Orthodox Churches and Politics in Southeastern Europe Nationalism, Conservativism, and Intolerance

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN RELIGION, POLITICS, AND POLICY Orthodox Churches and Politics in Southeastern Europe Nationalism, Conservativism, and Intolerance Edited by Sabrina P. Ramet Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy Series Editor Mark J. Rozell Schar School of Policy and Government George Mason University Arlington, VA, USA This series originated under the co-editorship of the late Ted Jelen and Mark J. Rozell. A generation ago, many social scientists regarded religion as an anachronism, whose social, economic, and political importance would inevitably wane and disappear in the face of the inexorable forces of modernity. Of course, nothing of the sort has occurred; indeed, the public role of religion is resurgent in US domestic politics, in other nations, and in the international arena. Today, religion is widely acknowledged to be a key variable in candidate nominations, plat- forms, and elections; it is recognized as a major infuence on domestic and foreign policies. National religious movements as diverse as the Christian Right in the United States and the Taliban in Afghanistan are important factors in the inter- nal politics of particular nations. Moreover, such transnational religious actors as Al-Qaida, Falun Gong, and the Vatican have had important effects on the politics and policies of nations around the world. Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy serves a growing niche in the discipline of political science. This subfeld has proliferated rapidly during the past two decades, and has generated an enormous amount of scholarly studies and journalistic coverage. Five years ago, the jour- nal Politics and Religion was created; in addition, works relating to religion and politics have been the subject of many articles in more general academic journals. The number of books and monographs on religion and politics has increased tre- mendously. In the past, many social scientists dismissed religion as a key variable in politics and government. This series casts a broad net over the subfeld, provid- ing opportunities for scholars at all levels to publish their works with Palgrave. The series publishes monographs in all subfelds of political science, including American Politics, Public Policy, Public Law, Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Political Theory. The principal focus of the series is the public role of religion. “Religion” is construed broadly to include public opinion, religious institutions, and the legal frameworks under which religious politics are practiced. The “depend- ent variable” in which we are interested is politics, defned broadly to include anal- yses of the public sources and consequences of religious belief and behavior. These would include matters of public policy, as well as variations in the practice of political life. We welcome a diverse range of methodological perspectives, provided that the approaches taken are intellectually rigorous. The series does not deal with works of theology, in that arguments about the validity or utility of religious beliefs are not a part of the series focus. Similarly, the authors of works about the private or personal consequences of religious belief and behavior, such as personal happiness, mental health, or family dysfunction, should seek other outlets for their writings. Although historical perspectives can often illuminate our understanding of modern political phenomena, our focus in the Religion, Politics, and Policy series is on the relationship between the sacred and the political in contemporary societies. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14594 Sabrina P. Ramet Editor Orthodox Churches and Politics in Southeastern Europe Nationalism, Conservativism, and Intolerance Editor Sabrina P. Ramet Department of Sociology and Political Science Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim, Norway Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy ISBN 978-3-030-24138-4 ISBN 978-3-030-24139-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24139-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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PREFACE When compared to the Catholic and Protestant Churches of various denominations, Orthodox Churches have retained the loyalty of larger proportions of their respective national populations and have remained more uniformly conservative and more connected to nationalism. Of course, one can look to Poland, Croatia,1 and Slovakia2 for examples of post-socialist states where declared religiosity among Catholics remains high (above 80% in the cases of Poland and Croatia). But a wide-ranging survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2015–2016 in seven post-socialist countries found that belief that there is a God was highest in Romania, Bosnia–Herzegovina, and Serbia, followed by Croatia and Poland (tied for fourth place). Where tolerance of homosexuality was concerned, the percentage of people who felt that homosexuality was morally wrong was highest in Romania (82%), Bosnia–Herzegovina (81%), Serbia (69%), and Bulgaria (58%), with somewhat lower fgures in Croatia (49%) and Poland (48%).3 Even more striking perhaps is the fact that while declared religiosity declined somewhat in Poland in the years 1991–2015, from 96% in the earlier year to 87% in 2015, in Bulgaria the proportion of adults describing themselves as Orthodox Christians actu- ally rose from 59% in 1991 to 75% in 2015.4 The question arises how to account for the tendency in Orthodox countries to maintain higher levels of religiosity than Catholic countries. A comparison of rates of religiosity with rates of urbanization, education, and intolerance of homosexuality is revealing (Table 1). vii viii PREFACE Table 1 Rates of religiosity, urbanization, education, homophobia (2015–2016)a Belief in God % homophobic Educationb % urbanization Romania 95 82 3.1 54 Bosnia–Herzegovina 94 81 N/A 48.2 Serbia 87 69 3.9 56.1 Bulgaria 77 58 4.1 75 Hungary 59 53 4.6 71.4 Croatia 86 49 4.6 56.9 Poland 86 48 4.8 60.1 Czechia 29 21 5.8 73.8 aRates for belief in God and homophobia derived from the Pew study, 2015–2016. Other fgures derived from the CIA World Factbook on 7 April 2019 and refected the latest data bProportion of the GDP spent on education What is immediately apparent is that there is a 100% correlation between belief in God and the conviction that homosexuality is morally wrong as well as an inverse correlation with the percentage of GDP spent on education. In other words, the better educated people are, the less likely they are to believe in God and the more likely they are to be accepting of homosexuality. By contrast, the level of urbanization is a less certain guide, even if the country with the highest rate of urbanization, the Czech Republic, is also the least religious and the most tolerant of homosexuality. There have been a number of volumes devoted to the Orthodox Church published in recent years, among them two edited by Lucian Leustean, who has contributed the afterword to this volume.5 It is our collective hope, nonetheless, that, by focusing on the themes of conserv- atism, nationalism, and intolerance, we may shed some additional light on the world of Orthodoxy. Saksvik, Norway Sabrina P. Ramet April 2019 PREFACE ix NOTES 1. “Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe,” Pew Research Center, 10 May 2017, at http://www.pewfo- rum.org/2017/05/10/religious-belief-and-national-belonging-in-central-and-eastern-europe/ [last accessed on 7 April 2019]. 2. Kelsey Jo Starr, “Once the Same Nation, the Czech Republic and Slovakia Look Very Different Religiously,” Pew Research Center, 2 January 2019, at https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/02/once-the-same- nation-the-czech-republic-and-slovakia-look-very-different-religiously/ [accessed on 7 April 2019]. 3. “Religious Belief and National Belonging.” 4. Ibid. 5. Lucian Leustean (ed.), Eastern Christianity and the Cold War, 1945–91 (London: Routledge, 2010); and Lucian Leustean (ed.), Eastern Christianity and Politics

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