The ethics of Orthodoxy as the aesthetics of the local church

Abstract

This paper addresses the ritual aesthetics of mundane aspects within the global Eastern Orthodox Christian liturgical practice. By comparing a variety of 'local practices' within the liturgical traditions of various Orthodox Christian communities, the paper explores how commonly held ethical commitments are expressed in radically different-and at times exactly opposite-practices of quotidian religion. In this evaluation of 'little traditions' within the 'great tradition' of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the paper focuses on the beauty, judgement, and affect of local practices and their relation within the larger canonically inscribed theology of 'correct practice' (orthopraxy). Drawing upon anthropological and sociological theory of art, aesthetics, and invention, the paper argues that aesthetics is localised ethics in practice.

Apophatic love, contagion, and surveillance: Orthodox Christian responses to the global pandemic

“…'), but because of what Metreveli (2021) has called 'performative security' because people are aware that others are watching. As Carroll (2017) has noted, aesthetics is the local expression of ethics, and in the context of responses to the pandemic, this is no different. In quiet neighbourhood parishes, where everyone knows each other, people relax and the icons can be kissed, and masks are not as commonly used.…”

“…Orthodox practice is built on a theology that emphasises relationality and the affective bodily response to sensorial stimuli. It is an approach to material culture wherein the ethics shared across the Orthodox Churches are localised in a heterogenous array of aesthetic forms (cf Carroll 2017). In order to understand the various responses to the pandemic, both in terms of risk and health policy, we start by examining what the materials of religious symbols are understood to be, and then move to examine the theological assumptions that underpin how the Church teaches concepts of relationality.…”

Theology as an Ethnographic Object: An Anthropology of Eastern Christian Rupture

“…The priest's is a moment of mundane rest taken in the midst of what is otherwise a physically and taxing exercise in the temple-as-ikon-of-universe. On this small scale, examining the theology implicit within the liturgical traditions, one can also see how Orthodox Christianity comes into the home via ikons, holy water, and even herbs used in the liturgy (Carroll 2017b). These sacred objects come into the home and make sacred space within a mundane space.…”

Peoplehood and the Orthodox person: a view from central Serbia

“…When – over dinner – I asked a married couple why a priest had mentioned ‘homeland’ ( otaždbina) in his homily, they stressed the importance of defending borders, before elucidating the need to cherish one's own ‘saints’, ‘territory’, and ‘Tradition’. Timothy Carroll shows how local Orthodox aesthetics allow people to ‘push beyond the aesthetic threshold’, to access a ‘sublime’, divine dimension (2017: 369). My argument follows a similar logic: the cultural specificity of one's own people and its faith tradition is seen as enabling – not hindering – development as an Orthodox person.…”