{"title":"The Internal Discussions in the Belarusian Orthodox Church on Identity and Policy Issues","authors":"S. Mudrov, Nikolay Zakharov","doi":"10.1163/18748929-bja10051","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Based on extensive fieldwork across Belarus, this article analyses an ongoing discussion within the Belarusian Orthodox Church (BOC) regarding various issues that are key in assessing the country’s identity politics and politico-ideological developments. Since the independence of Belarus in 1991, the Church has continuously played an important public and societal function. A special agreement, signed between the Church and Belarusian Government in 2003, has fostered Church cooperation with various governmental institutions, including educational establishments. Discussing the contribution of the BOC to the construction of a distinct Belarusian national identity, we will address the national language, relationships with the state, foreign policy orientation and the Church’s autocephaly. The empirical part of this study is based on seventeen in-depth interviews with clergymen and laypeople from the BOC. Our study shows that Church representatives have not hesitated to develop their profound perspectives on the important issues of identity politics and the relationships of the BOC and state, and these perspectives were often reflective of wider debates within Belarusian intellectual circles.","PeriodicalId":42630,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion in Europe","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Religion in Europe","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18748929-bja10051","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: 3
Abstract
Based on extensive fieldwork across Belarus, this article analyses an ongoing discussion within the Belarusian Orthodox Church (BOC) regarding various issues that are key in assessing the country’s identity politics and politico-ideological developments. Since the independence of Belarus in 1991, the Church has continuously played an important public and societal function. A special agreement, signed between the Church and Belarusian Government in 2003, has fostered Church cooperation with various governmental institutions, including educational establishments. Discussing the contribution of the BOC to the construction of a distinct Belarusian national identity, we will address the national language, relationships with the state, foreign policy orientation and the Church’s autocephaly. The empirical part of this study is based on seventeen in-depth interviews with clergymen and laypeople from the BOC. Our study shows that Church representatives have not hesitated to develop their profound perspectives on the important issues of identity politics and the relationships of the BOC and state, and these perspectives were often reflective of wider debates within Belarusian intellectual circles.
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.