Social

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Questioning the Need for a Special Methodology for the Study of Eastern
Orthodoxy
Sergej Flere
Social Compass 2008 55: 84
DOI: 10.1177/0037768607086500
The online version of this article can be found at:
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social
co
compass
55(1), 2008, 84100

Sergej FLERE

Questioning the Need for a Special

Methodology for the Study of Eastern
Orthodoxy
The particular dierences of Eastern Orthodoxy alleged by Tomka (2006) to
demand a ``special research methodology'' are tested on a sample of the Serbian
Orthodox, comparing them to Slovenian Catholics and American Protestants.
The author found no important dierences in the direction suggested by
Tomka, with respect to the relation between traditionalism and religiosity, to
religious experience, to civil religion, to quest religiosity, to religious deeds/
sacrices (consequential religiosity), either structurally or as to magnitude.
The exception is to be found in a somewhat stronger link between traditionalism
and religiosity among the Orthodox, but the level of traditionalism among this
group is lower than in the American Protestant case. Most of the dierences
found between the groups are attributable to higher magnitudes of religiosity
in the American Protestant sample, but a clear peculiarity emerged indicating
a higher presence of guilt religiosity in the Serbian Orthodox sample. The
concept of God in this environment is that of a punishing God, along with a predominance of extrinsic psychological religiosity, leading to a psychologically
disaected (negative aect) situation.

Key words: Serbian Orthodoxy . extrinsic religiosity . quest religiosity .

religious experience . consequentiality of religion
Les dierences particulieres de l'orthodoxie orientale relevees par Tomka
(2006), qui revendique, des lors, une ``methodologie particuliere de recherche'',
sont testees sur un echantillon de Serbes orthodoxes, qui sont compares a des
catholiques slovenes, des musulmans bosniaques et des protestants americains.
Aucune dierence importante n'a ete notee dans le sens suggere par Tomka,
a l'egard de la relation entre le traditionalisme et la religiosite, l'experience religieuse, la religion civile, les actes religieux (la consequentialite religieuse), la
religion, la religiosite de quete, autant en terme structurel que d'etendue. La
seule exception observable est une correlation plus forte entre le traditionalisme
et la religiosite chez les orthodoxes. Neanmoins, le traditionalisme dans ce
groupe est moindre, en comparaison avec l'echantillon de protestants americains. Les dierences les plus marquees entre les groupes, concernant ces indicateurs, sont attribuables a la puissance de la religiosite (chez les protestants
americains). D'autre part, une dierence signicative se trouve dans la presence
plus importante d'une religiosite de culpabilite chez les Serbes orthodoxes. Le
concept de Dieu dans cet environnement est un concept de Dieu punitif qui va
DOI: 10.1177/0037768607086500
http://scp.sagepub.com

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Flere: A Special Methodology for the Study of Eastern Orthodoxy?

85

de pair avec une predominance de la religiosite psychologique extrinseque

menant a une aectivite negative.

Mots-cles: orthodoxie serbe . religiosite extrinseque . experience religieuse .

