Book Review: God, Hierarchy, and Power: Orthodox Theologies of Authority from Byzantium.

Ashley M. Purpura, God, Hierarchy, and Power: Orthodox Theologies of Authority from Byzantium. New York: Fordham University Press, 2018. 226 pages. $65.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-0-8232-7837-4. This book is a reworking of the author’s 2014 doctoral dissertation on the history of Christianity at Fordham University. It deals with intriguing questions about hierarchy as a theological ideal in Orthodoxy and the ways that ideal was understood and interpreted by leading figures during the Byzantine era, as they dealt with problems and failures in the way hierarchy actually functioned. The author draws attention to problems she perceives in the way hierarchy has been embraced and practiced within Orthodoxy and urges, among other items, that the common Orthodox practice of excluding women from priestly or episcopal office cannot be readily defended from the writings of the historic Orthodox spokespersons whom she studies in this work

Book Review: Looking East in Winter: Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition

A review of Rowan Williams, Looking East in Winter: Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition. London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2021. $30.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-1-4729- 8924-6

Reflections after Thirty Years

All this awareness shaped my hopes for what might transpire in the wake of the remarkable changes enacted in the wake of 1989. Those hopes reverberated with what was expressed in a different field for the future of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of Communism’s collapse. I recall reading scholars much more gifted in things economic than I, hoping that the liberated nations of Eastern Europe might develop a “third way,” between capitalism and Communism. Much as that was talked about, however, the story of the past three decades reveals that no such economic third way has been discovered. I had hoped–as did many others–that the nations of Eastern Europe, with their rich heritage of deep religious commitments which had shaped their cultures in the times of their national zeniths, and had sustained their hopes in the nadirs of imperial and then Communist repression, might develop a “third way” in this area, too

Recent Developments in the Balkans: Summary and Comment

In this paper, I will summarize several reports about achievements by United Nations organizations and the Kosovo Force [hereafter KFOR] in the Balkans during 2001. My summary will also include, from the same period, other reports about areas of concern in which these organizations have shown scant interest, despite pleas from leaders and representatives of the peoples in the region. The latter resulted in an unusual letter from the head of the Keston Institute in which he reflected on some of the failures, a letter from which I will present extended portions. Following that, I will add some reflections of my own on the issue, as a historian of Eastern Europe