Sorry for the late answer. It is kinda weird. On the elite level, say, monks of old times, the Eastern Orthodox is the least-conventionally religious and most spiritual/esoteric form of mainstream Christianity, for example I have read somewhere the word they use for faith, pistei, is not simply belief, but more like a form of action. Yet, in practice, EO tends to be seriously weird.
My opinion is that EO was corrupted beyond recognition by heavily entanglement of particularly brutal forms of statism, tyrannical tzarism and so on, actually going back to Byzantine times.
I would not call EO medieval. Medieval or Middle Ages is a Western, Roman Catholic concept, and one of the major characterisics is the weakening of state power, basically kings not being too powerful (as opposed to barons). Now it seems to me EO kept on operating withing a framework of very strong state power and very centralized organization, from Bzyantine basileoi to Tzars, and in this sense never really entered the Middle Ages but more like stayed in the age of caesars.
I think it is all related. A very hierarchical social framework does not really demand or allow the common folk to smart up. If there is not much social mobility the peasants may as well believe bullshit as long as they work hard. It is the breakup or weaking and flexibilizing of social hierarchies such as weak medieval royal power and barons and bishops going their own way that makes it useful to try getting more rational.
Very insightful, thank you for the explanation. Yes, this entanglement with state power is something I’ve noticed myself (although I’ve had more opportunity to observe the Church’s relationship with more recent regimes). Here, Orthodox Christianity is as much of an official state religion as you could get in a European country. The Patriarch is present at most important non-religious events; a Church representative was there at the opening of my university year (and I mean, I’m in engineering, he had no inherent business being there). Politicians use the mass appeal of the Orthodox faith to win sympathisers during elections, and people care very much about non-mainstream religious affiliations of rulers—anything non-Orthodox is bound to reflect badly on them. There’s a huge cathedral being built somewhere in my city, and I just recently found out that it was being built within the perimeter of the seat of government… talk about caesaropapism, now they made it official! In high school there was a sort of essay I had to make for the religious education class I had been forced into, and when I said I was going to write on Church activity during the Communist era, all the teachers were on me to coerce me into only highlighting how badly the Church got oppressed by the regime, and not mentioning a word on all the collaboration some priests did with it. Apparently my business there was earning them sympathy. This is about how much power they have.
Interesting how you connect historical decentralization to the onset of the Middle Ages, thus claiming that Eastern Orthodoxy is not even medieval (I never really thought of how there might have been no exact Eastern European equivalent to the medieval era, just took the whole thing chronologically), and then that to a betterment in the intellectual condition of the populace. Some people say that, from a sociological point of view, it was Orthodoxy holding us back; just like how (I think) Weber claimed that Protestantism favoured the development of capitalism in the West (mostly countries with a Germanic language, it seems to me), so it might be that some specifically Orthodox paradigms which bled into non-religious aspects of life were what stopped Eastern Europe from witnessing the same rhythm of development as Western or Central or even Southern Europe. I don’t know what those are, but it doesn’t seem implausible to me.
I think what I proposed is a factor, but it does not explain everything. While the medieval decentralisation of Germany, Italy, or even France (where Burgundy could wage war against his liege and it was not really seen as something abnormal, or how pairage / peerage meant in a sense being equal to the king), Hungary was about as Catholic as it comes and yet it was more centralized, at the very least beginning with the Anjou era in Hungary, Caroberto. In fact the Hungarian pattern seems similar to the Eastern Orthodox one, just Catholicized. E.g. at 20th Aug the birthday of the country the embalmed right hand of King Saint Stephen is carried around in a procession by bishops. A very clear unity of throne and altar.
I think the chain of causality is closer to factor X → decentralisation, weakening of state power → religion keeps some distance from the state, rather than religious statism preserving the strength of the state. But I have no idea what the factor X may be.
That’s a pretty great explanation on how the Eastern Orthodox get to be so weird. When Church and State become really closely related both get pretty effed up. I like that you pointed out Byzantium was the continuation of the Roman Empire and thus had caesars/ basileoi and a pretty hierarchical social structure. Your byzantine history is spot on. I guess education didn’t improve much since their monastic orders were into mystical theology.Thanks for the lesson!
The American Orthodox Churches are not nearly as weird and tend to be a little more intellectually sophisticated and democratic. One their best writers is David Bentley Hart. He’s actually a pretty good thinker to wrestle with. If you, like me, prefer reading each factions best thinkers, I’d read some him.
I think there is always a distinction between the folk version of a religion and its intelligentsia. The same goes for all factions I assume. From capitalism and communism to Baptists and Democrats, there are always the ruddy followers and the intelligent skeptics.
