I have been a scholar of Orthodox Christianity for more than 20 years; & authored or (co-)edited several books. It took the fall of communism to overcome the relative poverty of Western literature & gain better knowledge of the Orthodox religious landscape. Personally, I am interested in the relationship between Orthodoxy and culture/politics. This relationship runs deep into the heart of several Orthodox nations – as the war in Ukraine aptly demonstrates. By the 21st century, Orthodox Christianity is no longer exclusively affiliated with its historical birthplace of Eastern and Southeastern Europe but there are millions of Orthodox Christians in North America and Western Europe.
I wrote...
Globalization and Orthodox Christianity: The Transformations of a Religious Tradition
With approximately 200 to 300 million adherents worldwide, Orthodox Christianity is among the largest branches of Christianity, yet it remains relatively understudied. This book examines the rich and complex entanglements between Orthodox Christianity and globalization, offering a substantive contribution to the relationship between religion and globalization, as well as the relationship between Orthodox Christianity and the sociology of religion - and more broadly, the interdisciplinary field of Religious Studies.
While deeply engaged with history, this book does not simply narrate the history of Orthodox Christianity as a world religion, nor does it address theological issues or cover all the individual trajectories of each subgroup or subdivision of the faith. Orthodox Christianity is the object of the analysis, but author Victor Roudometof speaks to a broader audience interested in culture, religion, and globalization.
Νumerous books about the troubled relationship between Russia and the West. But it is extraordinarily challenging to manage to condense the history of a rich and varied relationship within a few hundred pages.
In this book, the author succeeds in covering several centuries of history and numerous complicated topics and subtopics within the span of fewer than 300 pages.
A splendid work precisely because it is concise, it covers the history of this relationship from Medieval times up to the modern era.
In 1997, the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer in Moscow was solemnly brought into use in the presence of Patriarch Aleksij and President Boris Yeltsin. It is a spectacular expression of the national religious revival of Russia and the expression in stone of a myth cherished by Russians down their history, that Moscow is the 'third Rome' and that Christianity and civilization have moved eastwards. At the same time, Russia has always formed part of the European cultural sphere.
The tensions between the 'myth of the East' and Russia as European form a fascinating story which is investigated here. The…
The separation of Christianity into a Roman Catholic and an Orthodox branch is a topic that conventionally has not received extensive treatment in Western scholarship.
The history of the relationship between these two branches of Christianity is also conventionally narrated from within Western lenses.
In this regard, this book is an invaluable corrective: It describes four critical and formative centuries of religious history from within the viewpoint of Orthodox Christianity.
It is an authoritative, indispensable study for understanding historical events (such as the Crusades and the Great Schism) from a perspective quite different from conventional Western histories of Christianity.
This text explores the history of the Eastern Church, spreading from Byzantium to the Orthodox Churches of the Balkans and Russia. It also examines the native Eastern Churches of Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, Armenia and Georgia, and in the process exposes the many factors which contributed to the Christian disunity in the Middle Ages. The book also treats the impact on the East of such movements as the revolutionary Reform Papacy, the crusades, scolasticism and concilarism.
Although the faith has a history of nearly two centuries in the New World, to this day, there are only a handful of books about Orthodox Christianity in North America.
Among them, this is an easy-to-read monograph that offers a narrative of the faith’s history in the New World, going all the way back to the first Alaskan communities and later on to the institution of ethnic churches in the 19th and 20th century US.
The author offers a succinct overview of the important developments within various US-based ethnic communities and of 21st-century challenges. It is highly recommended because of the depth and breadth of its coverage.
This book follows the momentous events and notable individuals in the history of the Orthodox dioceses in America. Erickson explains the huge impact Orthodox Christianity has had on the history of immigration, and how the religion has changed as a result of the American experience. Lively, engaging, and thoroughly researched, the book unveils insightful portrait of an ancient faith in a new world.
John Meyendorff’s works are indispensable for understanding the theology and history of Orthodox Christianity.
While several of his contributions belong to the must-read list for students of Orthodox Christianity, this book in particular offers a lucid account and an indispensable introduction to the broader and enduring problematic regarding the deep-seated connections between Byzantium and the historical development of the Orthodox Church.
The book addresses a series of historical events rarely researched and studied and it is a pioneer work highly suited for scholars of religious history.
For more than a millennium the Byzantine Empire and its capital, Constantinople guided the spiritual destinies of the Christian East. Even after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the influence of its culture, thought and institutions remained powerful, above all in the Orthodox Church.
In this collection of essays, Fr John Meyendorff, one of the most prominent Orthodox historians and theologians of our day, delineates the many facets of this Byzantine legacy. After an initial survey of the Byzantine Church, he explores such varies subjects as Byzantine political ideology, spirituality and ecclesiology. He clearly demonstrates the significance of Byzantium not…
This is perhaps the most informative and lucid account of a major historical event in Russia’s religious history.
Patriarch Nikon’s reforms caused a major split in Russia and the formation of Old Believers. Needless to say, Nikon’s reforms remain a hot topic in Russia’s religious history up to the present.
In this careful and quite detailed study, the author reconstructs the entire process of the two successive councils that led to the schism and addresses the complex relations among the Court, the Patriarch, and other religious and non-religious actors.
It is written in a detailed and very careful manner that allows the reader to grasp the author’s rationale.
The book offers newfound insights onto the dynamics that propelled the reforms and the reasons that led to their rejection, leading to the formation of the Old Believers.
The reform of the liturgical books conducted in Muscovite Russia in the mid-17th century was an alignment of Russina liturgical usage with contemporary Greek practice. Historians have up to now generally accepted the "official" interpretation of the reform as a "correcting" made on the basis of ancient Greek and Slavic sources. In fact, the reform was based exclusively on "contemporary" sources chiefly the 1602 Venice "Euchologion" (Greek) and 17th century South-Slavic editions from Kiev and Striatin. Far from being a "return to sources", or a "correction", the reform consisted simply in the uncritical transposition of contemporary Greek practice onto Russian…
Susan Tate Ankeny left a career in teaching to write the story of her father’s escape from Nazi-occupied France. In 2011, after being led on his path through France by the same Resistance fighters who guided him in 1944, she felt inspired to tell the story of these brave French patriots, especially the 17-year-old- girl who risked her own life to save her father’s. Susan is a member of the 8th Air Force Historical Society, the Air Force Escape and Evasion Society, and the Association des Sauveteurs d’Aviateurs Alliés.
The first and only full-length biography of Hazel Ying Lee, an unrecognized pioneer and unsung World War II hero who fought for a country that actively discriminated against her gender, race, and ambition.
This unique hidden figure defied countless stereotypes to become the first Asian American woman in United States history to earn a pilot's license, and the first female Asian American pilot to fly for the military.
Her achievements, passionate drive, and resistance in the face of oppression as a daughter of Chinese immigrants and a female aviator changed the course of history. Now the remarkable story of a fearless underdog finally surfaces to inspire anyone to reach toward the sky.
One of WWII’s most uniquely hidden figures, Hazel Ying Lee was the first Asian American woman to earn a pilot’s license, join the WASPs, and fly for the United States military amid widespread anti-Asian sentiment and policies.
Her singular story of patriotism, barrier breaking, and fearless sacrifice is told for the first time in full for readers of The Women with Silver Wings by Katherine Sharp Landdeck, A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, The Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia, Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown and all Asian American, women’s and WWII history books.…
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