Post-Soviet Orthodox Identities

In my mini-series on Orthodox Constructions of the West, I noted with great gratitude that we seem to be entering a phase where scholarship is demythologizing much of how Eastern and Western Christians have conceived of each other and especially of our dolorous history. That campaign gains further steam in a book just published in January. I knew the first editor, Andrii Krawchuk, very slightly when our time overlapped briefly at the Sheptytsky Institute in Ottawa, and he has authored other well-received studies, especially in Ukrainian church history and moral theology. He's teamed up with Thomas Bremer (author of a recently published book on Russian Orthodox history, and editor of other, earlier collections) to produce what looks to be a rich volume stuffed with interesting articles: Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer, Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-Reflection, Dialogue (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 380pp.


About this book we are told:

From diverse international and multi-disciplinary perspectives, the contributors to this volume analyse the experiences, challenges and responses of orthodox churches to the foundational transformations associated with the dissolution of the USSR. Those transformations heightened the urgency of questions about Orthodox identity and relations with the world - states, societies, and the religious and cultural other.

The volume focuses on six distinct concepts: orthodox identity, perceptions of the 'other,' critiques of the West, European values, interreligious progress, and new and uncharted challenges that have arisen with the expansion of Russian Orthodox activity.

We are also given this very detailed table of contents:

Introduction; Andrii Krawchuk
PART I: THE ECCLESIAL SELF: TRADITIONAL IDENTITIES AND THE CHALLENGES OF PLURALISM:
1. Russian Orthodoxy between State and Nation; Jennifer Wasmuth
2. Morality and Patriotism: Continuity and Change in Russian Orthodox Occidentalism since the Soviet Era; Alfons Brüning
3. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church at the Crossroads: Between Nationalism and Pluralism; Daniela Kalkandjieva
4. The Search for a new Church Consciousness in current Russian Orthodox Discourse; Anna Briskina-Müller

PART II: PERCEPTIONS OF THE RELIGIOUS OTHER: DIFFERENCE AND CONVERGENCE:
5. Between Admiration and Refusal – Roman Catholic Perceptions of Orthodoxy; Thomas Bremer
6. Apostolic Continuity in Contradiction to Liberalism? Fields of Tension between Churches in the East and the West; Dagmar Heller
7. The Image of the Roman-Catholic Church in the Orthodox Press of Romania, 1918-1940; Ciprian Ghi?a
8. 'Oh, East is East, and West is West…:' The Character of Orthodox – Greek-Catholic Discourse in Ukraine and its Regional Dimensions; Natalia Kochan

PART III: ORTHODOX CRITIQUES OF THE WEST:
9. 'The Barbarian West': A Form of Orthodox Christian Anti-Western Critique; Vasilios N. Makrides
10. Anti-western Theology in Greece and Serbia Today; Julia Anna Lis
11. The Russian Orthodox Church on the Values of Modern Society; Regina Elsner

PART IV: ENCOUNTERS WITH EUROPEAN VALUES:
12. Eastern Orthodoxy and the Processes of European Integration; Tina Olteanu and Dorothée de Nève
13. The Russian Orthodox Church's Interpretation of European Legal Values (1990-2011); Mikhail Zherebyatyev
14. The Russian Orthodox Church in a new Situation in Russia: Challenges and Responses; Olga Kazmina

PART V: PROSPECTS FOR RELIGIOUS ENCOUNTER, CONSENSUS AND COOPERATION:
15. Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism: Towards the 'Reintegration' of Christian Tradition; Matthew Baker
16. Justification in the Theological Conversations Between Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Protestant Churches in Germany; Christoph Mühl
17. Constructing Interreligious Consensus in the Post-Soviet Space: the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations; Andrii Krawchuk

PART VI: EMERGING ENCOUNTERS AND NEW CHALLENGES IN POST-SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA:
18. Radical Islam in the Ferghana Valley; Galina M. Yemelianova
19. Uzbek Islamic Extremists in the Civil Wars of Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan: From Radical Islamic Awakening in the Ferghana Valley to Terrorism with Islamic Vocabulary in Waziristan; Michael Fredholm