacon. This statement aptly summarizes Orthodox Christianitys prevail-
ing image. The preservation of a presumed unbroken religious tradition has
been the conscious goal of the overwhelming majority of religious move-
ments, authors and activists in the Orthodox cultural landscape (Agadjanian
and Roudometof 2005). By and large, the entire material and symbolic
order of the faith has been used to preserve or even enhance a sense of differ-
ence that remains anchored in the preservation of such a (literal and/or con-
structed) religious tradition (for a discussion, see McGuckin 2008). In most
nations of the Eastern European Orthodox heartland, this religious tradition
is fused with local identities into a single genre of identity, whereby church,
ethnicity or nationality become signifiers of a single collective entity. The
phrase religious tradition in this books subtitle underscores precisely this
feature of the faith, but it is also an acknowledgement that, as MacCulloch
(2009:7) insightfully observes, the Bible . . . embodies not a tradition, but
many traditions.
In Orthodox Christianity, there has been a taken-for-granted unity be-
tween religion and community (Berger 2005:441). The Church, as Ortho-
dox theologians tirelessly repeat, is not simply the religious hierarchy or
the formal institution but the entire body of those who are publicly affili-
ated with the faith. The importance of the faith lies at the level of public
culturein contrast to individualized expressions of religiosity. Indeed, to
the extent that Orthodoxy allows persons to navigate the symbolic universe
of religious metaphors on their own, it promotes the individual privatiza-
tion of religious experience (Kokosalakis 1995:25960). However, the ac-
commodation of individuality should not be conflated with the public role,
function and importance of faith. Instead, the preservation of a dominant
position in society and vis--vis the state has been a long-held objective for
most Orthodox churches, which thus operate as national churches rather
than as denominations.
This finding should not lead to misguided perceptions that Orthodox
Christianity is incapable of tolerating social change or of instigating new
practices and institutions that can adjust to newfound realities. According
to Orthodox theology, the ancient principle of expediency (oikonomia) al-
lows for subtlety and flexibility in canonical procedures as these necessar-
ily adapt to popular faith. Accordingly, the Church can compromise
in order to accommodate transgressions against established doctrine and
practice on certain occasions (Kokosalakis 1987:41). Even when there are
texts that establish doctrine on specific issues, these may be subject to flex-
ible interpretation under the principle of expediency. As a result, the Church
4 Globalization and Orthodox Christianity
in general is not concerned with the imposition of strict rules of religious
conduct and belief; it can afford accommodations to different situations as
these arise. The Church can use popular forms of religious expression even
when they seem at variance with its own doctrine and, in turn, can use them
to strengthen its own position in society and in its relations with the state.
Culture and religion intertwine in a reciprocal relationship in which change
is both implicitly accommodated and explicitly refuted (for examples, see
Roudometof and Makrides 2010). Although formal introductions of reli-
gious innovation are theologically refuted, their practice can be accepted
thanks to the aforementioned principle of expediency.
Therefore, it is important to separate practice from rhetoric. If religious
rhetoric or the projected image of an unbroken religious tradition is taken at
face value, the image of religious traditionalism is transformed into the ob-
servers reality. Orthodox Christianity is then cast in the role of an inherently
conservative antidemocratic or antimodern religion that lacks the resources
or the capacities to adapt to the realities of contemporary life. To combat
such stereotypes, it is necessary to adopt a far more nuanced approach, one
that recognizes the diversity of Orthodox Christianityhence the reason I
speak of transformations (in the plural) of Orthodoxy. Orthodox Christianity
should be regarded as possessing the same mutability and capacity as other
branches of Christianity to fuse into different contexts.

