Orthodox Christian Material Ecology and the Sociopolitics of Religion (Renewal)

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Aims: This project asks 'What role does the material ecology play in shaping the sociopolitics of Global Orthodoxy?' and in this renewal period pushes this into less obviously material domains of mental health, administration and politics.Impact: Orthodox Christianity is a tradition based on discourse, but there has been very little research looking at the specifics of how that works. Focusing on discourse also tends to over emphasise words and belief. Based on the work of Max Muller, this project insists that religion must start with what is perceived, not with concepts such as belief in the supernatural. This means we situate discursive traditions not in concepts but the material culture of local and global populations. This reframes how we understand religion and forefronts the impact that religious practice has on material aspects like health, the environment and geopolitics.Context: Social scientific interest in religion looks at the variation in the lived religion from one place, compared to another. However there are periods of time - such as from April 2018, after the president of Ukraine asked the Patriarch of Constantinople to intervene in the Russian Church in Ukraine - when religion cannot be studied only in the local expression. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is complicated by historic tensions between local Orthodox Churches and local understandings of shared religious heritage and the buildings, land and bodies that make up that carry that heritage. The materiality of discourse must be seen as central to the form and practice of any given tradition.Research: Framed in terms of three research domains, this project focuses on the material conditions of Global Orthodox sociopolitics, conducting research amongst Orthodox Christians and religious institutions. The project investigates how the properties and affordances of the material ecology (including the body, the built environment, and the wider 'natural' order) shape and are marshalled within the discourse of the Orthodox Churches. This extension focuses on mental health, charity administration and governance as extensions of the previous three domains (the body, the person and the environment) in order to push the findings further and hone the theoretical and methodological approach. The mental health domain looks at current efforts to bring psychological insights about the human person into the practice of the Church in order to address the mental health crisis amongst religious communities. The tension between ancient theological understandings of the person and modern scientific insights gives rise to ongoing efforts to integrate what can be without losing the richness offered by the spiritual tradition that, itself, emphasises a wholistic approach to health. The charity administration and finance domain takes a diachronic and synchronic approach to the diverse ethnic and historical conditions by which the various Orthodox jurisdictions came to be established in the United Kingdom. As different immigration waves arrived in the UK, migrants formed 'diaspora' churches in different ways in order to meet their religious and wider social needs. This domain looks at the tensions between charity law in the UK and the church law concerning proper church order, as well as the ethics of money management and the ways decisions about charity/Church administration are made. The final domain, of policy and governance focuses on how different local Churches - for example in the UK, Greece, Russia, Cyprus, Syria, and Nigeria - relate to each other and how these Churches relate to their own governments and, often on the behalf of persecuted Churches, other foreign governments.Output: This project will produce three academic books, six academic articles, and - through partnership with the local Church charities - policy guidelines and toolkits to help address the issues relating to the first two research domains.