Angie Heo (Afterword By) Angie Heo is an associate professor of the anthropology and sociology of religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is the author of The Political Lives of Saints: Christian Muslim Mediation in Egypt (University of California Press, 2018).Candace Lukasik (Edited By) Candace Lukasik is an assistant professor of religion and faculty affiliate in anthropology and Middle Eastern cultures at Mississippi State University. She is the author of Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire (NYU Press, 2025).Sarah Riccardi-Swartz (Edited By) Sarah Riccardi-Swartz is an assistant professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University. She is the author of Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Authority in Appalachia (Fordham University Press, 2022).Sonja Thomas (Foreword By) Sonja Thomas is an associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Colby College. Her research examines the intersections of caste, race, gender, class, and religion in postcolonial India and the South Asian diaspora. She is the author of Privileged Minorities: Syrian Christianity, Gender, and Minority Rights in Postcolonial India. She has also written articles on education and Christian religious minorities in India, on South Asian American Christians, and on tap dance in the United States and globally. She is currently completing a manuscript on Indian missionary priests in the United States entitled Indians and Cowboys: Race, Caste, and Indian Missionary Priests in Rural America.

Anthropologies of Orthodox Christianity stands out for its concern with the integration of theological ideas with the practice of lived religion, which makes it a major intervention in the fast growing conversation about theology within anthropology (and about anthropology within theology). The contributions are uniformly excellent and the collection as a whole is a benchmark contribution to the study of Orthodox life.---Joel Robbins, author of Theology and the Anthropology of Christian Life Offering a rich and layered analysis of diverse Orthodox Christian communities—their histories, theologies, and politics —this ambitious volume shows how Orthodox life worlds are created, contested, and transformed, particularly through encounters with various ‘others.’ It underscores the importance of engaging deeply with theology, ecclesiology, and liturgy for producing nuanced, context-sensitive scholarship and furthers the critical conversations that shape the study of global Christianity and religion more broadly.---Vlad Naumescu, Professor, Central European University

• Foreword viiSonja ThomasIntroduction: Thinking About Orthodox Christianity in an Anthropological Perspective 1Candace Lukasik and Sarah Riccardi-SwartzPART I: LIVING THEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORIESOrthodoxy from the Outside: Palestinian Christian Kinship and the Evangelical Theology of Love 33Clayton GoodgameImperial Ecclesiologies and Ethnographic Imaginaries:Situating Syriac Christianity in the Anthropology of Global Orthodoxy 63Sarah Bakker KelloggThe Lives of Priests in the Coptic Imagination 92Aaron MichkaPART II: SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION AND ORTHODOX THEOLOGIESHagiographic Emplacement: St. Servatius, the ArmenianCommunity of Maastricht, and Oriental Orthodox Christians in Europe 121Christopher SheklianDynamic Honor: How Ethiopian Orthodox Keber Mediatesthe Secular, the Islamic, and the Religiously Plural 154John DulinThe State of Grace: Old Believers’ Determinationsof Coreligiosity and Moral Life in the Days Between the Mysteries 182Amber Lee SilvaPART III: THEOLOGICAL ANXIETIES AND CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONSThe Heresy of Eastern Papizm in Russian Orthodox Online Discourse 215Jacob LassinUFOs, Conspiracy, and American Eastern Orthodoxy: Narrative Performance of the "Patristic Mind" 251Robert C. SalerAfterword 274Angie HeoAcknowledgments 281List of Contributors 283Index 287

Angie Heo (Afterword By) Angie Heo is an associate professor of the anthropology and sociology of religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is the author of The Political Lives of Saints: Christian Muslim Mediation in Egypt (University of California Press, 2018).Candace Lukasik (Edited By) Candace Lukasik is an assistant professor of religion and faculty affiliate in anthropology and Middle Eastern cultures at Mississippi State University. She is the author of Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire (NYU Press, 2025).Sarah Riccardi-Swartz (Edited By) Sarah Riccardi-Swartz is an assistant professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University. She is the author of Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Authority in Appalachia (Fordham University Press, 2022).Sonja Thomas (Foreword By) Sonja Thomas is an associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Colby College. Her research examines the intersections of caste, race, gender, class, and religion in postcolonial India and the South Asian diaspora. She is the author of Privileged Minorities: Syrian Christianity, Gender, and Minority Rights in Postcolonial India. She has also written articles on education and Christian religious minorities in India, on South Asian American Christians, and on tap dance in the United States and globally. She is currently completing a manuscript on Indian missionary priests in the United States entitled Indians and Cowboys: Race, Caste, and Indian Missionary Priests in Rural America.

