To those interested in the political, social and cultural history of modern Greece and South Eastern Europe the name of Paschalis M. Kitromilides, emeritus professor of political science and member of the Academy of Athens, is hardly unknown. He has published numerous internationally acclaimed books and articles (in Greek and English) on nationalism, the Enlightenment and politics, and their transformations, with an emphasis on the role of religion (Orthodox Christianity). All this becomes evident in the present book, devoted to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the challenges it has faced with modernity. It is a collection of seven previously published (2004–2014) articles, with an additional introduction on the ‘return of religion’ in the human sciences and the complex intermingling of religion (Orthodoxy) and politics that provides a useful conceptual framework. A foreword by the Metropolitan of Pergamon Ioannis Zizioulas nicely complements the book's scope.
The various chapters are structured chronologically dealing with specific case-studies from the early nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. The first is devoted to the learned Metropolitan of Hungro-Wallachia, Ignatios, who was active in Italy for the cause of Greek liberation and was able to combine his Orthodox convictions with selected Enlightenment ideas. The following two chapters relate to the emergence of national Orthodox Churches in the Balkans in the nineteenth century at the expense of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Chapter 4 describes the turmoil in the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the context of the mounting Greek nationalism after the First World War, resulting in negative repercussions for the Patriarchate on the part of Turkey. Chapter 5 narrates the period of the Cold War and the vicissitudes faced by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, both domestically (in relation to Turkey) and internationally (in relation to the Moscow Patriarchate). Chapter 6 highlights the subsequent post-communist period when Constantinople tried to strengthen its ecumenical role, especially under the present Patriarch Bartholomew who initiated remarkable ecological activities worldwide. The last short chapter deals with novel conflicts in post-communist times, which negatively affected the image of Orthodoxy, and attempts to demonstrate Orthodoxy's fundamentally ecumenical character.
The book is well structured, with robust analysis, meaningful contextualisation of data and an eloquent prose style. It is also enriched by a varied bibliography and telling illustrations. Unfortunately, the most recent developments pertaining to the Ecumenical Patriarchate could not be included, such as the Pan-Orthodox Council of 2016 in Crete, the schism between Constantinople and Moscow over the Ukrainian Church autocephaly in 2019 or the conversion of the Church of Hagia Sophia back into a mosque in 2020. There are two points I would like to raise regarding the main challenges of modernity for the Orthodox world that K. identifies, namely the Enlightenment and its offspring, nationalism.
The first challenge relates to the controversial reception of the Enlightenment and its secular leanings by the Orthodox world. K. rightly points out that the Orthodox Church was not totally hostile to Enlightenment ideas – he has also edited a related lengthy volume (Oxford 2016). Nevertheless, this perspective concerns only a few Orthodox clerics and laymen who flirted with or accepted certain ideas. Praiseworthy though this is, it does not amount to a thorough and productive encounter of the Orthodox side with the Enlightenment in the long run. More recently, the Ecumenical Patriarchate (under Patriarch Bartholomew) has made various such openings (notably to modern conceptions of human rights) and has perhaps been more successful in ecclesiastical practice in engaging with modernity at large than the national Orthodox Churches. This notwithstanding, a more comprehensive encounter of Orthodox Christianity with modernity at various levels is still pending, and this constitutes a serious drawback compared not only to the mainstream Protestant Churches, but also to Roman Catholicism. There are understandable reasons behind this, and the Orthodox Church should not be held alone accountable. Yet, as a matter of fact, the Orthodox still have a long way to go towards a systematic engagement with modernity in its various facets. Even the Pan-Orthodox Council of 2016, headed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, made only a very timid step in this direction, and essentially postponed discussion to a future Council.
As far as the second challenge is concerned: K. is always at pains to rightly pinpoint the traditional universality and ecumenicity of the Orthodox Church and its preeminent See, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, a key proponent of an ‘Orthodox Commonwealth’. Yet the latter seems a distant ideal today, when we consider the proliferation of national churches – the Ukrainian being the latest one, with others waiting in the wings. Nationalism appears thus to be stronger than ecumenicity, and this has been true over the last three centuries. How could this drastic and sweeping transformation of ecumenical Orthodoxy into national churches have taken place so quickly? Attributing the nationalisation process in Orthodoxy solely to external factors (such as modern secular statehood) is not sufficient. Are there perhaps factors from within the history of Orthodox Christianity that could have led to such a development? This paradox was addressed in a previous article of mine (‘Why are orthodox churches particularly prone to nationalization and even to nationalism?’, St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 54, 2013, 325–352), to which K. critically alludes (p. 3). My argument there was not an essentialist one as if these factors were intrinsic to some ‘character' of Eastern Orthodoxy. It has more to do with general ecclesiastical and other practice, articulated and established in the pre-modern period. It is exactly such factors (such as the tradition of self-governance/autocephaly) that unexpectedly took on a new path in the modern age, triggered by the forces of secular modernity, and led to the radical nationalization of the Orthodox world. Examining such internal factors that render the Orthodox Churches ‘prone to nationalism' neither questions the traditional Orthodox ecumenicity nor intends to ascribe blame to the Orthodox Church by perpetuating various prejudices about its alleged propensities. It is simply a matter of better capturing the rapid and unforeseen nationalization process in Orthodoxy, which has changed everything and has, regrettably, been internalized by numerous Orthodox as quite normal and traditional, as K. himself laments (p. 110). This may also explain why many Orthodox Churches were and are still proud to be the defenders of national causes, thus bypassing the long supranational heritage of Orthodoxy. Even so, the ecumenical legacy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople does survive, despite difficult circumstances and at times harsh conditions. K.’ book is a fitting and timely reminder of this fact.
