As a constitutive element of the global religious system, one main issue that the Orthodox world has to cope with is religious pluralism. In the post-Communist era, religious pluralism has become a global phenomenon with repercussions at the institutional and individual level of consciousness (Berger 2005: 439) such as the competition among religious institutions and subjective religiosities, something that is worrisome for the Orthodox Churches that have always been the church of the majority in their countries.
Being an inseparable part of the national identity that strengthened the anti-individualist doctrine of the Orthodox Church makes its relationship with pluralism a problematic one (Enev 2001: 160). Payne (2007: 831) argues that the main obstacle in the way of religious pluralism in Eastern Europe is the association of the Orthodox Churches with nationalism, the state and cultural identity. Furthermore, while the reemergence of the Greek-Catholic Churches was already a cause of concern for the Orthodox Churches, many missionaries have arrived from the United States and Western Europe with the belief that the region’s exposure to the communist-atheist propaganda requires its re-evangelisation (Ramet 1998: 200). The ‘proselytism of the foreign sects’ (Clément 2005: 28–29; Merdjanova 2000: 253), in a region where social and economic problems make people more ‘vulnerable’ to the conversion efforts of the missionaries with resources, has alarmed the Orthodox Churches.17 Despite this tension, one should not underestimate the efforts of the Orthodox Churches in furthering the ecumenical dialogue with other churches and different religious traditions within and outside of the Orthodox heartland.
The fall of the Communist regime meant change not just for the ROC, but also for all the other religious denominations in Romania. Soon after the fall of the Ceausescu regime, the Decree Law No.1 of December 1989 reestablished the Greek-Catholic Church, which was united with the ROC under the Communist rule, and with Decree Law No. 126 of April 1990, the Church was recognised and the rules for property restitution were speci-fied (Stan & Turcescu 2007: 95).18 The transition to liberal democracy and the prospects for joining European institutions led to legislative initiatives19 for further democratisation, which had important implications for religious institutions in Romania, particularly for the ROC. European integration also challenges the ROC to become more accommodating of religious pluralism
and new institutional frameworks.20 Under increasing pressure from the EU, Romania adopted a new law regulating the church-state relations and its religious landscape on 27 December 2006 (Legea nr. 489/2006). Stan and Turcescu (2007: 28) call the current Romanian system of church-state relations ‘managed quasi-pluralism’; it is managed because the denomina-tions have to register and get recognition from the state to work freely in Romania, and it is quasi-pluralistic, since the ROC has primacy among 18 denominations recognised by the Romanian state. The criticisms against the new law on religious denominations reveal that Romania will have to do more in terms of harmonising its system with that of the EU.21 Nevertheless, with this new law the Romanian religious space is reorganised so as to be more accommodating of religious pluralism.
Besides legislative changes and the EU accession process, there are other factors inducing religious pluralism in Romania. The Patriarchate’s official website states that the biggest challenge for the ROC in the post-Communist era is religious pluralism.22 The ROC started facing competition from the other churches that became free to act in Romania with a crucial amount of foreign support and pressure on the Romanian governments. The emergence and religious activities of ‘foreign’ evangelical groups and the missionary movements are seen as ‘proselytism’ by the ROC (Bria 1995: viii; Muntean 2005: 88). The conversion strategies, such as free English courses and assist-ing migration to Western countries, are worrisome for the Church. The ROC strongly opposes certain denominations or ‘sects’23 and seeks states’
support in impeding their work on Romanian territory, such as the Jeho-vah’s witnesses or the Pentecostals. The number of converts to conserva-tive Protestantism in Eastern Europe is significant, particularly in Romania (Martin 1999: 37). The Pentecostal and Adventist Churches found a base among the lower classes, particularly the Roma population (Lakatos 1998a:
30), which has been marginalised and is less affected by ethno-nationalist rhetoric.24 The fact that traditional churches employ ethno-nationalist strat-egies associating religious identity with an ethnic one and make alliances with different secular forces to monopolise the religious landscape, do not create favourable conditions for religious competition (Ibid: 89). Therefore, free religious market theory cannot be applied to Romania, as the condi-tions for free competition of religions are not mature enough (Ibid: 88), and mutual interdenominational acceptance and collaboration are not very well established.25
Despite its scepticism towards the new religious movements and neo-Protestant Churches, the ROC is aware of the need to present a very authen-tic Christian message to the world and reveal the universal character of the Orthodox Church, which has led to the intensification of contacts and rela-tions with sister Orthodox Churches (‘Activitatea Sectorului Relaţii Externe Biseriçeşti’ 2001: 487). Theological and ecumenical dialogue with the other Christian Churches continues at the national and international level and the involvement of the Church in the lives of the Romanian Orthodox diaspora
is emphasised (Ibid: 488). Collaboration with the other churches is also growing due to Romania’s European accession, which has led to the ‘recon-figuration of [the ROC’s] role in the European context’ (Carp 2007: 18).