Anthropologies of Orthodox Christianity stands out for its concern with the integration of theological ideas with the practice of lived religion, which makes it a major intervention in the fast growing conversation about theology within anthropology (and about anthropology within theology). The contributions are uniformly excellent and the collection as a whole is a benchmark contribution to the study of Orthodox life.---Joel Robbins, author of Theology and the Anthropology of Christian Life Offering a rich and layered analysis of diverse Orthodox Christian communities—their histories, theologies, and politics —this ambitious volume shows how Orthodox life worlds are created, contested, and transformed, particularly through encounters with various ‘others.’ It underscores the importance of engaging deeply with theology, ecclesiology, and liturgy for producing nuanced, context-sensitive scholarship and furthers the critical conversations that shape the study of global Christianity and religion more broadly.---Vlad Naumescu, Professor, Central European University

• Foreword viiSonja ThomasIntroduction: Thinking About Orthodox Christianity in an Anthropological Perspective 1Candace Lukasik and Sarah Riccardi-SwartzPART I: LIVING THEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORIESOrthodoxy from the Outside: Palestinian Christian Kinship and the Evangelical Theology of Love 33Clayton GoodgameImperial Ecclesiologies and Ethnographic Imaginaries:Situating Syriac Christianity in the Anthropology of Global Orthodoxy 63Sarah Bakker KelloggThe Lives of Priests in the Coptic Imagination 92Aaron MichkaPART II: SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION AND ORTHODOX THEOLOGIESHagiographic Emplacement: St. Servatius, the ArmenianCommunity of Maastricht, and Oriental Orthodox Christians in Europe 121Christopher SheklianDynamic Honor: How Ethiopian Orthodox Keber Mediatesthe Secular, the Islamic, and the Religiously Plural 154John DulinThe State of Grace: Old Believers’ Determinationsof Coreligiosity and Moral Life in the Days Between the Mysteries 182Amber Lee SilvaPART III: THEOLOGICAL ANXIETIES AND CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONSThe Heresy of Eastern Papizm in Russian Orthodox Online Discourse 215Jacob LassinUFOs, Conspiracy, and American Eastern Orthodoxy: Narrative Performance of the "Patristic Mind" 251Robert C. SalerAfterword 274Angie HeoAcknowledgments 281List of Contributors 283Index 287

Angie Heo (Afterword By) Angie Heo is an associate professor of the anthropology and sociology of religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is the author of The Political Lives of Saints: Christian Muslim Mediation in Egypt (University of California Press, 2018).Candace Lukasik (Edited By) Candace Lukasik is an assistant professor of religion and faculty affiliate in anthropology and Middle Eastern cultures at Mississippi State University. She is the author of Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire (NYU Press, 2025).Sarah Riccardi-Swartz (Edited By) Sarah Riccardi-Swartz is an assistant professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University. She is the author of Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Authority in Appalachia (Fordham University Press, 2022).Sonja Thomas (Foreword By) Sonja Thomas is an associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Colby College. Her research examines the intersections of caste, race, gender, class, and religion in postcolonial India and the South Asian diaspora. She is the author of Privileged Minorities: Syrian Christianity, Gender, and Minority Rights in Postcolonial India. She has also written articles on education and Christian religious minorities in India, on South Asian American Christians, and on tap dance in the United States and globally. She is currently completing a manuscript on Indian missionary priests in the United States entitled Indians and Cowboys: Race, Caste, and Indian Missionary Priests in Rural America.

Anthropologies of Orthodox Christianity stands out for its concern with the integration of theological ideas with the practice of lived religion, which makes it a major intervention in the fast growing conversation about theology within anthropology (and about anthropology within theology). The contributions are uniformly excellent and the collection as a whole is a benchmark contribution to the study of Orthodox life.---Joel Robbins, author of Theology and the Anthropology of Christian Life Offering a rich and layered analysis of diverse Orthodox Christian communities—their histories, theologies, and politics —this ambitious volume shows how Orthodox life worlds are created, contested, and transformed, particularly through encounters with various ‘others.’ It underscores the importance of engaging deeply with theology, ecclesiology, and liturgy for producing nuanced, context-sensitive scholarship and furthers the critical conversations that shape the study of global Christianity and religion more broadly.---Vlad Naumescu, Professor, Central European University

• Foreword viiSonja ThomasIntroduction: Thinking About Orthodox Christianity in an Anthropological Perspective 1Candace Lukasik and Sarah Riccardi-SwartzPART I: LIVING THEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORIESOrthodoxy from the Outside: Palestinian Christian Kinship and the Evangelical Theology of Love 33Clayton GoodgameImperial Ecclesiologies and Ethnographic Imaginaries:Situating Syriac Christianity in the Anthropology of Global Orthodoxy 63Sarah Bakker KelloggThe Lives of Priests in the Coptic Imagination 92Aaron MichkaPART II: SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION AND ORTHODOX THEOLOGIESHagiographic Emplacement: St. Servatius, the ArmenianCommunity of Maastricht, and Oriental Orthodox Christians in Europe 121Christopher SheklianDynamic Honor: How Ethiopian Orthodox Keber Mediatesthe Secular, the Islamic, and the Religiously Plural 154John DulinThe State of Grace: Old Believers’ Determinationsof Coreligiosity and Moral Life in the Days Between the Mysteries 182Amber Lee SilvaPART III: THEOLOGICAL ANXIETIES AND CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONSThe Heresy of Eastern Papizm in Russian Orthodox Online Discourse 215Jacob LassinUFOs, Conspiracy, and American Eastern Orthodoxy: Narrative Performance of the "Patristic Mind" 251Robert C. SalerAfterword 274Angie HeoAcknowledgments 281List of Contributors 283Index 287