Understanding Orthodox Ecclesial Hierarchies and the Ethnographic Gaze

The dialogue between ethnography and theology has created fruitful ground to consider both the particular theological framings of people’s lives, and the ways that people’s politics, socialities, and relationships build theological worlds and ecclesial institutions. To continue expanding the boundaries of these conversations generally, and apply them to Orthodox Christianity more specifically, academics should take stock of the epistemological assumptions that each discipline smuggles into their analysis. This paper argues that the dominant ethnographic gaze of our contemporary moment – a gaze which often takes a deliberately and admirably engaged stance against inequalities – runs the risk of equating all inequality with injustice and thus misses the theological and liberatory nuances of Orthodox Christian hierarchy. The author suggests that to escape this reductive analysis, the integration of anthropological principles into Orthodox ecclesiologies must veer away from a discourse of reproach and towards a creative reinterpretation of the possibilities of non-egalitarian church structures.