Orthodox Anti-Westernism Today: A Hindrance to European Integration?

Abstract

Anti-Westernism is a widespread phenomenon in the Orthodox world today, particularly in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, expressed by numerous actors, manifested at various levels and operating in different contexts, religious and otherwise. Historically it can be traced back to the long-term differentiation between the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) and the Western Roman Empire, as well as between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchates. Because many Orthodox earlier used to identify Europe with the West, anti-Westernism is sometimes closely connected with anti-Europeanism. Drawing examples mostly from the Greek and Russian cases, this paper attempts to assess Orthodox anti-Westernism in its contemporary dimensions by pointing to its numerous antinomical manifestations, which can hardly render it an obstacle and a threat to European integration today.

Keywords:

• Orthodox Christianity
• Byzantium
• West
• Orthodox anti-Westernism
• Orthodox anti-Europeanism
• Greece
• Russia
• European Union (EU)
• European integration

Notes

¹Cf. Argyriou, Les exégèses, passim. This widespread belief among many Orthodox Christians is vividly described by Professor Savas Agourides (1921–2009). He recalls that during the Second World War his pious mother kept asking him if the Allies had finally bombarded Rome. The reason for this was her belief in some old prophecies predicting that Rome, as the seat of the Antichrist, would eventually be destroyed. See Agourides, ‘I Synodos’, 6.

²On this visit, see Seraïdari, ‘Le Pape’.

³Stricker, ‘Fear of Proselytism’.

⁴See the special issue of the review Religion, State and Society 28, no. 2 (June 1998).

⁵See Döpmann, ‘Bălgarskata Pravoslavna Tsărkva i Ikumenizmăt’, 240–3.

⁶Heller, Die Orthodoxen.

⁷Dalrymple, From the Holy Mountain, 9–10, 290–1, 301, 308–9; Clark, Why Angels Fall, 6–7, 64, 68–9, 81–4, 88, 99–101, 169, 191–2, 195–7, 232, 249–50, 286–7, 293, 297–309, 317–19, 331–2, 348–9, 373, 378–9, 386–92, 411–15.

⁸See various articles in Schubert, Serbien in Europa; Buchenau, Kämpfende Kirchen, 161–236.

⁹See various articles in Roudometof, Agadjanian and Pankhurst, Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age and Byrnes and Katzenstein, Religion in an Expanding Europe.

¹⁰See Dalrymple, From the Holy Mountain, 280.

¹¹Ibid., 280–1.

¹²Ibid., 308.

¹³See various articles in Schubert and Sundhaussen, Prowestliche und antiwestliche Diskurse.

¹⁴See Buruma and Margalit, Occidentalism.

¹⁵See the special issue of Religion, State and Society 37 (March/June 2009) on ‘Religion, Politics and Law in the European Union’.

¹⁶For a more extensive treatment of this topic, see Makrides and Uffelmann, ‘Studying Eastern Orthodox Anti-Westernism’.

¹⁷Kirill, ‘The Future of Europe’, 21–2.

¹⁸Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 157–63.

¹⁹Clogg, ‘The “Dhidhaskalia Patriki”’.

²⁰Makrides, ‘Greek Orthodox Compensatory Strategies’.

²¹Grübel and Smirnov, ‘Die Geschichte der russischen Kulturosophie’.

²²Agadjanian, ‘Public Religion’.

²³Lotman and Uspenskii, ‘Rol’ dual'nykh modelei'.

²⁴Wolff, The Enlightenment.

²⁵Hauptmann and Stricker, Die Orthodoxe Kirche in Rußland, 782–9; Stricker, Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov', 368–74; Pospelovskii, Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov', 364–71.

²⁶Michas, Unholy Alliance.

²⁷Makrides, ‘Greek Orthodox Fundamentalism’ and L'“autre” orthodoxie’; Selbach, ‘The Orthodox Church’, 147–51; Verkhovskii, Politicheskoe Pravoslavie; Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya.

²⁸Yannaras, ‘Orthodoxy and the West’, 72.

²⁹Knigge, ‘Aleksandr Solženicyn’.

³⁰For the Greek case, see Makrides, ‘Le rôle de l'Orthodoxie’.

³¹Bartholomée I, ‘Ici, au Patriarcat de Constantinople’.

³²Kotlyarov and Mudrov, ‘The Russian Orthodox Church’, 90–1.

³³ Donner une âme à l'Europe.

³⁴Mitrokhin, Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov', 185–90.

³⁵Selbach, ‘The Orthodox Church’, 165–73.

³⁶See Makrides, ‘Orthodoxe Kirchen’.

³⁷Cited in Prodromou, ‘Paradigms’, 130.

³⁸See the newspaper I Orthodoxia stin Ellada kai ston kosmo 48, September 1999, 11.

³⁹Nikolaos, Agion Oros, 125–39.

⁴⁰Tsakiris, Die gedruckten griechischen Beichtbücher.

⁴¹See the newspaper To Vima tis Kyriakis, 6 May 2001, A06.

⁴²Metallinos, Paradosi, 35, 65.

⁴³Yannaras, Orthodoxia, 162, n. 10.

⁴⁴Cf. also Ihor Ševčenko's remarks (The Many Worlds, 33–4) on the grave indictment of Peter Mohyla, Metropolitan of Kiev (1627–46), by the eminent Russian theologian Georges Florovsky and on his questioning of Mohyla's Orthodoxy.

⁴⁵Makrides, ‘Between Normality and Tension’.

⁴⁶Dobrijević, ‘Solidarity’, 330–2.

⁴⁷See, for example, Kalaitzidis, Papathanassiou and Ambatzidis, Anataraxeis; Kalaitzidis, Ellinikotita; Veniamin, Pravoslavie.

⁴⁸Uffelmann, Die russische Kulturosophie; Zimin, Evropotsentrizm.