On Laws and Their Spirit : Do Orthodox Concepts of Symphonia and Oikonomia Have an Impact on the Contemporary Legal Situation in Serbia?

The Orthodox Christianity had in some respects divergent development from that of the West, which also resulted in several conceptions that might have had an impact on the contemporary legal situations in the predominantly Orthodox countries. In this contribution we aim at examining the impact of two major points of divergence. One is the cooperative Church–state separation, that is sometimes dubbed as the symphonia of the two. Another set of concepts that arguably marked Orthodox church’s understanding of the rule of law, at least in its internal procedures, is the principle of leniency (oikonomia). It allows for an interpretation of the laws in the interest of the person to which those are to be applied. We want to investigate which pieces of legislation might have been affected by these considerations and whether contemporary challenges of the legal system in Serbia can be traced to some of the Orthodox doctrines. We conclude that while the contemporary Church–state relationship, as envisioned in the corresponding law of the country, demonstrates many traits that can be traced to the symphonia tradition, there is hardly any evidence that would support the claim that the decision-making processes in Serbian courts were marked by conscious application of the principle of oikonomia

Self-Ruled and Self-Consecrated Ecclesiastic Schism as a Nation-Building Instrument in the Orthodox Countries of South Eastern Europe

The Orthodox concept of autocephaly, a formerly organizational and administrative measure, has been a powerful nation-building tool since the 19th century. While autocephaly could be granted—from the perspective of the Orthodox canon law—in an orderly fashion, it was often the case that a unilateral, non-canonical way towards autocephaly was sought. This usually took place when the state actors, often non-Orthodox, intervened during the nation-building process. We investigated the effects of unilateral declarations of autocephaly (through a schism) by comparing Bulgarian, Northern Macedonian, and Montenegrin examples. We contend that the best success chances are to be expected by the ecclesiastic body that is less willing to make major transgressions of the canon law, than to radicalize the situation after the initial move. This is mostly because autocephaly’s recognition requires a global acceptance within the circle of the already autocephalous churches. We also suggest that the strong political backing of the autocephaly movement can paradoxically have a negative impact on its ultimate success, as it can prolong the initial separation phase of the schism and prevent or postpone the healing phase, and with it, the fully fledged autocephaly

Orthodox Christians and democracy in Serbia

In a significant part of scientific literature and popular works intended for a wider audience, the relationship of Orthodoxy and democracy is often posed as a discussion of two opposing concepts. We can call this 'the thesis of incompatibility', which contains the view that the Orthodox Church has formed dominant Orthodox societies, so that it now faces difficulties in democratization and democratic consolidation. In order to understand the real impact that the membership of Orthodoxy has on democracy, it is necessary, in our opinion, first of all to pay attention to the attitudes of the Orthodox people themselves or to their value orientation, and on that basis consider the proposed explanations (in) compatibility of contemporary interpretation of Orthodox learning and democracy can really be applied to the context of a majority Orthodox society. In this case, we will consider the situation in Serbia, the multiethnic and multiconfessional majority Orthodox state. For our considerations, the parameters of religiosity (religious belief, attitudes towards religious confession and personalized religiosity) are important, as well as the attitude towards various proposed forms of organization of the political community. Based on the data from this study, we have defend four models of political culture. Although the thesis of incompatibility based on our results can be questionable, the data we analyzed still can not draw a clear conclusion that the Orthodox in Serbia have a strong preference for a democratic model of political culture and an appropriate level of participation. They can also be interpreted by a system of values that has been left behind by a society in which much space in the public sphere was left to Orthodox religiousness

DIAGNOSTIC MICROBIOLOGY

A clinical, microbiological and economic analysis of a national service for the rapid molecular diagnosis of tuberculosis and rifampicin resistance i