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Elements for a connected history of Eastern Orthodoxy, 14th-19th c.

Eastern Orthodoxy. An histoire croisée and connected history approach

Tassos Anastassiadis

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  • 1 See for example for two different perspectives on global history, the interviews published by the r (...)
  • 2 For a discussion on transnational history one can refer to the American Historical Review Conversat (...)
  • 3 For a discussion on global history and connected history see the special Supplement “Global History (...)
  • 4 For a discussion on histoire croisée and connected history see for example Werner, Zimmermann 2003 (...)
  • 5 Subrahmanyam 1997.

1Ever since the 1990s and the beginning of a discussion over global history1, debates between historians around terms such as transnational history2, connected history3 and histoire croisée4 have proliferated. Sanjay Subrahmanyam has argued that practising connected history, implies that the historian functions as a sort of electrician. He is out there repairing and re‑establishing the connections between different grids that national historiographies have disrupted for the sake of rendering national borders impervious hence befogging a more comprehensive understanding of human interactions5. So why would the history of Eastern Orthodoxy be in need of an electrician?

  • 6 The prevalence of the national organization is of course understood as the consequence of a modern (...)
  • 7 See for example Ramet 1988, Leustean 2014. A rare exception attempting a necessarily elliptical syn (...)
  • 8 The volume is divided in a first part treating the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople from t (...)
  • 9 See for example the last chapters of Roudometoff 2007 or Angold 2006.
  • 10 See for example Kitromilides 2019, and in particular his three propositions of chapter 7 about a) t (...)

2It may seem paradoxical at first to argue that such an approach could come handy in this sub‑field. The reason for this apparent paradox is that very often religions are understood as systems of belief and modes of organization not necessarily co‑extensible with nations and national states. It is thus important to note how the prevalence of the modern era’s organization of Eastern Orthodoxy in (mostly) national churches6, has led to historians and social scientists treating it exclusively from such a point of view. Volumes on the topic are almost systematically collections of essays on the various “national churches”7. When a collective endeavour such as the Cambridge History of Christianity volume on Eastern Christianity chooses to bypass the logic of national chapters for the more modern periods it ends up both reproducing the national bias and creating a series of blind spots8. The history of Eastern Orthodoxy is understood in a ternary system. It takes off from Late Antiquity with the imperial (Byzantine and then Ottoman and, in parallel, Russian) moment usually understood as a history of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its effort to maintain – using Nicolae Iorga’s expression – Byzantium after Byzantium within the Ottoman empire while keeping in check a Byzantium after Byzantium developing outside of the Ottoman realm (in Russia) or at its margins (Danubian principalities). It moves on to the Age of nationalism and the proliferation of national Churches from the late 18th to late 20th c. Then it reaches today’s “global” world with its challenges due to transnational phenomena such as diasporas, to supranational integration processes such as the European Union or even simply put to globalization9. Using this ternary system and within this new context, certain authors are once again envisioning if not a return to a pre‑national ideal – and idealized – ecumenical moment, at least to the recognition of the Orthodox Church’s ecumenicity. This is usually synonymous to recognizing once again the existence of an Orthodox commonwealth under the guidance of the Patriarchate of Constantinople10. It is in a way a religious variation to the imperial nostalgia motif.

  • 11 For an early effort in this direction see Anastassiadis 2013.

3The essays in this issue would like to contribute in re‑writing the history of Eastern Orthodoxy from a different perspective. They aim in general at reconstructing the connexions, antagonisms and interdependences that characterize the Orthodox configuration understood as an integral part of the larger religious field extending during the period studied from Egypt to the Caucasus and the Russian steppe and from the Eastern Mediterranean all the way to the Baltic sea11. To do this, the tools and propositions of approaches putting the emphasis on connectivity might be a useful backdrop for three reasons.

  • 12 Recently, byzantinists have been bold enough to claim the presence of national elements even during (...)