The ROC represents the highest number of Orthodox people in the EU.
Moreover, Katzenstein (2006: 4) foresees an important role for Orthodoxy, which, in closer contact with Catholicism, is challenging the EU’s secular impact on Christian values.26 The EU accession and the growing number of ROCs in Europe motivated the Church to open a representative bureau in Brussels in 2007. The ROC is thus becoming a transnational actor within the EU; however, to what extent the ROC will embrace the EU agenda and use Romania’s EU membership to heighten its status as transnational agent remains to be seen.
DIASPORA
The emergence of the Orthodox Churches in the diaspora that maintain a net-work of social, cultural and religious relations with the homeland has turned Orthodoxy into a global religion (Berzano & Cassinasco 1999: 14). The term ‘diaspora’27 within the Orthodox world is used to refer to ‘the disper-sion in time and space of the Orthodox communities, which settle in regions different from where their Mother Churches are located, keeping with them the ultimate canonical dependence relation or spiritual ties, but progressively searching to organize themselves in an autonomous way’ (Bobrinskoy 2003:
303). The dispersion of the Orthodox faithful across the world took place in waves linked with political and economic developments throughout his-tory.28 The extension of the Orthodox Churches outside of their traditional homeland to Europe, the United States and other parts of the world, gives the Churches the possibility to express the universality of the Orthodox Tradi-tion and to state that they are not ‘religious foreigners’ in the West (Kesich 1961: 193), while bringing the Orthodox world into contact with globalisa-tion, transnationalism and other social processes in different contexts. The interaction between the Orthodox heartlands and diasporas is crucial, since the ‘Orthodox diasporas are usually more tuned to global perspectives and develop corresponding strategies that can benefit the homelands’ (Makrides 2007: 559). This also gives the Orthodox diaspora in the host societies the chance to introduce their responses to global challenges and issues (Clément 2005: 139). Ware (1997: 186) argues that the dispersal is a kairos29 for the Orthodox world, a moment of opportunity. However, to seize this oppor-tunity, it has to overcome its own divisions both within and outside of the Orthodox heartland.
Even though it is possible to talk about the presence of a sizable Romanian Orthodox diaspora in the United States from the 19th century onwards, the Romanian Orthodox diaspora grew rapidly and spread to different parts of the world through mass migration after 1989. The growth and spread of the
Romanian diaspora radically changed the ROC’s perception of its jurisdic-tion. While under Communist rule the jurisdiction of the Church was delim-ited by territory,30 marked by the boundaries of Romania, after the fall of the Communist regime it was the nation—the Romanian Orthodox people living within and outside of Romania—31 that became the defining factor for the definition of the Church’s jurisdiction.32 Since the official figures fail to present the actual size and scope of migration flows, it is hard to estimate the exact size and extent of the Romanian diaspora (Pehoiu & Costache 2010: 608). Yet, the president of Romania, Traian Băsescu, estimates it to be around 8 million people.33
It is post-1989 Romanian migration that brought the ROC into Europe, which is still the main destination for Romanian immigrants. The ROC has responded to the rapid growth of this diaspora by forming a well-structured and connected network of churches in a very short span of time, though with limited resources. For the first generation, the local parish in the diaspora is the main link with Romania and a social space where the national language and traditions are reproduced. This maintains the role of the Church in the diaspora as a symbol of belonging and a point of reference. The transplan-tation of the ROC in new settings provides the ROC with a new area of agency and transnational actor status. While requiring the ROC to develop responses to the local and global issues in settings other than the Romanian Orthodoxy’s heartland, this influences the role of the ROC and religious life within Romania. According to Father Valdman, the priest of the ROC in Milan for more than 30 years, the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate is the ‘trunk’, growing stronger as its ‘branches’ develop in the diaspora, and both the trunk and branch gain from this interaction (Valdman, personal interview, 18 July 2007).
