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Abstract
This article questions the sociological and theological relevance of the consecrated but contested term ‘Orthodox diaspora’. Based on Robert Cohen's theory of diaspora in sociology of migrations, it shows that the ethnically diverse Orthodox communities in the west, generated by various migration contexts, fail to form a unique religious diaspora, above all because Orthodoxy does not operate as a coagulator of consciousness and agency among these different ethnic communities. The article further demonstrates that the concept of diaspora is also incompatible with Orthodox theology, at the eschatological and ecclesiological level; yet, in practice, the Orthodox Church has experienced deviations from these theological foundations, adopting diasporic patterns of functioning. Given the inappropriateness of the diaspora paradigm to describe the Orthodox presence in the west, the article concludes that there is a need for a terminological solution which is more consistent with the sociological reality and the theological basis of the Orthodox Church.
Notes
1Oriental Orthodox migrants (Armenian, Coptic, Syrian, Malankara Indian, Ethiopian and Eritrean), though more numerous on the American continent, are also an important Orthodox presence in Western Europe. They differ from the Eastern Orthodox (Greek, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, etc.) in several respects: first, their expatriate experience is more often than not linked with religious persecution in their homeland. Second, unlike Eastern Orthodox populations, these migrants inherit a strong consciousness as religious minorities, so they relate differently to a non-Orthodox context. Third, the experience of religious persecution in the homeland also generates a stronger link between religion and ethnicity, which is reproduced in diaspora. Fourth, throughout their history, the Oriental Orthodox Churches have gone through internal schisms, some of which occurred in diaspora contexts. The comparison between Eastern and Oriental Orthodox ways of relating to ‘diaspora’ could form an article in itself. Moreover, there are theological differences between these two Orthodox families. I therefore limit my account to the Eastern Orthodox here.
2I selected these four ethnic communities because they are the most numerous and most active Orthodox dispersed in the west.
3I intentionally left aside the Orthodox presence in America because it is a very complex situation, as it evolves into an autocephalous church.
4This research project is entitled ‘Dimensions of integration of the Orthodox communities in Switzerland’; it is directed by Professor François Hainard, University of Neuchâtel.
5Vertovec, ‘Religion and Diaspora’.
6Vertovec, ‘Three Meanings of “Diaspora”’.
7Schnapper, ‘De L’Etat-Nation au monde transnational’.
8Dufoix, Les diasporas; Baumann, ‘Diaspora: Genealogies of Semantics and Transcultural Comparison’.
9Cohen, Global Diasporas.
10Marienstras, ‘On the Notion of Diaspora’.
11Cohen, Global Diasporas, 189.
12Vertovec, ‘Religion and Diaspora’.
13Hinnells, ‘The Study of Diaspora Religion’, 686.
14Several difficult political contexts: the communist persecution in Eastern Europe, starting with the October 1917 Revolution in Russia and continuing on into the aftermath of World War II in Romania and Serbia; ethnic cleansing in Turkey and expulsion of the Greeks from Asia Minor in the 1920s; the Colonels' dictatorship in Greece in the 1970s; Nasser making Greeks flee from Egypt; the fall of communism in Russia and Romania; the disentanglement of Yugoslavia and the subsequent wars.
15Bruneau, ‘L'Eglise orthodoxe et la diaspora hellénique’; Struve, Soixante-dix ans d'émigration russe.
16Bruneau, ‘L'Eglise orthodoxe et la diaspora hellénique’.
17Prévélakis, ‘Les relations entre l'Etat grec et la diaspora’; Roudometof, ‘Transnationalism and Globalization’.
18I do not imply that there is a clear continuity between the ancient Greek dispersion experience and the present Greek expatriate community.
19Vertovec, ‘Three Meanings of “Diaspora”’.
21Many parishes are reluctant to introduce the local language into their liturgical life, despite its higher accessibility to youth, converts or non-Orthodox spouses attending services. This is not due only to an alleged ethnocentrism, but also because Orthodox theological terminology is difficult to translate into languages that did not develop in an Orthodox environment. This explains why French and English Orthodox prayer books and service translations are abundant in Greek or Slavonic words.
