1st Edition

Religion and Politics in the Orthodox World The Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Challenges of Modernity

By Paschalis Kitromilides Copyright 2019
    144 Pages
    by Routledge

    144 Pages 9 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book explores how the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the leading centre of spiritual authority in the Orthodox Church, based in Istanbul, coped with political developments from Ottoman times until the present. The book outlines how under the Ottomans, despite difficult circumstances, the Patriarchate managed to draw on its huge symbolic and moral power and organization to uphold the unity and catholicity of the Orthodox Church, how it struggled to do this during the subsequent age of nationalism when churches within new nation-states unilaterally claimed their autonomy reflecting local national demands, and how the church coped in the twentieth century with the rise of nationalist Turkey, the decline of Orthodoxy in Asia Minor and with the Cold War. The book concludes by assessing the current position and future prospects of the Patriarchate in the region and the world.

    Foreword by the Metropolitan of Pergamum Ioannis Zizioulas





    Preface





    Acknowledgements





    Introduction





    I. The Orthodox Church and the Enlightenment. Testimonies from the correspondence of Ignatius of Ungrowallachia with G. P. Vieusseux





    II. The Orthodox Church in modern state formation in Southeastern Europe





    III. The Ecumenical Patriarchate and the challenge of nationalism in the 19th century





    IV. The end of empire, Greece’s Asia Minor catastrophe and the Ecumenical Patriarchate





    V. The Ecumenical Patriarchate during the Cold War (1946-1991)





    VI. A religious International in Southeastern Europe?





    VII. Orthodoxy, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict





    Ecumenical Patriarchs, 1800 –





    Bibliography





    Index

    Biography

    Paschalis M. Kitromilides is Professor of Political Science at the University of Athens, Greece