CONCLUSION
The relationship between globalisation and religion is a complex one and cannot be defined solely in conflictual terms. While religion challenges or resists the homogenising trends of globalisation in certain respects, it is itself a globalising force acting at the local, transnational and global levels. The emergence of the religious function system and its transformation into a global one is therefore embedded in the sociostructural transformations that paved the way for the construction of the global society. The global religious system, which is historically contingent, is composed of different world reli-gions and their variants. Orthodox Christianity, which went through dif-ferent political, economic and social transformations that set it apart from Catholicism and Protestantism, is experiencing the forces of globalisation in the post-Cold War era at every level.
Today, the Orthodox Churches and populations are facing a rapidly changing and globalising world. While issues such as the Communist legacy,
unresolved jurisdiction issues among the Churches, a wary attitude towards religious pluralism and Western values and a lack of experience within the social realm, all pose challenges to the Orthodox world, the flexible insti-tutional organisation of the Orthodox Churches that can coordinate diver-sity, the rich Orthodox Tradition, and the growing agency of the Orthodox Churches within and outside of their heartlands are the means that the Orthodox world deploys to cope with the challenges of globalisation.
The ROC, which has shown a great adaptive capacity to survive regime changes in Romania, from Fascist rule to a Communist one, and now to a democratic regime and European integration (Gillet 1995: 359–360), has indulged in vigorous reconstruction activity inside Romania, while simul-taneously having to cope with serious social problems exacerbated by a long process of transition towards democracy and a global market economy.
The accession of Romania to the EU also creates challenges for the ROC while making the ROC an actor within Europe. Finally, while transnational migration is extending the reach of the ROC to different destinations, it presents the Church with new forms of local and global forces in different settings. The Orthodox Churches in general and the ROC in particular are embedded in the global religious system, and their dialogue with globalisa-tion is ongoing. As they develop new responses to globalisaglobalisa-tion by drawing inspiration from the Orthodox Tradition, as well as historical and current experiences inside and outside their heartland, their terms of involvement with the global processes becomes clearer, and the scale and extent of their agency at the local and global level are upgraded.
NOTES
1. Orthodox Christianity has a very rich tradition consisting of Greek, Ara-bic, Slavic and Latin elements. Orthodoxy can be differentiated into the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Oriental Orthodox Churches (Non-Chalcedonian, those whom refused to acknowledge the fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in the mid-fifth century). In this chapter we will be looking into the Eastern Orthodoxy’s encounter with globalisation as the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC) is an Eastern Orthodox Church, and the majority of the Orthodox population in the world belongs to the Eastern Orthodox Church and lives mainly in Eastern Europe and Russia (Pacini 2000: 22–23; Pacini 2003: 168).
2. Roudometof, who underscores the ‘historicity of globalization’ (2001: 4) and defines it ‘as a world-historical process’ (2008: 68), argues that the emergence and intensification of particularistic trends such as nationalism have played, and still do, an important role in the creation of a global international society (Mayall 1990 cited in Roudometof 2001: 8). Nationalism, rather than being a force clashing with globalisation, should be seen as part of it (Robertson 2001: xiii). Moreover, it is globalisation itself that contributes to the genera-tion of nagenera-tional differences, rivalries and conflicts (Ibid: 2).
3. Apart from organised religion, religions take different forms. Thus, one can have social movement religion, which is episodic and lacks central organisation
and is only part of societal function systems through the politicisation of religion; or social network religion, which is unformed religion taking place through interactions (Beyer 2006: 108). ‘Network religion’ is organised through flexible and mobile ties extending beyond national boundaries and denominational loyalties (Agadjanian & Roudometof 2005: 5). However, the global influence of New Age religiosities is limited, since they spread through networks that are limited in scope and are not intrinsic for the functioning of the system (Beyer 2006: 284) the way religious organisations are.
4. Symphonia means that the power of the state and the power of the Church have to balance each other and work in harmony. The ideal of symphonia is
‘a bipolar structure’ (Clément 2005: 15), which necessitates the coexistence and complementarity of these two powers.
5. As Robertson argues (2001: xiii), nationalism, rather than being a force clash-ing with globalisation, is part and parcel of globalization. He further states that the rise and spread of nationalism within the Orthodox heartland was directly linked with the effects of the second phase of globalisation processes in the region.
6. There are 13 Patriarchates in the Orthodox world. Four of them are ancient churches: Istanbul, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem; and 9 of them are national patriarchates: Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Greek, Albanian, Polish, and Cypriot (Macar 2003: 23–24; Ware 1997: 6).