4First of all, many of the proponents of such approaches have been historians of the early modern period. There is thus something to be said about the need not only to examine in detail what was really happening before the “national” moment of the late 18th and 19th c. moment but also to do so anchoring in conversation the early modernists and the specialists of the 19th c. This might allow to identify whether the imperial-to-national transition is a clear‑cut rupture arriving with the western influence of the late 18th c. as it is often suggested or whether the historical record is far messier than this narrative might suggest. It is from this perspective that the text of Cotovanu allows us to understand how the Ecumenical Patriarchate can envision itself as an imperial institution that can survive outside of, or over the decaying (Byzantine) empire by accommodating the proliferation of local, and, one can say, proto-national churches12. A few centuries later, we discover that the pendulum has moved in the opposite direction as Karabiçak shows us around the discussion of the Serbian revolts of the early 19th c. and the role of the Patriarchate as an imperial institution serving simultaneously its own and the Empire’s interests. By then, the Patriarchate has both taken full advantage of Ottoman imperial integration and brought under its control, either directly or indirectly, a series of independent Orthodox churches. It is neither necessary nor choice-worthy to tolerate regional ecclesiastical autonomy or independence anymore to the point that, as Păun demonstrates magistrally in his own article, a series of actors in 18th and 19th c. Moldavia have to rewrite their history in order to give a secular, historical, imperial (Byzantine) legitimacy to their claims of both political and ecclesiastical independence from their contemporary imperial overlords at Constantinople.

  • 13 See Makrides 2009 for a thought-provoking and insightful diachronic analysis of the question of rel (...)
  • 14 It thus opposes the partisans of the national autocephalous Churches who struggle against the imper (...)
  • 15 On the way memorial practices are performed see certain essays in the volume by Păun 2016.

5This discussion leads to the second takeaway from “relational” methodology. It is useful to challenge approaches that essentialize objects or reify ideas be it Orthodoxy, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Russia to name just a few and understand them as immutable monoliths transcending historical periods and social contexts. As Păun, but also Erol studying the invention and re‑semanticization of ecclesiastical musical tradition at the end of the 19th c., invite us to ponder, the Patriarchate constantly changes and adapts. Gerd on the other hand reminds us that so does Russia by examining the way certain Russian agents understand the history and role of Russia and the Russian Church with regard to the Greeks and the “Greek” Church throughout the 19th c. and into the 20th c. Thus, one should prioritize analyses that identify actors and their practices in specific historical moments and explain them by a reference to both their inscription in a diachronical path dependency and their capacity of agency within a field of possibilities13. Petmezas demonstrates that the same group of agents, in his case the Kollyvades, can be both seen as orthodox and as heretical depending on the circumstances but also depending on the equilibria within the religious field in a specific period. The same Kollyvades have also the possibility to recast themselves, given the windows of opportunity opened up both by the political evolutions, whether religious or political, of the Age of Revolution, also studied by Karabiçak. And though there is a 19th c. moment of “invention” of two antagonistic traditions, that of national independence opposing that of imperial ecumenism14, it is still more important to acknowledge that what characterizes the century is the notion that tradition deeply-rooted in time and its respect become an overarching principle of legitimacy. The 19th c. is after all the historical century par excellence. Consequently, early modern elements that don’t fit the dominant narrative of tradition have to be cast in oblivion, and early modern attitudes which would have been perceived as normal by the actors of their time, are disclaimed by their successors in the same institutions. As Păun or Erol or Petmezas demonstrate, this is perfectly possible15.

  • 16 Following Norbert Elias’ concept explaining the principle of organization of each specific sociohis (...)
  • 17 There is considerable and very good work on this triangulation between Rome, Moscow, Constantinople (...)
  • 18 See for example for Syria and the Holy Land, Çolak 2015 and Heyberger 2020.

6Finally, “connected-ness” signals us the need to go beyond the use of singular binary understandings and relations (national or local vs imperial, centre vs periphery, secular vs clerical, West vs East, Greeks vs Russians or Ottomans vs Russians, etc.) and multiply the angles of approach and viewpoints thus allowing for a more precise identification of the “tension-equilibrium”16 of each specific historical period, through a process of triangulation. This requires foremost the methodological practice of decentering. As Cotovanu illustrates, the relationship between Constantinople and Moldavia or Wallachia passes by Mt Athos. Similarly, the relationship between Constantinople and Moscow goes through Palestine and the Holy Land, as proves Tchentsova through the study of the circulation of ecclesiastical objects. And one can push this further and say that the relationship also involves Rome and the Catholics17. And whenever the Catholics are in the vicinity, the Sublime Porte is not very far either as we perceive in Petmezas but also as we know from numerous other works18.