religiosite de quete . consequantialite religieuse

Introduction

In a recent article, M. Tomka raises the issue of Eastern Orthodoxy, claiming

that its uniqueness within Christianity demands special approaches and
methods in study and comprehension (2006). His basic assertion is that
``Eastern European religion eludes the criteria of the western sociology of
religion, as new phenomena do''1 (2006: 265). Therefore, ``one needs dierent
indicators and research methodology'' (2006: 251). In a way similar to
Huntington (1993), whom he invokes, he does not nd it necessary to mention dierences within Western Christianity. The issue may be pertinent
because of the sparse scientic literature, particularly on empirical sociological and psychological aspects of Orthodox religiosity. Makrides notes
this sparsity of studies on Eastern Orthodoxy within sociology (1999). One
should mention Greeley (1995), who wrote of a major religious revival in
Russia, and Borowik, who did not nd that Orthodox religiosity diered
basically in its structure from what happens in the West, underscoring the
similar encounter with New Age spirituality among the Orthodox as well
(2002). Neither of these addressed the issues of inner structure of belief
and piety among the Orthodox, issues which are particularly stressed by
Tomka, invoking theological writers (particularly V. Lossky).
According to Tomka, there are certain cultural and substantial peculiarities of Eastern Orthodoxy, which he elaborates upon in a part of the article
(2006: 258263) where he does not invoke any direct empirical data or test his
assertions. We will therefore test some of his assertions by the survey crosssectional method. At issue is not just the matter of dierences in magnitude
and structural dierences pertaining to certain components of religiosity, but
also dierences in ``religious cultures'' (2006: 259); we will test only a few of
the assertions, leaving others for the work of further researchers.
We will compare the religious proles of one ``Eastern Christian'' group to
the proles of two ``Western Christian'' groups (a Catholic and a Protestant
one), each of them dominant in the country of study. Our proles will not be
complete, as we will focus only on a few elements underscored by Tomka,
and some we will encounter as necessary for pointing out some peculiarities
of Serbian (and Eastern) Orthodoxy.
This survey, then, will deal with three environments only. This is not sucient for a complete picture, but it still enables insight into three major
streams within Christianity and is permissible for comparative purposes.
In our observation of Orthodoxy, we will focus on Serbian Orthodoxy,
which may have its own particuliarities. In his critical work on Serbian
Orthodoxy, Vrcan stresses the peculiarities of Serbian Orthodoxy, empha-

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86

Social Compass 55(1)

sizing Svetosavlje (the teaching and tradition of St. Sava, the founder of the
Serbian Orthodox Church in the 13th century) (Vrcan, 1995). According to
Vrcan, the roots of the specicity of Serbian Orthodoxy have to do with its
ante-murale position towards Roman Catholicism and Islam and the
``mission'', or proselytic activity of the latter religions (Vrcan, 1995: 358)
towards Serbian Orthodoxy, bringing about a sense of challenge and
endangerment among Serbian Orthodox believers. In contrast, on the basis
of sociological institutional and empirical comparison, Blagojevic holds
that the religious situation in Serbian and Russian Orthodoxy is basically
similar (2005: 391). All this does not add up to a justied expectation of substantial peculiarities in Serbian Orthodox religiosity within Eastern Orthodoxy, except possibly in the matter of the link between political/state/
ethnic loyalty and religion, i.e. civil religion.
Both Radisavljevic Cipirazovic and Blagojevic speak of a major religious
revival among Serbs in Serbia during the past two decades (Blagojevic , 2005;
Radisavljevic Cipirazovic, 2002). It should not be forgotten, however, that by
the end of this period (19992001) Serbia was in 21st position as to religiosity
among the 41 Christian countries of Europe, according to a measure
considered by Stark as central in the study of religion (Stark, 2004) (``How
important is God in your life?'', World Value Survey; sample: 41 countries).
This means that Serbian religiosity would appear to be at an average level
within European Christendom as to intensity. By the same measure, amongst
European countries with a Christian tradition, other Orthodox countries are
to be found both among the more religious (e.g. Romania and Georgia) and
the less religious (e.g. Bulgaria and Russia). This does not yet speak either in
favour or against Tomka's assertions, but it does indicate that Orthodox
countries do vary just as ``Western Christian'' ones do.

Method

Procedure
The instrument applied was a questionnaire containing varied items, concentrating on various measures of religiosity and its possible correlates (e.g.
anxiety, gender orientation, delinquency, demographic variables and so
on). The lling out of the questionnaire was conducted in groups of 10 to
40 students under the supervision of research team members, and took
about 40 minutes. It was carried out in the spring of 2005. The questionnaires
were translated from Slovenian into the other languages and translated back
into Slovenian.

Sample
Data were collected from undergraduate university students, primarily in the
social sciences and humanities, in four dierent cultural settings. Out of
the entire sample (N 1,086), only aliates of the major religions in the
particular environments were chosen for this study. In this way our sample

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Flere: A Special Methodology for the Study of Eastern Orthodoxy?

87

comprised the following groups: Slovenian Catholics (N 361, a university

in Slovenia), Serbian Orthodox (N 396, a university in southern Serbia),
American Protestants (N 329, a university in Alabama). The mean age
was 20.3 (SD 1.5), in all samples ranging between 20 and 21. The relative
share of males varied from 41% in the Slovenian sample to 46% in the
Alabama sample.

