The ethics of Orthodoxy as the aesthetics of the local church

This paper addresses the ritual aesthetics of mundane aspects within the global Eastern Orthodox Christian liturgical practice. By comparing a variety of ‘local practices’ within the liturgical traditions of various Orthodox Christian communities, the paper explores how commonly held ethical commitments are expressed in radically different – and at times exactly opposite – practices of quotidian religion. In this evaluation of ‘little traditions’ within the ‘great tradition’ of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the paper focuses on local practices and their relation within the larger canonically inscribed theology of ‘correct practice’ (orthopraxy). The dogmatic and canonical aspects of orthopraxis, being similar across the Orthodox contexts, link the various communities as each being part of the same ethical project, while their specific aesthetic inventiveness marks each as being uniquely local. Drawing on anthropological and sociological theory of art, aesthetics, and ethical invention, the paper argues that aesthetics is localised ethics in practice

Polnoe sobranie tvorenii.

Mode of access: Internet

Iōannou Stobaiou Anthologion. : Joannis Stobæi Florilegium /

Appendix ex cod. ms. florentino Parallelorum sacrorum Ioannis Damasceni: v. 4, 80 p. at end.Ioannis Stobæi Florilegium ... sive Collectaneorum liber ... latino carmine redditus ab H. Grotio: v. 4, p. 1-305.Mode of access: Internet