Panel: MINORITY, INEQUALITY, AND THE POLITICS OF RELIGION AND THEOLOGY



555.2 - INVISIBLE INEQUALITY: GENDER AND CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX POLITICAL THEOLOGY

AUTHORS:
Athanasopoulou-Kypriou S. (University of Crete ~ Rethymno ~ Greece)
Text:
Recent scholarship has witnessed a renewed interest in Orthodox political theology, culminating in major collective works that map its historical and contemporary expressions. Yet a striking absence characterizes this emerging canon: the near-total omission of Orthodox feminist theology as a recognized form of political theology. Although there exists a noteworthy—albeit fragmented—engagement with the presence of women in the Orthodox tradition and with questions of equality in both the ecclesial and social spheres, these concerns are not acknowledged as constitutive political-theological questions. Based on a systematic examination of the most comprehensive recent volumes in the field, this paper argues that Orthodox feminist theology is not merely underrepresented but structurally excluded from the dominant conceptual frameworks of Orthodox political-theological discourse. The paper advances three interconnected claims. First, it demonstrates that current mappings of Orthodox political theology remain largely centered on state power, nationalism, ecclesial authority, and sovereignty, thereby implicitly reproducing a masculinized understanding of the "political." Second, it shows that Orthodox feminist theology, despite its robust engagement with embodiment, power, ecclesiology, violence, and social marginalization, is relegated to the margins of theological visibility and denied political-theological status. Third, drawing on Bourdieu's theory of symbolic power and field formation, the paper interprets this exclusion not as an oversight but as an effect of the gendered structuring of the Orthodox theological field itself.