Measures
The questionnaire contained items on various facets of religiosity and
socialization, only some of which will be pertinent for this purpose. We
will indicate the nature of the measures when they are presentated.

Plan of analysis
We will consider a number of assertions alleged conceptually by Tomka, and
conduct analyses appropriate to assessing how well founded these assertions
are, always bearing in mind the potential for establishing the nature of
and dierences between the two ``religious cultures'', and the rationale for
separate methodologies. So, taking the dierences proposed by Tomka,
we will analyse (1) the relationship between traditionalism and religiosity,
(2) religious consequentiality, (3) quest religon, (4) religious experience,
and (5) civil religionall points where Tomka holds that fundamental dierences between the two religious cultures exist. We will present the individual
measures and scales as we address Tomka's assertions.

Results

1. Traditionalism and religiosity

The peculiarity of Eastern Orthodoxy in contrast to Western Christianity
arises, according to Tomka, from its greater traditionalism, i.e. the ``preservation of the traditional socio-cultural pattern, which is functional both at
societal and individual respects'' (2006: 256). ``Dierentiation . . . has
encroached'', Tomka concedes, but the ``dierence . . . remains'' (2006:
256), meaning that modernizational dierentiation has come about in
Eastern Christian environments, but to a much lesser extent than in Western
religious culture. This does not mean only that traditionalism among the
Orthodox should be higher, but primarily that there is a dierent relationship
between these two phenomena: in the case of Eastern Orthodoxy the two
should be closer, Eastern Orthodox piety should be permeated by traditionalism. A good indication in this direction would be if religiosity and traditionalism formed a single factor among the Orthodox within the factor
analysis.
First, we will test whether our traditionalism items (``Tradition is a major
source of guidance at the crossroads in my life'', ``Our ancestors may have
been less knowledgable in science, but they were wiser than most of our

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88

Social Compass 55(1)

TABLE 1
Alpha coecients for traditionalism statements, for religious belief statements and for
the summation of traditionalism and religious belief statements, by country confessional
samples

4 traditionalism items
5 religious belief statements
9 combined items

Serbian
Orthodox

Slovenian
Catholics

US
Protestants

.70
.79
.79

.66
.82
.79

.63
.83
.68

Note: all aliates considered.

contemporaries'', ``Customs observed by our ancestors should be practised

even when it is dicult to grasp their meaning'' and ``Every girl should
enter marriage virginal, as this guarantees marital harmony'') and our
religious belief items (belief in God, in people having a soul, in an afterlife,
in heaven and in hell), and the two combined, allow for the construction
of scales, by the environments, with a view to seeing how consistent traditionalism and religious belief are.
Both religious belief and traditionalism items allow for the construction of
scales, although religious belief attains higher values. When observing the
two sets of items combined, we also attain values above the .6 level. Respondents in the US Protestant sample attain the lowest level, the two European
samples attaining the same alpha level for the combination of traditionalism
and religious belief. This may lend support to the conclusion that the two
predictors amalgamate better in lower religiosity environments, but not in
the two ``religious cultures''.
To study the issue further, we will look into the correlation between
traditionalism and religious belief scales (as composed of these items). The
Pearson correlation is .268** for the Serbian Orthodox, .224** for the
Slovenian Catholics and .103 for the American Protestants (.001 level of
signicance). The relationship is positive in all cases. It is signicant in the
two European Christian samples, in contrast to the American Protestants.
The magnitude of the coecient is higher in the Serbian case than in the
Slovenian one. This gives some meagre support to Tomka's contentions,
but the support is slight thus far, as the Slovenian Catholics are more kin
in this respect to the Serbian Orthodox, both attaining signicant positive
correlation values.
It may still be pertinent to ask whether the Orthodox are the most traditionalist, in order further to corroborate the ndings on the traditionalist
nature of Serbian Orthodox piety (see Figure 1).
It is among American Protestants that traditionalism is most applauded
and verbally adhered to, though the Serbian Orthodox are close
(sig: :046), Slovenian Catholics being signicantly below (sig: :000)
and below the normative average. There is no trace of dierence at the
level of Western and Eastern Christianity: traditionalism and religious belief

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Flere: A Special Methodology for the Study of Eastern Orthodoxy?

