The Orthodox Church and National Identity in Post-Communist Romania
The Orthodox Church and National Identity in Post-Communist Romania

Author: Adrian Velicu

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-08-17

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 3030484270

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This book explores the Romanian Orthodox Church’s arguments on national identity to legitimize its own place in a post-communist Romania. The work traces the clergy’s deployment of the concepts of Christian Orthodoxy and Latin legacy as part of an uncharted constellation of arguments in contemporary intellectual history. A survey of public intellectuals’ opinions on national identity complements the Church’s views. The investigation attempts to offer an insight into the Church’s efforts to re-assert itself, given free rein in a post-dictatorial world of accelerated modernization. After clarifying and surveying the Church’s claims on institutional and national identity, the book then also explores the secular ideas on the subject. The subsequent analysis treats this material as “speech acts” (statements doing, not only saying, something) which are occasionally out of sync. Against a background of secularization, the Church’s rhetoric articulates a distinct line of thought in the post-89 intellectual landscape.

The Orthodox Church and National Identity in Post-Communist Romania
The Orthodox Church and National Identity in Post-Communist Romania

Author: Adrian Velicu

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2020-08-30

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 9783030484262

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This book explores the Romanian Orthodox Church’s arguments on national identity to legitimize its own place in a post-communist Romania. The work traces the clergy’s deployment of the concepts of Christian Orthodoxy and Latin legacy as part of an uncharted constellation of arguments in contemporary intellectual history. A survey of public intellectuals’ opinions on national identity complements the Church’s views. The investigation attempts to offer an insight into the Church’s efforts to re-assert itself, given free rein in a post-dictatorial world of accelerated modernization. After clarifying and surveying the Church’s claims on institutional and national identity, the book then also explores the secular ideas on the subject. The subsequent analysis treats this material as “speech acts” (statements doing, not only saying, something) which are occasionally out of sync. Against a background of secularization, the Church’s rhetoric articulates a distinct line of thought in the post-89 intellectual landscape.

Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania
Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania

Author: Lavinia Stan

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2007-10-25

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 0198042175

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In the post-communist era it has become evident that the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe will be determined by many factors, only some of them political. Throughout the region, the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Greek Catholic churches have tried to impose their views on democracy through direct political engagement. Moreover, surveys show that the churches (and the army) enjoy more popular confidence than elected political bodies such as parliaments. These results reflect widespread disenchantment with a democratization process that has allowed politicians to advance their own agendas rather than work to solve the urgent socio-economic problems these countries face. In this penetrating study, Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu investigate the interaction of religion and politics in one such country, Romania. Facing internal challenges and external competitions from other religions old and new, the Orthodox Church in Romania has sought to consolidate its position and ensure Romania's version of democracy recognizes its privileged position of "national Church", enforcing the Church's stances on issues such as homosexuality and abortion. The post-communist state and political elite in turn rely on the Church for compliance with educational and cultural policies and to quell the insistent demands of the Hungarian minority for autonomy. Stan and Turcescu examine the complex relationship between church and state in this new Romania, providing analysis in key areas: church collaboration with communist authorities, post-communist electoral politics, nationalism and ethno-politics, restitution of Greek Catholic property, religious education, and sexual behavior and reproduction. As the first scholars to be given access to confidential materials from the archives of the communist political police, the notorious Securitate, Stan and Turcescu also examine church archives, legislation, news reports, and interviews with politicians and church leaders. This study will move the debate from common analyses of nationalism in isolation to more comprehensive investigations which consider the impact of religious actors on a multitude of other issues relevant to the political and social life of the country.

Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania
Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania

Author: Lavinia Stan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1107020530

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This is the first volume to overview the complex Romanian transitional justice effort, detail the political negotiations that have led to the adoption and implementation of relevant legislation, and assess these processes in terms of their timing, sequencing, and impact on democratization.

Religion, Politics and Nation-Building in Post-Communist Countries
Religion, Politics and Nation-Building in Post-Communist Countries

Author: Greg Simons

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-03

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1317067150

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The increasing significance and visibility of relationships between religion and public arenas and institutions following the fall of communism in Europe provide the core focus of this fascinating book. Leading international scholars consider the religious and political role of Christian Orthodoxy in the Russian Federation, Romania, Georgia and Ukraine alongside the revival of old, indigenous religions, often referred to as 'shamanistic' and look at how, despite Islam’s long history and many adherents in the south, Islamophobic attitudes have increasingly been added to traditional anti-Semitic, anti-Western or anti-liberal elements of Russian nationalism. Contrasts between the church’s position in the post-communist nation building process of secular Estonia with its role in predominantly Catholic Poland are also explored. Religion, Politics and Nation-Building in Post-Communist Countries gives a broad overview of the political importance of religion in the Post-Soviet space but its interest and relevance extends far beyond the geographical focus, providing examples of the challenges in the spheres of public, religious and social policy for all transitional countries.

