For the Life of the World and Orthodox Political Theology

Abstract

The article explores the document For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church (FLW) in the contexts that had instigated its promulgation. It maps this document in the coordinates of the Orthodox political theology during the long twentieth century. FLW corresponds to a line in “the theology of the 1960s,” which advocated for liberal democracy and against anti-Westernism. The article argues that FLW fulfills the unaccomplished mission of the Panorthodox council in producing a comprehensive Orthodox social doctrine. It compares FLW with the social corpus adopted by the Russian Orthodox Church during the 2000s.