Among the book’s many themes are several critiques on the influence of Western liberalism in the Orthodox East. The critiques examine how some governments attempt to use that influence to divide the religions for geopolitical purposes.

In 2013, the Orthodox Christian Studies Center sponsored a conference on the subject as part of the Patterson Triennial Conference Series, which seeks to bridge the Orthodox/Catholic divide. Many of the conference’s participants contributed to the book, which was co-edited by the center’s co-directors, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., the Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture, and George E. Demacopoulos, Ph.D., the Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies.

Papanikolaou said that the book, like the conference, attempted to cut through much of the “identity construction” that occurred in Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism. The new order forced traditionally Eastern Orthodox countries to grapple with the relationship between Christianity and liberal democracy. The book features essays by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox theologians reflecting on the post-communist Orthodox world and in Western political theology.

“The Christianization of the Roman Empire continues to cast its shadow over political theology,” said Demacopoulos. “It would seem that Christianity should have this easy relationship with liberalism, but it’s not that simple.”

He said that for many years ambivalence toward liberalism prevailed on the part of the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, but liberalism’s focus on the individual has its critics.

“Some of liberalism’s values are antithetical to Christian values,” he said. “The critics aren’t against democracy per se, but many believe we should keep a strong distance to certain kinds of concepts. Even though Christianity is almost seen as the source of liberalism, there seems to be a Christian backlash to something it created.”

On the Catholic front, Papanikolaou noted that Pope Francis supports democracy and isn’t looking to engage in a cultural war, but the pope also takes a critical stance toward liberalism as it relates to issues of sexual morality and neglect of the poor.

But in many Eastern countries where Orthodoxy prevails, governments that once shunned the Orthodox Church now see political opportunities to embrace the church as way to distinguish national identity. Nowhere is this more evident than in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, said Papanikolaou. So liberal values, such as same sex marriage, are seen as wedge issue opportunities.

“Putin saw this advantage to create this East/West division, and homosexuality became this global red line,” he said. “Russia is declaring that we’re not going to accept this.”

And the Russians are not alone, he said. The Orthodox Church in Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece, where the separation of the church and society is somewhat blurred, have all adopted a hard-line tone against liberalism.

“They’re following the Russian lead in calling out that Western civilization has lost its way and promotes immorality,” he said. “The governments are using traditional values as a way to carve out this difference between them and the West, and the churches are seeing it as their role too.”

He noted that there are many Catholic theologians who react strongly against what they see as an ideology of the West. And there are Orthodox theologians, like Archbishop Anastasios of Albania, who are more supportive of human rights discourse.

“The book offers conversation of all these different points of view,” said Papanikolaou. “While there are a lot of Orthodox Christians that are troubled by it, that doesn’t mean that the church should be used in the way of a political divide.”

“He ensconced himself on the ambo in the center of the Royal Doors and delivered a thoroughly secular speech extolling the fatherland and the church’s role in bolstering the fatherland,” said Father Galadza, the Kule Family Professor of Liturgy at Saint Paul University, Ottawa.

“Even during the Romanov era the czar has never been allowed to speak from holy space of the Royal Doors.”

That “political intrusion into the sacred” became symbolic of the religious undertones of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which was the topic of an Orthodox Christian Studies Center discussion at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus on Nov. 4.

“Putin’s campaign in Ukraine is tragic because the natural goodwill between Ukrainians and Russians that had predominated during period of Ukrainian independence is now being sorely tested,” Father Galadza said.

Because of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians’ close ties to Russia, the Russian government has often employed religion to pursue its political aims, including fanning nationalistic flames within religious communities and even bringing criminal charges against clergy to pressure religious leaders.

“The fear is that Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church will swallow the Ukrainian Orthodox Church through the Moscow Patriarchate and bring Ukraine that way into Russia,” said Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, the chief rabbi of Kiev and all of Ukraine.

Rabbi Bleich gave the example of his own experience in a government-organized group called the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations.

“We would come to meetings once a month and talk about essentially nothing because the agenda was set by government people,” Rabbi Bleich said about the organization, which has since claimed independence. “Basically, government took all the religious leaders, created an organization for us, then locked us in a room and threw away the key.”

The use of religion is just one smokescreen Putin has created to shape the ongoing conflict, said Adrian Karatnycky, nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council. Another is to spread propaganda casting it as a “civil war.”

“By now it may have the elements of a civil war, but it is a civil war that was constructed from outside,” Karatnycky said. “There were only a few thousand people disgruntled and engaged in protest at first. Then there was a wave of trained fighters who came to reinforce them. Now this is a fight by a new group of people empowered by money and weapons from the Kremlin.”

In reality, the conflict is a military incursion, not a civil conflict, panelists said.

“There is no civil war. It’s a bunch of terrorists who are getting arms from people who have an interest in retaining the situation,” said Rabbi Bleich.

“People ask, ‘When will there be peace?’ It won’t be with Putin.”

The event was co-sponsored through gifts received from the Jaharis Family Foundation, Inc. and the Nicholas J. and Anna K. Bouras Foundation, Inc.

— Joanna K. Mercuri

“He ensconced himself on the ambo in the center of the Royal Doors and delivered a thoroughly secularly speech extoling the fatherland and the church’s role in bolstering the fatherland,” said Father Galadza, the Kule Family Professor of Liturgy at Saint Paul University, Ottawa.

“Even during Romanov era the czar has never been allowed to speak from holy space of the Royal Doors.”

That “political intrusion into the sacred” became symbolic of the religious undertones of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which was the topic of an Orthodox Christian Studies Center discussion at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus on Nov. 4.

“Putin’s campaign in Ukraine is tragic because the natural goodwill between Ukrainians and Russians that had predominated during period of Ukrainian independence is now being sorely tested,” Father Galadza said.

