The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission and the Defense of Orthodoxy
The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission and the Defense of Orthodoxy
Responses to the independence of the Greek Church and the creation of new ecclesiastical institutions illustrate the central distinction within Greek society in the post-revolutionary era, between the indigenous Orthodox and traditional element of Greek nationalism, and the modern and secular component of Greek nationalism. In the 1830s, traditionalist Greek clergy and intellectuals, supported by the Russian embassy and ecclesiastical mission, emerged as the principal defenders of the religious element of what became the new Hellenic-Christian imagined community. As a potent source of influence and resources, the Russian ecclesiastical mission symbolized the traditions of Orthodoxy and conservatism held sacred by the Greek masses. The protection and support offered by the Russian embassy and its ecclesiastical legation to the pro-Orthodox element of Greek society helped galvanize traditionalist policy-makers and the church hierarchy against a minority of liberal critics and foreign infiltrations of “new religions.”
Keywords: Eastern Orthodoxy, Church of Greece, Russian foreign policy, Ecumenical Patriarchate, Russian–Greek relations, Konstantinos Oikonomos, biblical translation, Orthodox monasticism, national identity
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