89

13

Traditionalism

12

11

10

9
Slovenian
Catholics

Serbian
Orthodox

US Protestants

FIGURE 1
Traditionalism among the aliates of the three confessions

Range 420, where 4 complete absence of traditionalism, 20 full adherence to traditionalism.

amalgamate better among the two European Christian samples, whereas the
magnitude of traditionalism is highest among the third, the Protestant
sample. Thus, we cannot conclude that Orthodoxy is truly permeated by
traditionalism, as traditionalism itself does not prevail, not attaining the
normative mean among the Orthodox (or elsewhere).

Consequentiality of religiosity
``Religion . . . is actualized in all aspects of life'', arms Tomka, describing
the Eastern Orthodox (2006: 258). In the language of the sociology of religion, this means it is a religion of particular consequentiality, that it permeates all aspects of life, and religion is not limited only to services or to belief
to being a fragment without relevance to other behaviour, beliefs and
attitudes (Glock and Stark, 1965). This would mean that the Orthodox are
more consequential in their religious committment.
We will test this by a series of items on preparedness to undertake consequential acts, by which religionists ``counterbalance'' the mercy and benevolence they receive from the Almighty (see Table 2).
The results in Table 2 demonstrate that in all three populations, means
cannot be considered equal for any of the observed variables. According to
the F values, variations among samples are greatest for sacricing life, a particularly indicative item (the ultimate sacrice, tapping into the destructive
and belligerent potential of religion), restraining from sexual relations and

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Social Compass 55(1)

90

.ssengnilliw mumixam

54.3
c
18.2
a
34.2
a
73.2
a
40.4
a
74.3
46.3
FFARPV
naeM

11.3
c
55.2
c
03.2
b
22.2
c
56.3
c
32.3
23.3

stnatsetoP SU

FFA
naeM

efil nwo ruoy ecircaS

ytreporp ruoy fo tsom ro lla ecnuoneR
ygolonhcet nredom fo esu eht ecnuoneR
snoitnevretni lacidem ciceps esufeR
snoitaler lauxes morf niartseR
sknird ro sdoof niatrec emusnoc toN
gnihtolc ro slobmys suoigiler niatrec raeW

.tnereid yltnacingis era srettel tpircsrepus tnereid htiw snaem ,meti hcae roF
5 ,ssengnilliw fo ecnesba latot 1 :elacs epyt-trekiL tniop-ev a no derusaem erew smeti SRW neves llA
.)elacs 51 a no evoba dna 4 feileb suoigiler( setailA suoigileR yltnanimoderP dna yreV :FFARPV
setailA :FFA
:setoN

15.1
a
47.1
b
27.1
b
86.1
a
78.1
b
23.2
30.2
b

58.1
b
80.2
a
70.2
a
02.2
a
04.2
a
00.3
35.2

66.1
a
88.1
a
50.2
a
48.1
a
76.2
a
38.2
34.2
a

10.2
a
42.2
a
63.2
a
61.2
a
52.3
a
34.3
57.2

FFA
naeM
scilohtaC nainevolS

FFARPV
naeM

FFA
naeM

FFARPV
naeM
xodohtrO naibreS

selpmas
lanoissefnoc yrtnuoc dna meti yb ,)SRW( ecircas suoigiler rof ssengnilliw ni suoigiler yletanimoderp dna yrev dna ,setaila rof eulav naeM
2 ELBAT

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Flere: A Special Methodology for the Study of Eastern Orthodoxy?

91

not consuming certain foods and drinks (the latter two we may consider as
items indicating a renouncing of hedonism). The dierences are smallest in
the matters of rejecting medical interventions, renouncing technical achievements and extrinsic social orientation.
Signicant dierences can be noted between samples in most instances,
but they are lacking twice between Slovenian Catholics and the Serbian
Orthodox and once between Slovenian Catholics and American Protestants.
Controlling for the strength of religiosity does somewhat diminish the dierences among the samples, since two instances of signicance of dierences
between the means disappear. This certainly does not amount to a picture
in line with a contention on cultural dierences between Eastern and Western
Christianity as to the consequentiality of religiosity. Consequentiality is in all
cases linked to the magnitude of religious belief. This can be discerned from
Figure 2.
The data in Figure 2, an error graph, indicate a steep rise of consequentiality in line with religious belief among aliates. The rise continues among
the groups stating various levels of belief. Let us also mention the correlations for the relationship beliefconsequentiality where, for Slovenian
Catholics, r :444**, for the Serbian Orthodox, r :445** and for the
American Protestants, r :208**. We nd that the Serbian Orthodox and
the Slovenian Catholics reach almost identical very high values, in comparison to more moderate values for American Protestants. This could be
attributable to more variety in religiosity in the two European environments
23
21

