ORTHODOXY IN IMPERIAL AND POST-IMPERIAL CONTEXT

The international conference “Orthodoxy in imperial and post-imperial context”, held at the University of Tartu (Estonia) on 6 October 2025, brought together theologians, historians, and scholars from all over Europe to explore the complex intersections between Orthodox Christianity and imperial ideologies. It was organised by the University of Tartu in cooperation with Volos Academy for Theological Studies and Orthodox Church of Estonia. The event aimed to foster critical dialogue on how imperial frameworks have shaped Orthodox theology, ecclesiastical identity, and political engagement and how these legacies continue to influence the Orthodox world today.

Greetings were addressed to the Conference by the representatives of the three cooperating institutions Priit Rohtmets (University of Tartu), Pantelis Kalaitzidis (Volos Academy), and Tauri Tölpt (Orthodox Church of Estonia).

Opening the conference, Pantelis Kalaitzidis (Volos Academy for Theological Studies) revisited Byzantine political theology, questioning its fidelity to the spirit of Nicaea. Sister Vassa Larin (Kiev Orthodox Theological Academy) explored the lasting trauma of imperial loss within the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, tracing how nostalgia and identity intertwine in the life of the diaspora. Fr. Cyril Hovorun (Sankt Ignatios College, Stockholm; Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles) reflected on how the Orthodox Church might find new paths to freedom from empires and dictatorships in the 21st century.

The themes of law and authority in historical and current context were addressed by David Heith-Stade (University of Vienna) and Pasquale Annicchino (University of Foggia), who examined how legal and canonical frameworks were used in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and how to evaluate the legal religious framework adopted in Ukraine. Historical and political continuities were brought into focus by Norman Russell (Istituto Teologico “Santa Eufemia di Calcedonia”), Priit Rohtmets, and Alar Kilp (both University of Tartu). Their presentations traced the evolution of imperial ideology in the Byzantine and Russian worlds.

The final session turned to the present and future of Orthodoxy in a global context. Katerina Pekridou (Conference of European Churches) spoke on the moral challenges facing Christian communities amid Russia’s war against Ukraine, while Fr. Gintaras Sungaila (Orthodox Christian Institute for Education and Research, Lithuania) described the imperial narratives of the Russian Orthodox Church in Lithuania and local efforts to “decolonize” Orthodoxy and free it from inherited hierarchies. Fr. Andriy Dudchenko (Kyiv Orthodox Theological Academy) offered an analysis of churches in Ukraine, seeking renewal beyond imperial models.

Representing Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Pantelis Kalaitzidis started with a reference to the Credo of Nicaea, questioning how faithful to the spirit of Nicaea and its Trinitarian theology was byzantine political theology and the idea that the emperor was the image or the representative of Christ on earth. He highlighted the monarchical approach of Eusebius of Caesarea and its implementation of the kingdom of God as some form of Empire, explaining that in the perspective of Byzantine political theology Christ was understood much more as a king and less as a prophet or a priest. These very ideas found a sympathetic echo in the political theology of Carl Schmidt in the 20th century, and they were strongly opposed fist by Erik Peterson and later by Jürgen Moltmann, who saw in such monarchial approaches a danger for the Nicaean Credo. According to Peterson, the Christian belief in the Trinitarian God leads to the denial of every sort of political domination and ultimately cancels all illusions about monarchical “political theologies”. Peterson, while opposing “any such thing as a Christian political theology,” was the first to highlight the political function and political implications of the doctrine of the Trinity. Kalaitzidis highlighted also the fact that the Eusebian perspective met, time and again, with resistance in the Eastern part of the empire, where Church Fathers and monastics, without denying the sacralization of imperial power and its Christological basis, opposed the imperial demands for the Church’s subjugation to secular authority and, more importantly, the imperial attempts to intervene in theological and doctrinal issues, and that, alongside the cooperation of the Church and State in Byzantium, a continual dialectical tension seems to pervade the relationship between spiritual and secular authority, as exemplified by the patriarch and the emperor, or the Church and the empire. In the end of this discussion, it becomes clear that while Byzantium and the medieval empires failed to establish a way to society of common understanding, Trinitarian theology offers an eschatological perspective towards the kingdom of God. 

The video recording of the Conference is here

See the program of the Conference here

See the greeting messages of Priit Rohtmans, Pantelis Kalaitzidis, and Tauri Tölpt here

Photography by Katerina Pekridou, Priit Rohtmets and Tauri Tölpt.