Orthodox Christianity and Gender

Abstract

The Orthodox Christian tradition has all too often been sidelined in conversations around contemporary religion. Despite being distinct from Protestantism and Catholicism in both theology and practice, it remains an underused setting for academic inquiry into current lived religious practice. This collection, therefore, seeks to redress this imbalance by investigating modern manifestations of Orthodox Christianity through an explicitly gender-sensitive gaze. By addressing attitudes to gender in this context, it fills major gaps in the literature on both religion and gender. Starting with the traditional teachings and discourses around gender in the Orthodox Church, the book moves on to demonstrate the diversity of responses to those narratives that can be found among Orthodox populations in Europe and North America. Using case studies from several countries, with both large and small Orthodox populations, contributors use an interdisciplinary approach to address how gender and religion interact in contexts such as iconography, conversion, social activism, and ecumenical relations among others. From Greece and Russia to Finland and the USA, this volume sheds new light on the myriad ways in which gender is manifested, performed, and engaged within contemporary Orthodoxy. Furthermore, it also demonstrates that employing the analytical lens of gender enables new insights into Orthodox Christianity as a lived tradition. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of both Religious Studies and Gender Studies.

Yidishe tates forming Jewish families

“…It can very well be assumed, however, that their decisions were influenced by the institutional requirements of the local congregations, where circumcision is or was often considered to be a 'selfevident' marker of Jewish identity. The system that was established in the congregation in the 1950s, and which has remained in practice ever since, can be regarded as a concrete embodiment of the close interconnections between individual interpretations and con textual attributes that the framework of vernacular religion was designed to highlight (Romashko 2020;Kupari and Vuola 2020;Primiano 1995). Perhaps, if the historical and social conditions had been different, the congregational policies, and consequently the communal and individual practices connected with them, would have evolved differently in the context under study.…”

“…For a sufficient understanding of vernacular practices, the contextual and communal mani festations of religion are also to be considered when interpreting the practices themselves (ibid.). Vernacular religion connects local be liefs to contextual attributes: to specific historical, social, political and even ecological con ditions in which religious practices and beliefs exist and in which they are interpreted (Romashko 2020). Marion Bowman suggests that vernacular religion includes three interconnected com ponents of religion: official (primarily storage is implemented by the Finnish Literature Society.…”

“…Still, he found a solution to allow them to be bnei mitzvot. We do not know whether Zisse would have enrolled his children in a Jewish educational institution in which circumcision was not a requirement, but his case definitely reflects on the contextual attributes that are to be taken into consideration (Romashko 2020) when utilising a vernacular approach. The other three domains identified in my previous research ( Jewish holidays and rituals, kashrut and Jewish education of future offspring) were similarly central for the interviewed men and their families -however, the last was definitely the most topical in their narratives.…”

“…Itzik's children from his first marriage withdrew from the community, and it was not clear whether Anschel's children are still registered in the membership books since the change in the Freedom of Religion Act. The contextual attributes (Romashko 2020;Kupari and Vuola 2020;Primiano 1995) definitely played a great role in the decisions these men took when deciding about the Jewish upbringing of their children. The responsibility to raise chil dren also contributed to the awakening of a Jewish identity among the informants (McGinity 2014).…”