Twelve percent of the world's Christians are Orthodox, with most of them living in Eastern and Southeastern Europe and the Middle East. In addition, Orthodox diasporas are present across the world, especially in North America, Australia, and Western Europe. This global Orthodox world has historically been divided by the rivalry between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Moscow Patriarchate. The Russian war on Ukraine has deepened the conflict and brought this internal division to the attention of a wider public. Global Orthodoxy is marked by cross-cutting tensions. Among these are tensions between a pro-democratic, modernity-affirmative Orthodoxy and an autocratic, anti-modern Orthodoxy; between church hierarchs and the laity; and between a nation-bound and a universal Orthodox church identity. These differences don't neatly overlap with each other, but cut across global Orthodoxy in different ways. Glossing over such existing complexities, theological differences are often mapped onto geopolitical conflicts, with the Ecumenical Patriarchate associated with the West and in particular the United States, and the Moscow Patriarchate tied to the imperial idea of a “Russian world.” This conference aims to analyze and map the complex fault lines within contemporary global Orthodoxy. 

9:00 am Welcome Coffee

9:30 am Welcome Remarks
Kristina Stoeckl, Luiss University
Silke Schmitt, Hanns Seidl Stiftung Italy/Vatican

9:45 am Geopolitics and Religion: The Role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate

Elizabeth Prodromou, Boston College

10:00 am Theologies and War versus Theologies of War
Aristotle Papanikolaou, Fordham University

10:45 am Discussion

11:00 am The (In)Activity of the Georgian Orthodox Church
Tamara Grzdelidze, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, and former Ambassador of Georgia to the Holy See

11:45 am Global Orthodoxy: The Proliferation of Parallel Orthodoxies
Cyril Hovorun Huffington Ecumenical Institute, Loyola Marymount University

12:30 pm Discussion

1:00 pm Lunch Break

2:00 pm Institutional Greetings
Sergio Fabbrini, Head of the Department of Political Science, Luiss University

2:15 pm Orthodoxy in Ukraine at the Crossroads of Influences, Challenges, and Self-Definitions
Andrii Yurash, Ukrainian Ambassador to the Holy See

3:00 pm Book Presentation: Unholy War: The Russo-Ukrainian War and Religion
Nicholas Denysenko, Valparaiso University

Commentary
Josè Casanova Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University

4:00 pm Coffee Break

4:15 pm Invisible Diversity in the Russian Orthodox Church
Kathy Rousselet, Sciences Po Paris

5:00 pm Closing Remarks

Registration