  • 19 Werner, Zimmermann 2006, p. 38.

7This is also consistent with the first of the four methodological principles of the histoire croisée approach identified by Werner and Zimmermann, i.e. that the “the notion of intersection precludes reasoning in terms of individual entities, considered exclusively in themselves, with no external reference point”19. There is no East without a West, and even less an Orthodox East without a Catholic West. The Patriarchate of the 14th c. cannot be understood without a reference to the political fragmentation, just as the same institution in the 18th c. requires being put in relation to the centralizing drive of the Ottoman imperial center or Western penetration. In a similar manner there are no centrifugal movements of Moldavian autocephaly and Serbian independence without a centripetal drive steered from Istanbul; no Kollyvades without anti-Kollyvades but also no clericalists without secularists, no “philhellene” Russian ecclesiastical or secular agents without their slavophile or Panslavist opponents; no musical reformers without musical conservatives and so on so forth.

  • 20 Werner, Zimmermann 2006, p. 38.
  • 21 Werner, Zimmermann 2006, p. 38.

8Of course, once this is said, one also has to “pay particular attention to the consequences of intercrossing”20 and most importantly to the fact that “the entities, persons, practices, or objects that are intertwined with, or affected by, the crossing process, do not necessarily remain intact and identical in form”21. Petmeza’s Kollyvades are definitely a case in point going, at least some of them, from quasi-heretics to champions of the Church against progressive secularism and ending as the hallmarks of Orthodox sainthood. As Karabiçak demonstrates, the Serbian revolt is the product of the interaction and a rather indirect consequence of an effort of centrally-driven integration of the Christian populations of the empire. The intercrossing process started with the Serbs entering as partners of the center and coming out as rebels. In a similar manner the Russians studied by Gerd started off as allies of the Greeks and the Greek-orthodox patriarchates in the Holy Land against Catholic intervention, only to end up being identified as mortal enemies. In this process though of radical distancing, some Russians felt the need for a rapprochement. And even the ecclesiastical objects studied by Tchentsova end up becoming regalia.

  • 22 Werner, Zimmermann 2006, p. 45.
  • 23 See for example how the notion of oikonomia has been used in modern times by the Orthodox Church in (...)

9Finally, one of the fundamental elements of histoire croisée concerns the question of temporality. As indicated, “it is not so much the temporal dimension in itself as the incidence of a plurality of temporalities involved in the identification and construction of the objects that is in question”22. This is true whether one studies the creation of tradition and of a new legitimacy through a production of fakes progressively incorporated and gradually consecrated as Păun demonstrates by unearthing layer after layer of the process and pinpointing the specific agents and their particular interests. It is also true when Erol identifies the way 19th c. musical “traditionalists” will invoke the power of a “canonical” figure from eleven centuries back in order to legitimate their claims. In the process, other potential paradigmatic figures will be ignored. In a sense the Eastern Orthodox tradition, like any tradition, is a repertoire of possible discourses and practices selectively mobilized but also constantly remodelled by the agents, depending on the tension-equilibrium of the moment23.

10The essays in this issue of the BCHmc constitute an invitation to more discussion around Eastern Orthodoxy. And this is maybe the most appropriate moment. As Yanni Kotsonis reminds us in this issue’s Controverse, we are weeks away from 2021 and thus the stage has been set for the celebration of the bicentennial of the Greek war of Independence and everyone is getting ready to get on this stage. This is after all a watershed event understood by the imperial-to-national paradigm as a tipping point that leads to the avalanche of national states and also autocephalous Churches. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the religious actors are also getting ready to get on this stage and propose their own historical versions of the events. There can be little doubt that whether they adopt the ecumenical or the national perspective they will rarely be inspired by the methodological approaches identified here. Thus, one can only conclude by asking: more electricians please!

