ABSTRACT
The November 2013–February 2014 Maidan demonstrations in Ukraine sent shockwaves across Eastern Europe. Statements made by foreign hierarchs that countries have to choose between the European Union (EU) and Russia and that the legal framework in the EU amounts to a veritable ‘betrayal of Orthodoxy’ add additional pressure on church–state relations. In Europe, in 2015, at the peak of the refugee crisis, the International Organization for Migration recorded 1,059,044 migrants arriving in Europe, 857,363 of whom arrived in Greece. Throughout Southeastern Europe and the former Soviet states, the concepts of ‘forced migration’ and ‘human security’ are interlinked. In sum, Orthodox churches do not have an overarching social policy on engaging with forced migration. From an institutional perspective, the engagement of Orthodox churches with both ‘forced migration’ and ‘human security’ has been directly connected to both protecting the faithful along national lines and advancing political messages.
