Women and Religiosity in Orthodox Christianity fills a significant gap in the sociology of religious practice: Studies focused on women’s religiosity have overlooked Orthodox populations, while studies of Orthodox practice (operating within the dominant theological, historical, and sociological framework) have remained gender-blind.
The essays in this collection shed new light on the women who make up a considerable majority of the Orthodox population by engaging women’s lifeworlds, practices, and experiences in relation to their religion in multiple, varied localities, discussing both contemporary and pre-1989 developments. These contributions critically engage the pluralist and changing character of Orthodox institutional and social life by using feminist epistemologies and drawing on original ethnographic research to account for Orthodox women’s previously ignored perspectives, knowledges, and experiences.
Combining the depth of ethnographic analysis with geographical breadth and employing a variety of research methodologies, this book expands our understanding of Orthodox Christianity by examining Orthodox women of diverse backgrounds in different settings: parishes, monasteries, and the secular spaces of everyday life, and under shifting historical conditions and political regimes. In defiance of claims that Orthodox Christianity is immutable and fixed in time, these essays argue that continuity and transformation can be found harmoniously in social practices, demographic trends, and larger material contexts at the intersection between gender, Orthodoxy, and locality.
Contributors : Kristin Aune, Milica Bakic-Hayden, Maria Bucur, Ketevan Gurchiani, James Kapaló, Helena Kupari, Ina Merdjanova, Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, Eleni Sotiriou, Tatiana Tiaynen-Qadir, Detelina Tocheva
Table of Content
Women in Orthodox Christianity: A Foreword | vii
Kristin Aune
Introduction | 1
Ina Merdjanova
Women and Greek Orthodoxy in the Twenty-First Century: Charting Elements of Change | 15
Eleni Sotiriou
Women, Orthodox Christianity, and Neosecularization in Bulgaria | 50
Ina Merdjanova
Lay Women and the Transformation of Orthodox Christianity in Russia | 76
Detelina Tocheva
Women and the Georgian Orthodox Church | 101
Ketevan Gurchiani
Women and Orthodox Dissent: The Case of the Archangelist Underground
Movement in Soviet Moldavia | 129
James Kapaló
Gender and Religiosity in Communist Romania: Continuity and Change | 155
Maria Bucur
Doubly Neglected: Histories of Women Monastics in the Serbian Orthodox Church | 176
Milica Bakic-Hayden
Women as Agents of Glocalization in the Orthodox Church of Finland | 206
Helena Kupari and Tatiana Tiaynen-Qadir
Head Coverings, Vaccines, and Gender Politics:
Contentious Topics among Orthodox Christian Women in US-based Digital Spaces | 241
Sarah Riccardi-Swartz
Acknowledgments | 275
List of Contributors | 277
Index | 281
About the author
Ina Merdjanova is Visiting Professor at Coventry University’s Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations & Senior Researcher and Adjunct Assistant Professor in Religious Studies at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin. She has held visiting fellowships at Oxford University, New York University, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and Aleksanteri Institute at Helsinki University, among others. She is author of four books and numerous articles on religion and politics in post-communist society. Her recent publications include Religion as a Conversation Starter: Interreligious Dialogue for Peacebuilding in the Balkans, and Rediscovering the Umma: Muslims in the Balkans between Nationalism and Transnationalism.
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