Consequentiality

19
17
15
13
11
9

US Protestants
Slovenian Catholics
Serbian Orthodox

7
5
1

2
3
Religious belief

FIGURE 2
Religious belief and religious consequentiality

Notes: Religious consequentiality: range 630, where 6 complete absence, 30 maximum

presence.
Religious belief: range 15, where 1 absence of belief, 5 maximum belief.

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92

Social Compass 55(1)

(M for religious belief 12:9, SD 5:5 for Slovenian Catholics, and 15:2,
SD 6:5 for Serbian Orthodox), in contrast to the American Protestants,
where highs predominate (M 20:3, SD 5:1) (range 525).

``Quest''
According to Tomka, in the West, ``religion became increasingly a quest for
truth'' (2006: 259). In the parlance of the psychology of religion, this would
amount to a quest for religious orientation (Batson and Schoenrade, 1991)
prevailing in the West, in contrast to Eastern Orthodoxy. Batson holds
that quest forms part of the mature religiosity that Allport did not include
in his intrinsic orientation, and that quest amounts to an ``honest facing of
existential questions, while at the same time resisting clear cut, pat answers'',
being ``an open ended search without exclusive reliance on traditional
answers'' (1991: 421), which is a description that ts well with Tomka. We
will apply the entire 12-item Batson and Schoenrade (1991) quest religious
orientation scale to those of our respondents showing ``at least a moderate
interest in religion'' and by using the factor scores for the rst factor of
quest religiosity see how the three confessions fare as to questing (see
Table 3).
We note that quest orientation among religionists is more frequent with
American Protestant piety, even though the normative mean is reached in
no sample. The dierence between the other two samples is without
signicance.
We still need to address how quest religious orientation is related to known
measures of religiosity in our samples (see Table 4).
In Table 4 we note a great variety of relationships, in marked contrast
to the relatively small dierences in means in Table 3. Only among the
Slovenian Catholics do we note a clear positive relationship between questing and measures of religiosity, whereas the relationship is not signicant
among the Orthodox in any of the instances, and it is signicant but negative
in 3 of the 4 American instances. Since the data for the entire samples are
used in this analysis, we may assume that it is the magnitude of religiosity,
the highest in the American case, that explains the situation. Critics of
TABLE 3
Means and standard deviations for factor scores of quest religious orientation among the
three confessions

Means
SD

Serbian
Orthodox

Slovenian
Catholics

US
Protestants

2.59a
.65

2.62a
.65

2.89b
.62

Notes:
Range: 15, where 1 absence of quest, 5 complete presence of quest.
For each item, means with dierent superscript letters are signicantly dierent.
Only religious subjects considered (religious belief 3 and over on 15 pro trait scale).

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Flere: A Special Methodology for the Study of Eastern Orthodoxy?

93

TABLE 4
Zero order correlations for the relationship between quest religious orientation and
selected measures of religiosity, by three confessional samples

Personal prayer
Church attendance
Do you believe in God?
Intrinsic orientation

Serbian
Orthodox

Slovenian
Catholics

US
Protestants

.003
.076
.006
.015

.255**
.219**
.254**
.245**

.181**
.120
.164**
.340**

Notes:
** Correlation is signicant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Range of all questions is 15 in the pro-trait direction.

quest as a measure of religiosity would nd support in our data, for example

Donahue, who holds that quest indicates agnosticism (1985), Wul, who
maintains that it indicates liberalism (1997) or Hood and associates, who
question ``what it is measuring'' (1999: 35). The nding of a negative relationship between religiosity and quest is not surprising, since Francis and Orchard
also presented a similar strong nding among churchgoers of various
Christian denominations in England (Francis and Orchard, 1999). So do
Kaldestad and Stifoss-Hanssen on a sample of self-identied at least moderately believing Norwegian Christians (1993).

