Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Anthropol Med. 2022 Dec;29(4):430-445. doi: 10.1080/13648470.2022.2080180. Epub 2022 Aug 10.
As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Orthodox Christians globally reacted to the possibility of contagion and risk in dialogue with theological positions about materials, their own long history which includes surviving previous pandemics and plagues, governmental and civil expectations and edicts, and pious - but often unofficial - understandings about protection and the sacrality of religious artefacts and the space of the temple. This article draws upon primary ethnographic research amongst Orthodox Christians in the UK, Serbia, Greece and Russia, as well as news articles about and primary ecclesiastical documents from Orthodox Churches more widely, to highlight commonalities and divergences in Orthodox Christian responses to the pandemic. Examining both the theological basis, and socio-political differences, this article considers how the Orthodox theology of apophaticism and relationality impacts wider discourses of contagion (both positive and negative), and consequently compliance with public health initiatives. Comparison across diverse Orthodox settings suggests that Orthodox Christians are concerned with the neighbour - both in terms of who may be watching (and reporting) them, and who may fall sick because of them.
随着 COVID-19 大流行的爆发，全球东正教徒在与关于材料的神学立场对话时，对接触和风险做出了反应，这些神学立场涉及他们自己的悠久历史，包括在前几次大流行和瘟疫中幸存下来，以及政府和民间的期望和法令，还有关于保护宗教文物和圣殿空间的神圣性的虔诚但往往是非官方的理解。本文主要依据在英国、塞尔维亚、希腊和俄罗斯的东正教徒进行的民族志研究，以及更广泛的东正教会的新闻文章和主要的教会文件，突出了东正教徒对大流行的反应中的共同点和差异。本文考察了东正教的否定神学和关系性的神学基础以及社会政治差异，考虑了东正教的否定神学和关系性如何影响更广泛的关于接触（包括正面和负面）的论述，并因此影响了对公共卫生倡议的遵守。在不同的东正教环境中的比较表明，东正教徒关心的是邻居——既关心可能在观察（和报告）他们的人，也关心可能因为他们而生病的人。