World Religions and Multiculturalism
World Religions and Multiculturalism

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2010-10-05

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 9004189181

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This book is about new forms of religiosity and religious activity emerging in the context of their dialectic relations with contemporary multicultural realities. World religions are effectively a major agent of the multiculturalization of contemporary societies. However, multiculturalism pushes them not only toward change and reforms, but also toward new conflicts between and within them. This process should remind us of the Jewish legend of the Golem – an animated being created by man which finally challenges the latter’s control over it - a dialectic relation, indeed. World religions today greatly contribute to a world (dis)order that is multicultural both when viewed as a whole, and from within most societies that compose it. It is a development that contrasts both with the assumption that globalization implies one-way homogenization and convergence to Western modernity, and the expectation that globalization would be bound to polarize homogeneous civilizations.

Outrage: Art, Controversy, and Society
Outrage: Art, Controversy, and Society

Author: R. Howells

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-10-10

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 1137283548

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A study of controversy in the arts, and the extent to which such controversies are socially rather than just aesthetically conditioned. The collection pays special attention to the vested interests and the social dynamics involved, including class, religion, culture, and - above all - power.

Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia
Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia

Author: Edmond J Coleman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-05-22

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 1317955587

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Important new findings on sex and gender in the former Soviet Bloc! Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia is a groundbreaking look at the new sexual reality in Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe after the fall of communism. The book presents the kind of candid discussion of sexual identities, sexual politics, and gender arrangements that was often censored and rarely discussed openly before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1987. Authors from a variety of disciplines examine how the changes caused by rapid economic and social transformation have affected human sexuality and if those changes can generate the social tolerance necessary to produce a well-rooted democracy. The first theoretical and empirical body of work to sexuality in (post)transitional countries, Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia examines the effects of the profound social transformation taking place in the former Soviet Union. Through an interdisciplinary perspective, the book addresses vital issues of this transformation, including gender relations, gender roles and sex norms in transition, sexual representations in the media, patterns of adult sexual behavior, gay and lesbian issues, sex trafficking, health risks, and sex education. The book also presents a critical examination of whether the fall of communism has, in fact, induced changes in sexuality and gender relations. Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia examines the changes in sex and gender in countries in transition, including: the negative consequences of Serbia’s “state-directed non-development” during the 1990s the causes and consequences of trafficking in women from the Russian Federation the ongoing debate over human rights for sexual minorities in Romania the effects of two Yugoslavian films released in the 1990s that feature transgender characters sexualities in transition in Croatia problems created by changes in sexual behavior among urban Russian adolescents the social and legal state of lesbians in Slovenia Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia fills in the gap in the current knowledge and understanding of the effects of the profound social changes taking place in Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe. The book is an essential read for academics and researchers working in gender studies, political science, and gay and lesbian studies. Handy tables and figures make the information easy to access and understand.

Church and State
Church and State

Author: Cristian Romocea

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2011-04-21

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1441137475

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Twenty years have passed since the fall of the Iron Curtain, yet emerging democracies continue to struggle with a secular state which does not give preference to churches as major political players. This book explores the nationalist inclinations of an Eastern Orthodox Church as it interacts with a politically immature yet decisively democratic Eastern European state. Discussing the birth pangs of extreme nationalist movements of the twentieth century, it offers a creative retelling of the ideological idiosyncrasies which have characterized Marxist Communism and Nazism. Cristian Romocea provides a constant juxtaposition of the ideological movements as they interacted and affected organized religion, at times seeking to remove it, assimilate it or even imitate it. Of interest to historians, theologians and politicians, this book introduces the reader, through a case study of Romania, to relevant and contemporary challenges churches worldwide are facing in a context characterized by increased secularization of the state and radicalization of religion.

Russian Society and the Orthodox Church
Russian Society and the Orthodox Church

Author: Zoe Knox

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-06-02

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1134360827

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Russian Society and the Orthodox Church examines the Russian Orthodox Church's social and political role and its relationship to civil society in post-Communist Russia. It shows how Orthodox prelates, clergy and laity have shaped Russians' attitudes towards religious and ideological pluralism, which in turn have influenced the ways in which Russians understand civil society, including those of its features - pluralism and freedom of conscience - that are essential for a functioning democracy. It shows how the official church, including the Moscow Patriarchate, has impeded the development of civil society, while on the other hand the non-official church, including nonconformist clergy and lay activists, has promoted concepts central to civil society.