The church and the virus: frontiers of secularization and political theology in contemporary Georgian Orthodoxy

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on how internal ideological dynamics and political theologies of religious institutions shape their articulations of political claims. It explores how the “success” of traditionalist claims can drive formal desecularization at the expense of triggering a liberal backlash. These issues are explored through an in-depth case study of the conflict that emerged in Spring of 2020 between fundamentalists, traditionalists, and liberals in the Georgian Orthodox Church and Orthodox scholarly community over the Holy Synod’s decision not to modify religious services despite the novel coronavirus pandemic and nationwide state of emergency. It finds that the GOC can be characterized as a traditionalist institution due to its tendency to privilege Orthodoxy over other religions, challenge the validity of secular knowledge, and articulate the exercise of religion in terms of human rights. The reasons behind these stances have also been explored. This thesis posits that this episode was caused primarily by a permissive attitude towards ideological division in the Church and an agreement between the traditionalist Patriarchate and fundamentalist segment of the Synod. The liberal critique of the Church’s political claims, which represent a minority political claim, is also explored through the public criticisms of theologians.