20Some examples of common agency: the creation of para-ecclesiastical structures that gather Orthodox regardless of their ethnic origin (e.g. Fraternité Orthodoxe in France, AGOK in Switzerland, the Orthodox Fellowship of Saint John the Baptist in the UK); a pan-Orthodox youth movement (Syndesmos) and other national ones with pan-Orthodox vocation (ACER, Nepsis); annual conferences, spiritual retreats; websites (www.orthodoxie.com; www.orthodoxie.ch; www.orthodoxengland.org.uk; www.orthodoxie.be). Further research is needed in order to provide more precise data on the number and ethnic belonging of the Orthodox involved in these structures and activities and on their efficiency on the European scale (and not only on a country or diocesan level).
22Unfortunately, consistent quantitative and qualitative data about Orthodox converts are not available.
23For instance, in Paris one can find at least five Orthodox bishops (Romanian, Antiochian, Constantinopolitan, Russian and Serbian) each exercising jurisdiction over their national flock in the city. This contradicts a basic principle of Orthodox ecclesiology –‘one territory, one bishop’ – resulting in some kind of ecclesiastical cacophony, which I shall discuss later in this paper.
24Daldas calls this ‘political orthodoxies’ (see Daldas, ‘Le statut de la diaspora orthodoxe’).
25The Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), the Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe (Exarchate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate).
26Perhaps ‘strategy' is not the exact word to describe Orthodox Churches’ agency. It implies an elaborate plan of action, which most of the time Orthodox Churches do not afford as they are still in the process of organising their pastoral life and responding to emergency situations.
27This derives from the fact that the Orthodox Church believes that the west was also Orthodox before the split of Christianity into the Roman Catholic west and Eastern Orthodox east. The rift of west and east had started before the official divorce in 1054 and it did not become widely applicable until the fifteenth century (see Ware, The Orthodox Church).
28The Orthodox Institute in Chambésy, Switzerland, is part of the Orthodox Centre initiated by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The aim of this centre is to stimulate inter-Orthodox and inter-Christian dialogue.
29Vertovec, ‘Religion and Diaspora’.
30Orthodox did not have the financial resources to build their own churches, according to traditional architecture and interior decoration with iconostasis and hagiographic frescoes; as an alternative, they rent Catholic or Protestant churches, which they cannot transform in order to make an authentic Orthodox sacred space.
31Hinnels, ‘The Study of Diaspora Religion’.
32Baumann, ‘Diaspora’.
33Quoting, on a specific issue, authors who lived and wrote in very different historical contexts may be surprising for the western reader. But for Orthodox theology, this is a customary methodological principle.
34I am most grateful to Pascal Hämmerli for his extensive knowledge of the Bible. He helped me identify the biblical texts for this section.
35The ethnically and religiously diverse populations in the Ottoman Empire were administered as separate nations (millet), defined by religious affiliation (see Hirschon, ‘Dismantling the Millet).
36Evdokimov, L'Orthodoxie, 130.
37The metropolitan was a bishop of a big city (metropolis); the title of ‘patriarch’ was first applied to the original three major sees of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, and shortly after extended to include Constantinople and Jerusalem. These major centres of early Christianity, founded by the apostles, were looked to by their respective regions as leaders in church life, and eventually their bishops came to be regarded as the primates of their areas. Later, the title of ‘patriarch’ was granted to other primates of autocephalous churches (Romanian, Serbian, Russian, etc.). See Ware, The Orthodox Church.
38Papathomas, ‘La Relation d'opposition’.
39Ware, The Orthodox Church.
40Métropolite Jean de Pergame (Zizioulas), L'Eucharistie, L'Evêque et L'Eglise.
41Cyprian of Carthage, L'unité de l'Eglise.
42Ware, The Orthodox Church.
43Métropolite Jean de Pergame (Zizioulas), L'Eucharistie, L'Evêque et L'Eglise.
