Are secularization and dechristianization inevitable?
Are secularization and dechristianization inevitable?

Summary/Abstract: While the Orthodox Church is hierarchical in its structure, it is not hierarchical in the same way as Roman Catholicism traditionally has been; rather, it embraces the principle of conciliarity, what the Russians call sobornost’. In Orthodox ecclesiology, the “church” is not only the clergy, but the whole people, who together constitute the Body of Christ. This principle, however, must not remain an abstract concept, but must become a living reality. If the inertia of the communist-era isolation of the Church from society continues to persist, and the Church continues to rely upon the state, then I predict that dechristianization will take place in Romania in the decades to come. But dechristianization is not inevitable. Ultimately, the spiritual fate of Romania depends largely upon the choices that the Orthodox Church makes in the forthcoming years

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