Drawing on the current discussion on „multiple secularities“ and on the basis of selective cases, in this presentation I will attempt a closer look at the many specific entanglements between Orthodox Christianity and secularity, as well as at their consequences on diverse levels, both in history and at present. Historically speaking, secularity in Orthodox Christian contexts has been articulated to a large extent differently than in Western Christianity (both Roman Catholic and Protestant) for a number of reasons. In the West, for example, such attempts to distinguish the areas of competence between a religious and non-religious sphere were instrumental in paving the way for the institutional differentiation and the (binary) distinction between a religious and a worldly realm, which later on acquired a normative dimension in the West European secularization process towards the creation of modern statehood. This is an important point that has been often neglected when talking about Christianity in Europe indistinctly and without the necessary regional variations. 

It is furthermore important to consider the influence of Western forms of secularity upon the Orthodox world on various levels, a process that has started since the dawn of the early modern age and continues up to this day. In fact, Western secularity as a part of the broader project of modernity has had a formative impact on the Orthodox East and has triggered many tensions, conflicts and changes. In many ways, the new independent states in Eastern and South Eastern Europe were run by secular elites and were thus forced to accept the Western differentiation between the religious and the secular as the basis of modern statehood and modernisation, despite criticism from the local Orthodox Churches. Further developments, such as the adhesion of various predominantly Orthodox countries to the European Union, enhanced this adjustment process and supported the greater religious neutrality of the state. Nevertheless, due to the lingering of old traditions and especially of the “symphonic” one from Byzantine times, the new independent states retained an “Orthodox” colouring of the public sphere, which clearly deviates from Western standards. Such cases are considered to represent a “symphonic secularity”, namely a combination of old religious traditions with new secular orientations. On another bent, in the Soviet Union there was a secular totalitarian Marxist-Leninist political establishment, which, aside from its own “religious” features, suppressed the Orthodox Church and other religions and left its imprint upon the Eastern Orthodox world throughout the 20th century. All this became evident in the post-communist era, when religions and especially the Orthodox Church were rehabilitated there. In many respects, the current negative evaluation of Western secularity by the Russian Orthodox Church owes much to the previous communist experience, as it tries to renegotiate the boundaries between the religious and the secular to its benefit.

The underlying question here concerns the necessary borders that ideally have to be kept vis-à-vis the world as such and by extension vis-à-vis the secular realm. In the Christian West, these borders, especially in modern times, have been for various reasons and due to specific socio-political and other developments very elastic and permeable. By contrast, Orthodox Christianity still tries to keep them more strict, less porous and less open. This is a fascinating question to explore further by assessing whether all these radical changes constitute an ominous threat or a creative challenge for the Orthodox Church and its mission in the contemporary global environment.