SHIFTING PARADIGMS: FROM

SECULARIZATION TO GLOBALIZATION

Although the study of religion was previously marginal to mainstream socio-

logy, the field has become far more central to sociology in the last 30 years.4
Until the recent past, sociology conceptualized religion mainly along two
dimensions: the institutional and the individual. Lost in this dichotomy was
the noninstitutional but collective and public cultural dimension of religion
(Besecke 2005:179). This collective and public cultural dimension is par-
ticularly relevant to the study of Orthodox Christianity.
The rise of globalization as a new central concept for the study of religion
is related to the decline of the traditional secularization paradigm and the
subsequent reframing of its use in sociology and related fields. For most of
the 20th century, the agenda of the sociology of religion has been dominated
by the debate over secularization (Turner 2009). Social scientists have heat-
edly debated the scope, nature, extent and parameters of secularization in
an effort to unveil the overall patterns and/or trajectories of the modern
world. These arguments have been superseded by reevaluations favorable
to the skeptics of the secularization thesis (Berger et al. 1999, Berger 2002;
Sociology of Religion 1999). In this reappraisal, Western Europe, once re-
garded as the paradigmatic case of secularization, is viewed as an excep-
tion to global patterns, whereas the United States, once regarded as an
 Globalization and Orthodox Christianity 5
exceptional case, is viewed as more typical of global patterns of religiosity
than previously thought (Davie 2002; for an exploration, see Berger, Davie,
and Fokas 2008). As a result, the terms of the secularization debate have
been reframed (Taylor 2007; for a critical assessment, see Torpey 2010).
Ours is a secular age, not because of a mere decline of individual religios-
ity or a growing churchstate separation, but because our framework of
understanding has shifted radically. Whereas one could scarcely be ignorant
of God in the Western world of 1500, that is certainly an option today. Secu-
larization is understood as a shift in the overall framework of the human
condition; it makes it possible for people to have a choice between belief and
nonbelief in a manner hitherto unknown. This generalization remains based
on the historical trajectory of the Western or trans-Atlantic world.5
Reconsidering secularity remains a project high on the agenda of the socio-
logy of religion. In such reconsiderations, secularism is conceived of as an
active project that is articulated alongside the Western modernity of the
post-1500 world (Gorski and Altinordou 2008; Calhoun, Juergensmeyer,
and Van Antwerpen 2011). Furthermore, Casanova (2006) argues in favor
of refining secularization and addressing Eurocentric biases in the framing
of that debate. He suggests that future revisions of the secularization para-
digm must take into account the construction of both sides of the secular
religious dichotomy. To do so, one must inquire into the complex negotia-
tions involved in defining the boundaries between them. In turn, this inquiry
raises the issue of the role that cultural traditions and, more broadly, culture
play in such processes.
Western social theory has been based on the themes of modernity and
secularity and has thus ignored Orthodox Christianity (Hann 2011). How-
ever, nearly all theories of religious modernity, including both sides of the
secularization debate, have been in large part unable to recognize or evalu-
ate the social and cultural power of religious expression (Robertson 2007).
Instead, these theories accept as natural or self-evident culturally specific no-
tions of religion, secularity and secularism. These notions have been deeply
involved in the making of the Western self-image (Asad 1993, 2003). When
one considers Orthodox Christianity, this cultural specificity is exposed,
and as a result, the Western self-image becomes problematic (McMylon and
Vorozhishcheva 2007).6
To consider the articulation of Orthodox Christianity, it is necessary
to extend the historical framework further into the pastinto Western
Europes Middle Ages. Although various theological issues were involved in
the OrthodoxCatholic disputes in these centuries, the divergent rationale
of the two sides centered on two major points. First, the conflict between
East and West was . . . over the relation between the authority of the bishop
of Rome and all other authority in the Church (Pelikan 1977:272). The
East rejected arguments in favor of papal primacy. Second, there were differ-
ences concerning the understanding of the relationship between sacerdotium
and imperium or regnum, or the spiritual realm and the realm of the state
6 Globalization and Orthodox Christianity
(Sherrard 1992). In the Orthodox tradition, imperium was juxtaposed with
sacerdotium. For the Orthodox East, several papal practices overextended
ecclesiastical authority into the realm of state authority.7 These two realms
carry the connotations of sacred and profanebut not those of secular and
religious per se. Emperor Justinian I (527565 AD) succinctly summed it up
in his Sixth Novella (535):

There are two main gifts bestowed by God upon men: the priesthood
and the imperial authority (sacerdotium et imperium). Of these, the for-
mer is concerned with things divine, the latter with human affairs. . . .
Nothing is of greater importance to the Emperors than to support the
dignity of the priesthood, so that the priests may in turn pray to God for
them (quoted in Zernov 1963:66).

Even if the quotation above provides only a very rough sketch, it is fair
to say that in the longue dure, Orthodox Christianity is a culture with
a profound understanding of the sacredprofane division but also one
in which the secularreligious division became relevant only in the after-
math of the social and cultural modernization of Eastern and Southeastern
Europe, whereby modern states applied the Western-inspired logic of secu-
larism to their domains. It should therefore not be surprising that the theme
of secularity does not occupy a central place in this book.
The significance of culture for the study of religion and particularly of
Orthodox Christianity is revealed in issues of worship, rituals and popu-
lar practices. In Orthodox countries, religious worship and rituals are not
necessarily manifestations of individual belief, and religious practice does
not necessarily reflect the depth of personal conviction or belief (Tomka
2006). A case in point is the celebration of the Orthodox Easter, which is the
focal point of Orthodox Christianitys religious calendar (Berger 2005). Far
from a matter of individual religious self-expression, its celebration is quite
public. The entire rhythm of social life is adjusted to follow the religious
calendar of the Holy Week, culminating in the celebration of the Resurrec-
tion, symbolically set at midnight on Good Saturday but also involving the
Epitaph possession on Good Friday along the streets of towns and villages.
Public officials participate prominently in these rituals, and educational in-
stitutions go on a two-week hiatus, returning to classes one week after Eas-
ter Sunday (for additional examples, see Naletova 2009). Orthodox Easter
reflects broader differences among cultures or traditions. In turn, these dif-
ferences shape the role of religion in society.8
Far from engaging with this problematic, the overwhelming majority of
work in the sociology of religion naturalizes the trans-Atlantic cultural con-
text of its surroundings. Thus, the Orientalism of the past resurfaces as aca-
demic parochialism. Orthodox Christianity has been the object of academic
and lay stereotypes precisely because it exposes the limits of theoretical par-
adigms that work only for a selected group of Western nations or religious