Orthodox Christian Churches and War Politics in Ethiopia and Ukraine
Guest editors: Romina Istratii and Lars Laamann
In November 2020 a conflict erupted in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Religious discourse was used to propagate ideas favourable to war by both members of the public and church-affiliated individuals, including close advisors to the Prime Minister. Soon ethnicity became a clear dividing factor in Ethiopian society and the Church, resulting also in the declared separation of the Tigray Diocese from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOTC). A convergence of faith and politics was also seen in the crisis that erupted in Ukraine in February 2022. Not only was there a strong identification of political and Church leadership in Russia from the beginning that favoured the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, but religious identity was invoked as a distinctive characteristic of an ‘Eastern’ identity in need of protection from encroaching Western expressions of secular modernity. In this case too, the political events resulted in rifts and divisions between Orthodox Churches in Russia and Ukraine, endangering unity in the broader Eastern Orthodox world.
From the outset of the war in Ukraine, the media conveyed the impression that the Moscow Patriarchate or, more specifically, Patriarch Kirill, either held substantive power over political decisions or was entirely enslaved to political leadership. Conversely, in representations of the Ethiopian conflict the EOTC has often been identified with either the Patriarch’s isolated condemnation of violence against Tigrayans or the inflammatory pro-war narratives of visible Church representatives. In relation to both conflicts, we saw tendencies among observers to reduce complex relations and narratives to homogenising pro-/anti-war lines of thinking, not recognising psycho-political experiences on the ground characterised by struggles of consciousness, self-censorship in the face of stark repercussions and the pressures of group think.
To nuance conversations, in 2022 the editors organised two roundtables at SOAS University of London that brought together regional specialists, theologians, clergy and scholars to deliberate on these questions. The Western media’s disproportionate focus on the Ukraine crisis as contrasted to the war in Ethiopia, despite the unprecedented humanitarian emergency in the region, was another motivation. Informed by a decolonial reflexivity, we sought to create a platform for Ethiopians, Ukrainians and Russians and their international diaspora to share their perspectives and experiences in a manner that enabled contextual and comparative analysis. The current special issue builds on many of the points made in the two roundtables with the same contributors (except one), who are directly connected to the contexts they discuss as members of the clergy, academics and humanitarian observers. The papers employ a variety of methodological approaches, including ethnographic observations, historical analysis, theological reflection and reviews of journalistic accounts. In writing their papers, contributors were encouraged to centre their papers on their positionality and to reflect on their affiliations and relationships to State and Church to achieve more reflexive analyses.
The Ethiopian Conflict in Tigray
- Jossi Jacob Ponodath, ‘The Dynamics between the Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Polity in Modern Ethiopia and Its Role in Establishing Peace in the Country’
- Anonymous, ‘The Challenges of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church Leadership in the Restoration of Peace and Stability in Ethiopia’
- John Binns, ‘How Churches Can Become Trapped by Violence and Hatred: The Example of Italy in Ethiopia’
The Russo–Ukrainian Conflict
- Bruno Husquinet, ‘The Tradition of Russian Independent Theological Thought: A Complex Interplay between Believers, the Orthodox Church and the State in the Case of the Conflict in Ukraine’
- Anthony Govorov (pseudonym), ‘The Motives of the Russian War on Ukraine: Corruption, Empire, Philosophy, Raison d’état and Religion’
- Yuri Stoyanov, ‘Eastern Orthodox War Justification and Ecclesial Dilemmas Arising from the War in Ukraine’
- Evangelos Thiani, ‘The Russian Orthodox Church in Africa – For Political or Ecclesial Reasons?’
This is an excerpt from the editorial of SWC 30.2 by Romina Istratii and Lars Laamann, entitled ‘Orthodox Christian Churches and War Politics in Ethiopia and Ukraine: Historical, Ecclesial and Theological Reflections’.