Because of the close ties between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox Churches, the Russian government has often employed religion to pursue its political aims, including fanning nationalistic flames within religious communities and even bringing criminal charges against clergy to pressure religious leaders.

“The fear is that Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church will swallow the Ukrainian Orthodox Church through the Moscow Patriarchate and bring Ukraine that way into Russia,” said Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, the chief rabbi of Kiev and all of Ukraine.

Rabbi Bleich gave the example of his own experience in a government-organized group called the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations.

“We would come to meetings once a month and talk about essentially nothing because the agenda was set by government people,” Rabbi Bleich said about the organization, which has since claimed independence. “Basically, government took all the religious leaders, created an organization for us, then locked us in a room and threw away the key.”

The use of religion is just one smokescreen Putin has created to shape the ongoing conflict, said Adrian Karatnycky, nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council. Another is to spread propaganda casting it as a “civil war.”

“By now it may have the elements of a civil war, but it is a civil war that was constructed from outside,” Karatnycky said. “There were only a few thousand people disgruntled and engaged in protest at first. Then there was a wave of trained fighters who came to reinforce them. Now this is a fight by a new group of people empowered by money and weapons from the Kremlin.”

In reality, the conflict is a military incursion, not a civil conflict, panelists said.

“There is no civil war. It’s a bunch of terrorists who are getting arms from people who have an interest in retaining the situation,” said Rabbi Bleich.

“People ask, ‘When will there be peace?’ It won’t be with Putin. Putin doesn’t want peace now. He wants the situation to stay the way it is — instability, a war economy, not allowing Ukraine to develop into a thriving democracy with its own economy, which will could dominate Russia.”

The panel featured:

• Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, chief rabbi of Kiev and all of Ukraine and vice president (Ukraine) of the World Jewish Congress;
• Father Peter Galadza, the Kule Family Professor of Liturgy at the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies at Saint Paul University, Ottawa;
• Father Cyril Hovorun, research fellow at Yale Divinity School;
• Adrian Karatnycky, nonresident senior fellow at the Transatlantic Relations Program with the Atlantic Council;
• Olena Nikolayenko, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science at Fordham; and
• Moderator Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., the Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture and cofounder of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.

The panel discussion was co-sponsored through gifts received from the Jaharis Family Foundation, Inc., the Nicholas J. and Anna K. Bouras Foundation, Inc., and the Office of Alumni Relations at Fordham.

Will sanctions against Putin’s inner circle succeed in provoking regime change? And if so, will Putin’s replacement be any better?

A lively panel discussion on Monday, Sept. 22 at Fordham’s School of Law, laid bare the bind that the U.S. and its allies face when it comes to how to deal with Russia in the years ahead.

“Back to the Future of U.S.-Russia Relations,” featured Stephen Sestanovich, Ph.D., professor at Columbia University, Kimberly Marten, Ph.D., professor at Barnard College, and Mark Galeotti, Ph.D., professor at New York University. Stephen Holmes, Ph.D., professor at New York University School of Law, served as moderator.

Panelists spent a great deal of time debating the best way to counter the sway that Putin exerts on the Russian elite. His decision to annex Crimea and send troops into Eastern Ukraine, are clearly meant to be challenges to international institutions such as the United Nations, which Galeotti noted he despises for being too dominated by Western interests.

“From Putin’s point of view, he’s happy to see Russians sacrifice their day-to-day quality of life, if in the process they regain some sort of Russian-ness,” he said.

“He wants to ensure that Europe is not in a position to flout Russian interests within what he regards as Russian’s sphere of interest.”

The biggest disagreement revolved around sanctions that the United States and Europe have recently imposed on Russian businesses and leaders.

Martin argued that it’s not clear what Russia would have to do to get them lifted, it’s not clear whether any of the things we would like Russia to do are possible, and for them to be successful, they have to be as severe as those that are currently being imposed on Iran.

“In terms of what the goal is in Russia, it’s not clear either. Is it to separate Putin from his networks so that they’ll put pressure on him? Who would provide for their needs better than Putin is providing for them?” she said.

“It’s just cementing a really ugly form of anti-west nationalism, that now the west is once again picking on us, so let’s all get together on this.”

Sestanovich said if there’s something wrong with sanctions, it’s that there haven’t been enough of them.

“It seems to me that we should also establish the precedent that serious cooperation is possible. We shouldn’t write that off,” he said.

Martin cautioned that a replacement for Putin might be no better than he is; a point that Galeotti took issue with. He noted that Nikita Kruschev and Margaret Thatcher are good historical examples of times when countries’ elites judged their leader to be a problem rather than an asset, and forced them to step down.

“I’m not sure the next person is likely to be worse. We’re not talking about Libya. We’re not talking about a place where we bomb the snot out of countries and hope suddenly that democratic leaders rise from the rubble,” he said.

At the same time, all the panelists agreed that Russia’s foray into Eastern Ukraine illustrated a stunning level of over-reach on Putin’s part. Sestanovich said that had Russia only seized Crimea, it probably would have gotten away with it, while
Marten noted that the incursion had re-invigorated the NATO alliance, which isn’t in his interest.

It helps to remember that Putin’s a judo master, not a chess player, she said, because judo masters go into every round as if it’s a new one.

“To be the winner of a judo match, you don’t have to be the stronger person, you have to be the cleverer person. You have to know more about your opponent more than your opponent knows about you, and have to get your opponent to fall from his own weight,” she said.

“I believe that’s how Putin approaches every interaction with the west, and so I don’t think even he knows what how long term strategy is in Ukraine.”

The evening was sponsored by the Center on National Security at Fordham Law and PEN America.