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One Eastern Church or Two? Armenians, Orthodoxy, and Ecclesiastical Union in Nineteenth-Century Russia
- Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 1, Number 2, 2018
- pp. 189-208
- 10.1353/joc.2018.0022
- Article
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Abstract:
Analyzing projects for union between the Armenian and Orthodox Churches in tsarist Russia, this article explores and problematizes the boundary between Orthodoxy and so-called foreign confessions. After considering plans for incorporating non-Orthodox believers into Orthodoxy from the 1820s to the 1870s, it examines discussions of Armenian-Orthodox union based on the supposition that differences between the two churches were trivial and based on “misunderstanding.” The article identifies two main factors in these projects’ failure: an emerging national ideology that promoted the religious reclamation of historically Orthodox communities (not including Armenians), and the foreign policy advantages of upholding the Armenian Church as a “foreign confession.”