Monika Frėjutė-Rakauskienė, Andrius Marcinkevičius
{"title":"Orthodox Christians in Lithuania: Ethnicity, Language and Ethnoreligious Identity","authors":"Monika Frėjutė-Rakauskienė, Andrius Marcinkevičius","doi":"10.1163/18748929-bja10106","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article we will examine how ethnicity (Russians and Russian speakers of mixed ethnic identities) and religion (Orthodoxy) interact and construct ethnoreligious identity in the case of Orthodox Christians in Lithuania. To investigate these aspects, the article will draw on data from qualitative fieldwork (2019–2021) and the analysis of articles from the official journal of the archdiocese of Vilnius and Lithuania. We argue that for the Orthodox community in Lithuania, the historically established close links of Orthodoxy with Russian Orthodox tradition and Russian identity are important today. However, a significant part of the Lithuanian Orthodox community identifies with the global (Byzantium) and/or local (Grand Duchy of Lithuania) Orthodox tradition and faces the challenge of including the Lithuanian language in religious education and practices.</p>","PeriodicalId":42630,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Europe","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Religion in Europe","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18748929-bja10106","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In this article we will examine how ethnicity (Russians and Russian speakers of mixed ethnic identities) and religion (Orthodoxy) interact and construct ethnoreligious identity in the case of Orthodox Christians in Lithuania. To investigate these aspects, the article will draw on data from qualitative fieldwork (2019–2021) and the analysis of articles from the official journal of the archdiocese of Vilnius and Lithuania. We argue that for the Orthodox community in Lithuania, the historically established close links of Orthodoxy with Russian Orthodox tradition and Russian identity are important today. However, a significant part of the Lithuanian Orthodox community identifies with the global (Byzantium) and/or local (Grand Duchy of Lithuania) Orthodox tradition and faces the challenge of including the Lithuanian language in religious education and practices.
期刊介绍:
The peer-reviewed Journal of Religion in Europe (JRE) provides a forum for multi-disciplinary research into the complex dynamics of religious discourses and practices in Europe, both historically and contemporary. The Journal’s underlying idea is that religion in Europe is characterized by a variety of pluralisms. There is a pluralism of religious communities that actively engage with one another; there exists a pluralism of societal systems, such as nation, law, politics, economy, science, and art, all of them interacting with religious systems; finally, in a pluralism of scholarly discourses religious studies, legal studies, history, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and psychology are addressing the religious dynamics involved.