Culture, structure, and rational interests in interdenominational networking: a case study of Romanian Orthodox Seminarians

ABSTRACT

This article is a snapshot of the current attitudes manifested by the Romanian Orthodox seminarians towards interdenominational networking from the perspectives of individual interests, cultural representation, and institutional structure. Using the interdenominational networking as a social platform, the article considers the tension between rational choice and structuralism, whereby an Orthodox seminarian navigates between individual interests and institutional constrains; while also instrumentalizing cultural representation. For this purpose, a face-to-face survey was administered to 133 Protestant and Orthodox seminarians in Romania enrolled as fulltime students in the pastoral theology programmes at five theological seminaries. The contribution of this research lies in the fact that the data we collected and analysed serves as a social barometer revealing not only the restrained attitudes of the Romanian Orthodox seminarians towards interdenominational networking, but also their inability to bypass the deep-seated religious prejudice due to indoctrination and competition for credibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Culture
• interdenominational networking
• Romanian orthodox seminarians
• rational choice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Campus France Partenariats Hubert Curien, grant number ‘36902ZH’.

Notes on contributors

Mihaela-Alexandra Tudor

Mihaela-Alexandra Tudor is Associate Professor Habilitate at Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3, France. Her research focuses on religion and new spiritualties through the prism of mediatisation, secularisation and public sphere, new forms of recomposition of religion under the impact of emerging media, cultural analysis of interreligious networking and dialogue, radicalisation.

Denise Elaine Burrill Simion

Denise Elaine Burrill Simion is Assistant Professor in the School of Business and Technology of Fitchburg State University, in USA, and Associate Researcher at the Corhis Research Center of Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3, in France, where she received her PhD. Her research focuses on management information systems, religious phenomena, interreligious networking and dialogue, culture, organisations and communication.