The 'Orthodox Constructions of the West' Conference

(Mere Comments) - Fordham University is hosting conference on Orthodox Constructions of the West at the end of June.

I hear a lot these days about the vast differences between the East and the West. Sometimes I hear things motivated by pride and feelings of superiority, indifference or hostility, and not often by charity and humility. Charity and humility do not require blurring real differences, but they do require the patience to understand the other and not giving into the temptation to make one wins no matter what. It's not a matter of winning at all, for those who serve the Lord best are those who do not think about winning the contest of reputations and status, but only how they might help stir up others "to love and good works."

I suppose one could make the case that the most apostolic of any church is the one that follows the pattern of the apostles most closely, the example, I mean, of how even on the night of the Lord's betrayal and passion, in the midst of the Lord's Supper, they disputed with one another as to who was the greatest (Luke 22:24). I suppose the dispute may have arisen because of dissatisfaction with the seating assignments. The apostolic churches do seem to engage in the debate that hasn't let up in centuries.

At the Supper, it was supposed to be all about Him, but not in the world's way of reckoning, and not about the disciples in their way of reckoning. It was about Hi--being broken for them; Jesus showed them how to act by washing their feet.

When the great patriarchs of the churches wash each other's feet, perhaps the Lord will be near at hand. In the meantime, we talk, and pray.

In preparation for the publication of Orthodox Readings of Augustine (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008), the co-founding directors of the Orthodox Christian Studies Program were struck by ways in which Orthodox authors, especially in the twentieth century, had created artificial categories of “East” and “West” and then used that distinction as a basis for self-definition. The history of Orthodox Christianity is typically narrated by Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike as developing in the ‘East’, which is geographically ambiguous, but usually refers to the region in Europe east of present-day Croatia, Hungary and Poland. In contemporary Orthodoxy, ‘West’ refers not simply to a geographical location, but to a form of civilization that was shaped and influenced by Latin Christendom, which includes both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The “West,” thus, represents a cluster of theological, cultural and political ideas against which Orthodox self-identify. In other words, Orthodox self-identification often engages in a distorted apophaticism: Orthodoxy is what the “West” is not.

Given that much of the Orthodox world has until recently suffered oppression from the Ottomans and the Communists, one can read the creation of the “East-West” binary as a post-colonial search for an authentic Orthodox identity in the wake of such domination. After centuries of repression, it is not surprising that the Orthodox recovery of identity would take the form of opposition to that which is seemingly the religious, cultural and political “Other.” The question that the conference will attempt to answer is whether such a construction has as much to do with Orthodox identify formation vis-à-vis the West as it does with genuine differences. By creating this opposition to the “West,” do Orthodox communities not only misunderstand what Western Christians believe but, even more egregiously, have they come to believe certain things about their own tradition and teachings that are historically untrue? The importance of addressing these questions is not simply limited to the theological realm. There is evidence of anti-democracy and anti-human rights rhetoric coming from traditional Orthodox countries that have recently been liberated from communism, and this rhetoric often associates liberal forms of democracy and the notion of human rights in general as “Western” and, therefore, not Orthodox. In other words, the self-identification vis-à-vis the “West” is affecting the cultural and political debates in the traditional Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe. Insofar as this conference addresses the broader theme of identity formation, its impact is potentially far-reaching, as it hopes to influence the production of theological, cultural and political ideas within contemporary Orthodoxy.

The purpose of this conference is to explore how these artificial binaries were first created and, by exposing them, make possible a more authentic recovery of the rich Orthodox tradition that is unfettered by self-definition vis-à-vis the proximate other. It is also expected that the deconstruction of false caricatures of West will impact the discussion on culture and politics throughout the Orthodox world, as well as assist in moving the ecumenical conversation forward.