ABSTRACT
This book explores the relationship between Orthodox religion and politics in Eastern Europe, Russia and Georgia. It demonstrates how as these societies undergo substantial transformation Orthodox religion can be both a limiting and an enabling factor, how the relationship between religion and politics is complex, and how the spheres of religion and politics complement, reinforce, influence, and sometimes contradict each other. Considering a range of thematic issues, with examples from a wide range of countries with significant Orthodox religious groups, and setting the present situation in its full historical context the book provides a rich picture of a subject which has been too often oversimplified.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|2 pages
Introduction and historic overview
chapter 1|18 pages
Symphonia and the historical relationship between State and Church
part II|2 pages
Current discourses and practices
chapter 2|18 pages
‘Proud to be Orthodox’
chapter 3|16 pages
The Temple Mount comparison
part III|2 pages
Religious education in public schools
chapter 5|20 pages
National heroes, martyrs of the faith and martyrs of the people
chapter 6|14 pages
The shifts between
part IV|2 pages
Conflicts between Orthodox religion and politics
chapter 8|12 pages
The dichotomy between Europeanisation and the revival of Moldovan Orthodoxy
chapter 9|16 pages
Between Europeanisation and the Russian-Georgian brotherhood
chapter 10|20 pages
The end of the pro-Orthodox consensus
part V|2 pages
Orthodoxy in the international arena
chapter 11|19 pages
Guided by a ‘symphony of views’
chapter 12|19 pages
Surrendering to public pressure
part VI|2 pages
Afterword