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Bibliographie

Anastassiadis 2003 = Tassos Anastassiadis, “Controverses politiques et tolérance canonique : la relecture au sein de l’Église orthodoxe grecque du XXe siècle de la notion patristique d’oikonomia et les relations avec les Anglicans”, Études Balkaniques 10, 2003, pp. 75‑197.

Anastassiadis 2013 = Anastassios Anastassiadis (ed.), Voisinages fragiles : relations interconfessionnelles dans le Sudest européen et en Méditerranée orientale 1854‑1923, Athens, EFA, MMB 5, 2013.

Angold 2006 = Michael Angold (ed.), The Cambridge History of Christianity. Volume V. Eastern Christianity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Armitage 2012 = “Are We All Global Historians Now? An Interview with David Armitage (by Martine van Ittersum and Jaap Jacobs)”, Itinerario 36/2, 2012, pp. 7‑28.

Bayly, Beckert, Connelly, Hofmeyr, Kozol, Seed 2006 = C. A. Bayly, Sven Beckert, Matthew Connelly, Isabel Hofmeyr, Wendy Kozol, Patricia Seed, “Conversation: On Transnational History”, The American Historical Review 111/5, December 2006, pp. 1441‑1464.

Bayly 2007 = “I Am Not Going to Call Myself a Global Historian: An Interview of C. A. Bayly (by Binu M. John)”, Itinerario 31/1, 2007, pp. 7‑14.

Chartier 2001= Roger Chartier, “La conscience de la globalité (commentaire)”, Annales HSS 56/1, 2001, pp. 119‑123.

Çolak 2015 = Hasan Çolak. The Orthodox Church in the Early Modern Middle East: Relations between the Ottoman Central Administration and the Patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria, Ankara, Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2015.

Douki, Minard 2007 = Caroline Douki, Philippe Minard, “Global History, Connected Histories: A Shift of Historiographical Scale?”, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 54/4bis, 2007, pp. 7‑21.

Elias 1994 (1939) = Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, Oxford, Blackwell, 1994 (1939).

Heyberger 2020 = Bernard Heyberger (ed.), Les chrétiens de tradition syriaque à l'époque ottomane, Paris, Geuthner, 2020.

Kaldellis 2019 = Anthony Kaldellis, Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 2019.

Karabiçak 2020 = Yusuf Karabiçak, “Local Patriots and Ecumenical Ottomans: The Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Ottoman Configuration of Power, 1768-1828”, unpublished PhD thesis, McGill University – EHESS, 2020.

Kitromilides 1989 = Paschalis Kitromilides, “'Imagined Communities' and the Origins of the National Question in the Balkans”, European History Quarterly 19/2, April 1989, pp. 149192.

Kitromilides 2006 = Paschalis Kitromilides, “The legacy of the French Revolution: Orthodoxy and nationalism”, in Michael Angold (ed.), The Cambridge History of Christianity. Volume V. Eastern Christianity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 229‑249.

Kitromilides 2019 = Paschalis Kitromilides, Religion and Politics in the Orthodox World: The Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Challenges of Modernity, London, Routledge, 2019.

Leustean 2014 = Lucian N. Leustean (ed.), Orthodox Christianity and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Southeastern Europe, New York, Fordham University Press, 2014.

Păun 2016 = Radu G. Păun (ed.), Histoire, mémoire et dévotion. Regards croisés sur la construction des identités dans le monde orthodoxe aux époques byzantine et post-byzantine, Seyssel (CH), La Pomme d’or, 2016.

Ramet 1988 = Pedro Ramet (ed.), Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twentieth Century, Durham, Duke University Press, 1988.

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Notes

1 See for example for two different perspectives on global history, the interviews published by the review Itinerario with two notable participants in these discussions: Bayly 2007 and Armitage 2012. For an early discussion from the “continental side” of the emergence of these debates on the historians’ radar see Chartier 2001 commenting on Grudziski and Subrahmanyam.

