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Reviewed by:
  • Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective
  • Juraj Buzalka
Chris Hann & Hermann Goltz (eds), Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. 392 pp.

The volume Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective is an original contribution to the anthropology of religion. Edited jointly by sociocultural anthropologist Chris Hann and theologian Hermann Goltz, this book analyzes the stream of Christianity that has been—with the exception of Greek Orthodoxy—neglected in anthropology to date. The approach used by the contributors does not make sharp distinctions between doctrine and imagination, body and mind, material objects and their common representation in Western Christianities, but follows the inquiry as inspired by Orthodox Christian theology and experienced by believers of Eastern rite churches.

Western exceptionalism often relies on ideologies employing the distinction between urban Protestant individualism and scriptural tradition of the West as opposed to Byzantine despotic collectivism and irrational emotionality of the Christian and non-Christian East. Considering the difficulties in drawing a borderline between East and West—Greek Catholics of Eastern [End Page 569] Europe practicing an Eastern rite, but accepting the pope as their head is an indicative case in this respect—the editors stress mutual cultural borrowings within Eurasia, as well as the need for investigating broader patterns of institutional changes, power relationships, and their consequences for self-understanding that have made up the East/West divide today.

The contributors are far from stating that there is unity of Eastern and Western Christianities. At the same time, however, they break down some stereotypes. Regarding doctrine, for example, the editors falsify several myths about Eastern Christian thought, such as that of irrationality, neglect of the scriptural side of religion, and primitivism when it comes to popular and ecclesiastical devotion. Orthodoxy is often seen as a highly reflected oral and visual culture—absence of instruments in the liturgy is one among many examples; icon veneration might be another—but this culture should be understood not as a primitive form of religiosity, but as a living mode of communication. Instead of treating "Orthodox mentality" as an obstacle to modernity, it is more useful to recognize Orthodox patterns of modernity.

The volume is divided into four parts. Part one deals with sensuous expression of Eastern Christianity, especially via icons and liturgy. Part two focuses on the renewal of Eastern Christian tradition in recent decades. Part three discusses issues of syncretism and sharing among Eastern Christians and Muslims, as well as authenticity searching among various streams of Orthodox believers. Part four concludes with an account on transformations of personhood within the community of church and nation.

While Latin scholastic theology removed images from the spiritual core of the Church and assigned them an instrumental role, Eastern Christianity icon-centered religious practices "create a particular sensory background, which adds to the conceptual and psychological layers of religiosity, and influences the devotees' relationship with the divine" and with their fellow humans, as well as the material world surrounding them, writes Gabriel Hanganu in chapter one (46). As he also stresses, a distinctive Orthodox view of personhood, materiality, and relationship with the divine may provide some inspiration for anthropological theories.

Orthodox practices, especially icon-veneration and liturgy, are also discussed in the remaining three chapters of part one. Sonja Luehrmann contrasts Orthodox and protestant treatment of icons in Middle Volga. Stéphanie Mehieu discusses the role of icons and statues among Greek Catholics in Hungary and Romania, and Jeffers Engelhardt concludes this part by describing the role of liturgy and singing among Orthodox [End Page 570] Christians living at the borderland of Estonia and Russia. His account challenges "the ethnoliguistic and geopolitical ideologies that animate and are naturalized in Estonian 'transition,' European integration, and the post-Soviet renewal of Orthodox Church of Estonia" (107).

In the first chapter of part two, Alice Forbes deals with monastic education in a Romanian Orthodox convent. Forbes mentions that obedience to the spirit rather than the letter is stressed in this education. In her words, "the scriptures are not understood as being explicit and self-referential, but rather as containing hidden meanings that can be grasped only through divine inspiration" (150). Later in part two, Vlad Naumescu also addresses the processes...

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