7. The Mount Sinai Autonomous Church is under the jurisdiction of the Patri-archate of Jerusalem, while the Finnish and Estonian Churches are under the authority of the Patriarchate of Istanbul, and the Japanese and Chinese Orthodox Churches are under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow (Pacini 2000: 35–37). The autocephalous status of the Orthodox Church in America is not recognised by all the Orthodox churches. The Autonomous Orthodox Church of Macedonia, which is seeking independence from the Serbian Orthodox Church, did not achieve recognition yet (Binns 2002: 27).
8. The status of the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine and Estonia led to conflicts between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, while the status of the Orthodox Church in Moldova created problems between the Russian and Romanian Orthodox Patriarchates.
9. The final data of the 2011 census carried out across Romania has not been released yet. According to the census data conducted on 18–27 March 2002, the population of Romania is 21,680,974; and Orthodoxy is the religion revered by the majority of the population (18,817,975, 86.8%). There are other churches and religions within the Romanian religious landscape. The number of Roman Catholics is 1,026,429, which is 4.7% of the population, and they are mainly of Hungarian or German origin, while the number of Greek Catholics is 195,481 and represents 0.9% of the Romanian popula-tion. The reformed church members reach up to 701,077 or 3.2% of the population. There are different Protestant churches revered by 5–6% of the population. There is also a small Muslim community composed of Turks and Tartars, which makes up 0.3% of the population. Those of other religions are 0.4%, without any religion 0.1%, atheists under 0.1% and those that do not declare their religious denomination is 0.1%. Retrieved 28 January 2012 from http://www.insse.ro/cms/files/RPL2002INS/vol1/tabele/t50a.pdf and http://www.insse.ro/cms/files/RPL2002INS/vol1/tabele/t51.pdf
10. According to the pooled World Values Survey data collected in five waves from 1981 to 2001, Poland, Romania and Bosnia-Herzegovina emerge as the more religious of the post-Communist countries, while Eastern Germany, Estonia and Montenegro tend to be less religious (Norris & Inglehart 2004:
121). According to different surveys conducted in 2000, Romania emerged as one of the most religious countries in the region (Voicu 2007: 13).
11. The ROC’s presence and activism in public institutions is not matched by any other denomination in Romania (Andreescu 2007: 462).
12. ‘This recognition of the right of nations to their own way of life, to the preser-vation of their religious and cultural identity, should become an integral part of the standard offered to us as a universal uniting principle. Only in this case will integration not turn into depersonalizing unification’ (Kirill 2001). The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I (2008: 163) argues that it is not economic progress and growing welfare and collaboration through globalisation that the Orthodox Church is against. Rather the homogenising trends that challenge the distinctiveness of the Orthodox Church concern the Orthodox world, since this form of globalisation precludes encounters between differences.
13. ‘The Basis of the Social Concept’ is an important document as it guides the work of Synodal institutions, dioceses, monasteries, parishes and other church institutions as well as being included in the curriculum of theological schools of the Patriarchate (The Basis of the Social Concept, n.d.).
14. The Greek word ‘akathistos’ means not sitting. Therefore, the akathist hymn can be translated as the standing hymn. During the recitation of the akathist hymn, which praises a saint, holy event, or one of the persons of the Holy Trinity, the congregation is expected to stand.
15. According to Article 137 of the Statute of the ROC, the system of social assistance is integrated into the administrative organisational structure of the Church. ‘The Statutes for the Organisation and Functioning of the ROC General Stipulations’, pp. 65–66. Retrieved 5 May 2008 from http://www.
patriarhia.ro/_upload/documente/121438488425759490.pdf
16. The ROC is working actively in collaboration with some state institutions and NGOs and assuming new roles in the social sphere, such as prevent-ing traffickprevent-ing in human beprevent-ings, through givprevent-ing information and grantprevent-ing assistance to victims (‘News in Brief’ Jan–Mar 2003: 9); through the free distribution of medicines to social-medical settlements of the Church (‘News
16. The ROC is working actively in collaboration with some state institutions and NGOs and assuming new roles in the social sphere, such as prevent-ing traffickprevent-ing in human beprevent-ings, through givprevent-ing information and grantprevent-ing assistance to victims (‘News in Brief’ Jan–Mar 2003: 9); through the free distribution of medicines to social-medical settlements of the Church (‘News