Politics and Question of Women’s Rights in Orthodoxy

Experts of the Churches of Eastern Europe will visit Cluster of Excellence in June

In June, the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” will welcome two proven experts of the Orthodox Churches as visiting fellows. In Münster, Orthodox theologian Prof. Dr Cyril Hovorun from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles will speak about the relationship between Orthodoxy and politics, while historian and religious scholar Dr Irina Paert, who teaches at the Centre for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS) of the University of Tartu in Estonia, addresses gender roles in Orthodoxy.

In Münster, Cyril Hovorun continues his research on the question of how the Russian Orthodox Church is instrumentalised for political goals. He has been invited by sociologist of religion Prof. Dr Detlef Pollack and will give a lecture on “Modern Political Orthodoxies: Nationalism, Fundamentalism, Anti-Semitism” (in English) on 26 June 2018 at 6.15 pm, presenting his current research on various forms of the Orthodox tradition which, according to Hovorun, are instrumentalised for political purposes involving nationalism, conservatism, monarchism and anti-Semitism.

Irina Paert, who has been invited by historian Dr Liliya Berezhnaya, will already speak in Münster on 13 June 2018 at 6.15 pm. In her lecture “Beyond the Balaclavas: Gender and the Russian Orthodoxy” (in English), she will give an account of the historical background to the question of women’s rights in contemporary Russian Orthodoxy and show how men and women today put the traditional orthodox images of gender roles into practice in their lives. Both lectures will be held in lecture theatre JO 101 at Johannisstraße 4 in Münster.

Prof. Dr Cyril Hovorun is considered one of the most renowned scholars for Orthodox theology, patristics and the religious history of Christianity. He is Acting Director of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and has published, among others, “Ukrainian Public Theology” (2017), “Scaffolds of the Church: Towards Poststructural Ecclesiology” (2017); “Meta-Ecclesiology, Chronicles on Church Awareness” (2015) and “Will, Action and Freedom. Christological Controversies in the Seventh Century” (2008).

Dr Irina Paert conducts research on Russian church history with a focus on secularisation, the spirituality of old believers, on religious dissent and gender issues. She is one of the few women researchers who have worked on the question of women’s rights in today’s Russian Orthodoxy from a historical perspective. Her publications deal with religion, nationalism and gender in Eastern Europe, such as her book “Old Believers, Religious Dissent and Gender in Russia, 1760-1859” (2003). (asc/sca/vvm)