Sorry for the late answer. It is kinda weird. On the elite level, say, monks of old times, the Eastern Orthodox is the least-conventionally religious and most spiritual/esoteric form of mainstream Christianity, for example I have read somewhere the word they use for faith, pistei, is not simply belief, but more like a form of action. Yet, in practice, EO tends to be seriously weird.
My opinion is that EO was corrupted beyond recognition by heavily entanglement of particularly brutal forms of statism, tyrannical tzarism and so on, actually going back to Byzantine times.
I would not call EO medieval. Medieval or Middle Ages is a Western, Roman Catholic concept, and one of the major characterisics is the weakening of state power, basically kings not being too powerful (as opposed to barons). Now it seems to me EO kept on operating withing a framework of very strong state power and very centralized organization, from Bzyantine basileoi to Tzars, and in this sense never really entered the Middle Ages but more like stayed in the age of caesars.
I think it is all related. A very hierarchical social framework does not really demand or allow the common folk to smart up. If there is not much social mobility the peasants may as well believe bullshit as long as they work hard. It is the breakup or weaking and flexibilizing of social hierarchies such as weak medieval royal power and barons and bishops going their own way that makes it useful to try getting more rational.
Very insightful, thank you for the explanation. Yes, this entanglement with state power is something I’ve noticed myself (although I’ve had more opportunity to observe the Church’s relationship with more recent regimes). Here, Orthodox Christianity is as much of an official state religion as you could get in a European country. The Patriarch is present at most important non-religious events; a Church representative was there at the opening of my university year (and I mean, I’m in engineering, he had no inherent business being there). Politicians use the mass appeal of the Orthodox faith to win sympathisers during elections, and people care very much about non-mainstream religious affiliations of rulers—anything non-Orthodox is bound to reflect badly on them. There’s a huge cathedral being built somewhere in my city, and I just recently found out that it was being built within the perimeter of the seat of government… talk about caesaropapism, now they made it official! In high school there was a sort of essay I had to make for the religious education class I had been forced into, and when I said I was going to write on Church activity during the Communist era, all the teachers were on me to coerce me into only highlighting how badly the Church got oppressed by the regime, and not mentioning a word on all the collaboration some priests did with it. Apparently my business there was earning them sympathy. This is about how much power they have.
Interesting how you connect historical decentralization to the onset of the Middle Ages, thus claiming that Eastern Orthodoxy is not even medieval (I never really thought of how there might have been no exact Eastern European equivalent to the medieval era, just took the whole thing chronologically), and then that to a betterment in the intellectual condition of the populace. Some people say that, from a sociological point of view, it was Orthodoxy holding us back; just like how (I think) Weber claimed that Protestantism favoured the development of capitalism in the West (mostly countries with a Germanic language, it seems to me), so it might be that some specifically Orthodox paradigms which bled into non-religious aspects of life were what stopped Eastern Europe from witnessing the same rhythm of development as Western or Central or even Southern Europe. I don’t know what those are, but it doesn’t seem implausible to me.
I think what I proposed is a factor, but it does not explain everything. While the medieval decentralisation of Germany, Italy, or even France (where Burgundy could wage war against his liege and it was not really seen as something abnormal, or how pairage / peerage meant in a sense being equal to the king), Hungary was about as Catholic as it comes and yet it was more centralized, at the very least beginning with the Anjou era in Hungary, Caroberto. In fact the Hungarian pattern seems similar to the Eastern Orthodox one, just Catholicized. E.g. at 20th Aug the birthday of the country the embalmed right hand of King Saint Stephen is carried around in a procession by bishops. A very clear unity of throne and altar.
I think the chain of causality is closer to factor X → decentralisation, weakening of state power → religion keeps some distance from the state, rather than religious statism preserving the strength of the state. But I have no idea what the factor X may be.
That’s a pretty great explanation on how the Eastern Orthodox get to be so weird. When Church and State become really closely related both get pretty effed up. I like that you pointed out Byzantium was the continuation of the Roman Empire and thus had caesars/ basileoi and a pretty hierarchical social structure. Your byzantine history is spot on. I guess education didn’t improve much since their monastic orders were into mystical theology.Thanks for the lesson!
The American Orthodox Churches are not nearly as weird and tend to be a little more intellectually sophisticated and democratic. One their best writers is David Bentley Hart. He’s actually a pretty good thinker to wrestle with. If you, like me, prefer reading each factions best thinkers, I’d read some him.
I think there is always a distinction between the folk version of a religion and its intelligentsia. The same goes for all factions I assume. From capitalism and communism to Baptists and Democrats, there are always the ruddy followers and the intelligent skeptics.