Orthodoxy and the COVID-19 Crisis: Ritualized Security and Performative Social Action

Abstract

The article defines and pilot-tests a proposed concept, “ritualized security”, to explain the behavior of Orthodox Christian churches under the covid-19 pandemic. The analysis focuses on empirical case studies in Ukraine and Georgia. Based on material and results gathered through institutional analysis (e.g. official statements of churches, examination of legal documents, media interviews) and semi-structured interviews with clerics of the Orthodox churches, we suggest that Orthodox churches have ritualized public health security practices in cases when political benefits outweighed the risks. Depending on the church-state relations to state polities, the churches delegated the function of enforcer to the state or acted, justified by moral and theological rhetoric, in defiance of governmental authorities to advance their own ideological, economic, and political agendas.