45Ware, The Orthodox Church.
44Ignatius, ‘Lettre aux Philadelphiens’.
46Evdokimov, L'Orthodoxie.
47With the massive spread of Christianity, the bishops delegated the authority of celebrating the Eucharist to the presbyters (Métropolite Jean de Pergame).
48Schmemann, ‘Problems of Orthodoxy in America’.
49Ware, The Orthodox Church.
50Métropolite Jean de Pergame (Zizioulas), L'Eucharistie, L'Evêque et L'Eglise.
51Canon 8 of Nicaea I: ‘[…] For in one church there shall not be two bishops’.
52Canon 12 of Chalcedon: ‘It has come to our knowledge that certain persons, contrary to the laws of the Church, having had recourse to secular powers, have by means of imperial prescripts divided one Province into two, so that there are consequently two metropolitans in one province; therefore the Holy Synod has decreed that for the future no such thing shall be attempted by a bishop, since he who shall undertake it shall be degraded from his rank.’
53Papathomas, ‘La Relation d'opposition’.
55Papathomas, ‘La Relation d'opposition’.
56‘Rules of Operation of Episcopal Assemblies in the Orthodox Diaspora’ (Article 2) of the Fourth Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference, Chambésy, June 2009.
57See letter of the Romanian Patriarchate to the Romanian diaspora, dated February 11, 2010 (www.orthodoxie.com; http://www.basilica.ro/en/news/appeal_to_unity_and_romanian_dignity.html). Following the example of the Serbian and Russian Churches, the Romanian Orthodox Church calls upon Romanians from all over the world to leave parishes of other Orthodox autocephalous churches which they might have joined without the blessing of the local Romanian bishop/ priest, and return to Romanian parishes, in token of ‘Romanian unity and dignity’.
58I thank Jean-François Meyer for having drawn my attention to this new tendency in a private communication.
59Kishkovsky, ‘Orthodoxy in America’.
60‘Following in every detail the decrees of the holy fathers, and taking cognizance of the canon just read of the 150 bishops dearly beloved of God who gathered under Theodosius the Great, emperor of pious memory, in the imperial city of Constantinople, New Rome, we ourselves have also decreed and voted the same things concerning the prerogatives of the most holy Church of the same Constantinople, New Rome. For the fathers rightly acknowledged the prerogatives of the throne of the Elder Rome because it was the Imperial City, and moved by the same consideration the 150 bishops beloved of God awarded the same prerogatives to the most holy throne of the New Rome, rightly judging that the city which is honoured by the imperial authority and the senate and enjoys the same prerogatives as the imperial city of the Elder Rome, should also be magnified in ecclesiastical matters as she is, being second after her. Consequently, the metropolitans – and they alone – of the dioceses of Pontus, Asia and Thrace, as well as the bishops of the aforementioned dioceses who are among the barbarians, shall be ordained by the aforementioned most holy throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople. Each metropolitan of the aforementioned dioceses, along with his fellow-bishops of the province, ordains the bishops of the province, as has been provided for in the canons; but the metropolitans of the aforementioned dioceses, as has been stated, shall be ordained by the archbishop of Constantinople, after proper elections have been made according to custom and have been reported to him.’
54Some Orthodox consider the Pope's jurisdiction as heterodox; others use the more neutral term of ‘uncanonical’; a third possibility (Papathomas) is to interpret this situation as a break of communion, whose restoration is expected with the progression of Orthodox-Catholic theological dialogue.
62Ibid.
61Papathomas, ‘La Relation d'opposition'.
63Meyendorff, Living Tradition.
64Papathomas, Le Patriarcat Œcuménique de Constantinople.
65Eγ comes from ϵκ, which means ‘from’; κατα indicates a top–down movement; σπoρα is ‘dispersion’. This could be the equivalent of ‘implantation’ or ‘transplantation’, which, botanically, evokes the idea that a plant is taken from its original soil and placed in new ground, where it adapts and continues to grow.