2 For a discussion on transnational history one can refer to the American Historical Review Conversation “On Transnational History” in its December 2006 issue. Bayly, Beckert, Connelly, Hofmeyr, Kozol, Seed, 2006.

3 For a discussion on global history and connected history see the special Supplement “Global History, Connected Histories” issue of the Revue d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine in 2007 in particular the introduction: Douki, Minard 2007.

4 For a discussion on histoire croisée and connected history see for example Werner, Zimmermann 2003 and in an expanded version Werner, Zimmermann 2006.

5 Subrahmanyam 1997.

6 The prevalence of the national organization is of course understood as the consequence of a modern introduction of Western-produced nationalism in the area, breaking apart the “Orthodox Commonwealth”. See for the traditional understanding on this issue Kitromilides 1989 and more recently Kitromilides 2006.

7 See for example Ramet 1988, Leustean 2014. A rare exception attempting a necessarily elliptical synthesis but introducing at least terms such as transnational or global is Roudometoff 2017.

8 The volume is divided in a first part treating the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Byzantine time to the challenge of nationalism in the 19th c. ; a second one treats of the Russian Orthodox Church from its origins to 1917 from an imperial (but still national) focus ; a third part treats of the non-Orthodox Eastern Christians in a quasi-national way ; while a short fourth part on the modern world (i.e. the 20th c.) trying to avoid being a collection of national essays leaves unscathed parts of the history of Eastern Christianity, the Greek-Orthodox or Orthodox Greeks whether in a national, colonial or diasporic setting being the most obvious one. Angold 2006.

9 See for example the last chapters of Roudometoff 2007 or Angold 2006.

10 See for example Kitromilides 2019, and in particular his three propositions of chapter 7 about a) the ecumenicity of Orthodoxy; b) the criticism as ahistorical of the assimilation nationalism-Orthodoxy ; c) but also at the same time the blaming of the “local national Orthodox churches” (sic), and thus not of the Patriarchate, for allowing this unorthodox relationship with nationalism to proliferate.

11 For an early effort in this direction see Anastassiadis 2013.

12 Recently, byzantinists have been bold enough to claim the presence of national elements even during their period of coverage. See Kaldellis 2019.

13 See Makrides 2009 for a thought-provoking and insightful diachronic analysis of the question of religion in Greece. See Karabiçak 2020 for a conjectural approach on the Patriarchate during the Age of Revolution.

14 It thus opposes the partisans of the national autocephalous Churches who struggle against the imperial “tyranny” of the Patriarchate to those of “imperial ecumenicity”, whether under Ottoman, Russian or even Greek rule. The latter have been also called as trying to revive “Byzantium after the nation” to use the engaging title of Stamatopoulos 2009.

15 On the way memorial practices are performed see certain essays in the volume by Păun 2016.

16 Following Norbert Elias’ concept explaining the principle of organization of each specific sociohistorical configuration. Elias 1994 (1939).

17 There is considerable and very good work on this triangulation between Rome, Moscow, Constantinople and the Holy land done for a few years now in the Séminaire d’Histoire connectée et comparée des christianismes orientaux (xvie-xixe s.) initiated by Bernard Heyberger at the EPHE-EHESS and in which a certain number of authors in this issue have participated as speakers or co-directors.

18 See for example for Syria and the Holy Land, Çolak 2015 and Heyberger 2020.

19 Werner, Zimmermann 2006, p. 38.

20 Werner, Zimmermann 2006, p. 38.

21 Werner, Zimmermann 2006, p. 38.

22 Werner, Zimmermann 2006, p. 45.

23 See for example how the notion of oikonomia has been used in modern times by the Orthodox Church in order to defend or counter a process of rapprochement with other confessions. Anastassiadis 2003.

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Tassos Anastassiadis, « Eastern Orthodoxy. An histoire croisée and connected history approach »Bulletin de correspondance hellénique moderne et contemporain [En ligne], 2 | 2020, mis en ligne le 23 décembre 2020, consulté le 29 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/bchmc/463 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/bchmc.463

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Tassos Anastassiadis

McGill University

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