Each of the twenty chapters in this volume examines the intersection of religious thought and secular politics in a different part of the Orthodox ecumene. These studies range in chronological focus from the era of Constantine up to the post-Soviet period. The geographical scope of the volume includes most of the Eastern Orthodox world, as well as Stanislau Paulau’s chapter on Ethiopia’s Oriental Orthodox monarchy. The central concept of the book is “political theology,” a broad term that the editors, Grigore and Makrides, loosely define in their introduction as theologically informed interaction between religion and politics. Understood in this sense, the editors point out, political theology has been far more systematically formulated in the Western Christian world, whereas for Orthodoxy it is often erroneously reduced to the cliché of symphonia, or harmonious cooperation between church and state. This volume explores the variety of political discourses and systems that have existed throughout the Orthodox world.

Daniel Benga’s chapter examines the reigns of three Eastern Roman emperors, Constantine, Theodosius, and Justinian. He argues that each of these figures merged the functions of church and state, attributing divine origins to both, and thereby creating “a community of those obliged to believe” (33). In a similar vein, Jan Kusber’s chapter on Muscovy argues that the political theology of the early modern Russian Church developed in discourse with the autocratic state. The ecclesiastical hierarchy sought political advantage by providing theological justification for the authority of the tsar, to which both the hierarchy and the laity were ultimately subjugated.

Other chapters describe a different scenario, in which certain branches of Orthodoxy, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, achieved both relative autonomy from the state and a voice for the laity in the ecclesiastical administration. Daniela Kalkandjieva, for example, describes the development of the autocephalous Church of Bulgaria, both within the Ottoman Empire and the independent Principality of Bulgaria, established in 1878. Kalkandjieva argues that this divided jurisdiction prevented any particular state from exerting a dominant influence on the political theology of the Bulgarian Church. In subsequent decades, the laity obtained a prominent voice in the governance and financing of the church, while the episcopate retained their “apostolic authority” over matters of doctrine, liturgy, and canon law.

Marian Pâtru describes similar developments in the Church of Transylvania, which established both autonomy from the Austro-Hungarian state and a system of ecclesiastical administration that mandated a mixed eparchial synod with a two-thirds majority of laity over clergy. After their unification with the Kingdom of Romania in 1918, Transylvanian theologians played a dominant role in the formulation of Romanian Orthodox political theology. According to their model, the church was to be autonomous from the state, but the state was to derive its legitimacy from the church and to legislate according to Orthodox values. Because these theologians posited “an ontological relationship between Orthodoxy, the Romanian nation, and the state” (243), their political theology created a state based on religion and ethnicity, which deprived Romanian Jews of citizenship. The Patriarch, Miron Cristea, served as Prime Minister from 1938 to 1939, during which time political parties were abolished and a new, anti-democratic constitution was imposed. Ironically, Pâtru points out, this authoritarian turn would ultimately lead to the communist dictatorship that persecuted the church and incarcerated 1,725 Orthodox priests.

Ioannis Zelepos discusses another case of the assumption of political power by an Orthodox prelate, with only comparatively less disastrous results. His chapter examines the election of Archbishop Makarios as the first president of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960. Makarios obtained a popular mandate by championing the nationalist cause of unification with Greece. Once in office, however, Makarios did not establish a dialogue with the government in Athens. Zelepos argues that this was because the goal of unification was “a national eschatology,” rather than realpolitik (230). The practical consequence of this agenda was the alienation of the Turkish population of Cyprus and the Turkish invasion of 1974.

In contrast to these cases, a number of contributors examine the concept of secular politics among Orthodox intellectuals. Anthony Kaldellis discusses the political theories of three Byzantine intellectuals, ranging from the 9th to the 14th centuries, each of whom expressed the idea that worldly politics are often at odds with Christian morality, contradicting the official depiction of the Empire as a divine institution. Evert van der Zweerde’s chapter on 19th-century Russian religious thought focuses on Vladimir Solov’ev’s theory of “free theocracy,” which replaced the old Byzantine ideal of Church and state symphonia with a triadic model of King, Priest, and Prophet. The latter, inspired by the prophets of ancient Israel, represented the free forces of society, which would act as a moral check on the claims of both tsar and patriarch, exclusively to represent God’s kingdom. Tracing Russian religious thought into the 20th century, Regula Zwahlen discusses “negative Orthodox political theology” among the émigré diaspora. Nikolai Berdiaev, for example, rejected both the anointing of tsars and radical socialism as part of the same heresy of equating human power with the Kingdom of God. It is striking that most discussions in this volume of a secular sphere in Orthodox political theology are confined to intellectual history.

A project of this scope necessarily sacrifices some precision and detail. For example, Kusber’s chapter covers three centuries of church-state relations in Muscovy. He concludes with an oversimplification of Peter I’s Ecclesiastical Regulation, claiming that it created “a Holy Synod controlled by a senior bureaucrat” (99). Sebastian Rimstead provides an overview of the campaigns by the Orthodox churches of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland to break away from the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. He argues that only the Orthodox of Finland justified their efforts with a coherent “political theology,” while the campaigns of the other churches were based on pragmatic politics and theologically justified in hindsight. While intriguing, this ambitious claim cannot be adequately supported in only sixteen pages. Such gaps do not, however, reduce the importance of this volume, which will serve as a foundation for further research on Orthodox political theology.