Orthodox Christianity and the Politics of Transition

This book discusses in detail how Orthodox Christianity was involved in and influenced political transition in Ukraine Serbia and Georgia after the collapse of communism. Based on original research including extensive interviews with clergy and parishioners as well as historical legal and policy analysis the book argues that the nature of the involvement of churches in post-communist politics depended on whether the interests of the church (for example in education the legal system or economic activity) were accommodated or threatened: if accommodated churches confined themselves to the sacred domain; if threatened they engaged in daily politics. If churches competed with each other for organizational interests they evoked the support of nationalism while remaining within the religious domain.The Open Access version of this book available at taylorfrancis has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.