4. Religious experience
Tomka claims, invoking the theologian V. Lossky, that religious experience
holds a special place in Orthodox religiosity. ``Orthodoxy can be understood
as a religion of experience . . .'' (Tomka, 2006: 260), and he further explains
that ``Orthodoxy is a religion of experience . . .'' (2006: 263). This is in contrast to Western Christianity, where religion ``became increasingly a quest for
truth, a rationalized intellectual enterprise'' (2006: 259). We should expect a
greater presence and intensity of religious experience on the part of the
Orthodox, in contrast to quest religiosity among Western Christians.
We will study the issue of experience, which Glock and Stark (1965) hold
to be a universal component of religiosity, by means of the statement, ``I have
often had the experience of Divine presence'', itself an element of the
Gorsuch and McPherson scale of intrinsic orientation (1989) among aliates
and the highest class of religious believers (as to control for the possible inuence of weak belief on the subject of our study). We chose this statement
because it indicates no aect inclination during experience (see Table 5).
The means for the Serbian Orthodox are to be found between the
Slovenian Catholic lows and the other Western Christian group highs concerning this elementary form of experience, the Orthodox being closer to
Slovenian Catholics. It is probable that it is the magnitude of religiosity
that explains the variation, as when we observe maximum religious belief

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94

Social Compass 55(1)

TABLE 5
Means and standard deviations for agreement with the statement ``I have often had the
experience of Divine presence'', by country confessional samples

Aliates
Maximum believers

Serbian
Orthodox

Slovenian
Catholics

US
Protestants

2.6b/1.4
3.2a/1.3

2.1a/0.8
2.9a/1.1

3.7c/1.0
3.8c/1.0

Notes:
Range: 15, where 1 full disagreement, 5 full agreement; maximum religious believers 5
on a 15 pro-trait scale.
Figures before the slash indicate means, gures after the slash indicate standard deviations.
For each item, means with dierent superscript letters are signicantly dierent.

respondents, only dierences diminish, and in particular the signicance of

the dierence in means between the Catholics and the Orthodox disappears.
Therefore, the contention that Orthodoxy is a religion of experience does not
nd support in our data.

5. Civil religion
Tomka holds that under traditional conditions, which still apply to the
Orthodox, ``history (is understood) as the fulllment of God's original intentions, a holy task . . . God's chosen nation'' (2006: 256). This would be in line
with what Vrcan also held of Serbian Orthodoxy (1995).
In the sociological study of religion, this ts with the notion of civil religion
rather well, if we take into consideration, for example, Bellah's words about
civil religion being ``a set of religious beliefs, symbols and rituals growing out
of the American historical experience interpreted in the dimension of transcendence'' (1968: 389). Bellah somewhat expands his denition and its
scope when he contends that it is ``that religious dimension found, I think,
in the life of every people, through which it interprets its historical experience
in the light of transcendent reality'' (1975: 153). This notion is closely tied to
the idea of the ``covenant'' and ``chosen people.''
We will test whether civil religion items structurally amalgamate in the
same way among the Orthodox as among Westerners, and moreover we
will see whether civil religion is more prevalent among the Orthodox.
Our attempt to formulate a scale of civil religion comprised the following
items: `` Our country has a special covenant with God'', `` It is not really
possible to be a good patriot without being a true follower of my religion'',
``It might be said, that our country does not comply with all of its religious
duties'', `` God has intervened in the history of my nation by testing its true
faith'', and ``My church has been very important for the survival of my
nation through history''. This resulted in the following alphas for the
6-item scale: for Slovenian Catholics :84, for Serbian Orthodox :80 and
for American Protestants :78. Scale requirements as to homogeneity in all

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Flere: A Special Methodology for the Study of Eastern Orthodoxy?

95

TABLE 6
Means and standard deviations for civil religion scale, by country confessional samples
Country confessional sample

Mean

Std. Deviation

Slovenian Catholics
Serbian Orthodox
US Protestants

11.3b/15.1b
16.0a/18.8a
18.9c/20.2c

4.6/4.9
5.5/4.8
5.4/4.6

Notes:
Scale is composed of 6 items (each one is a 5-point pro-trait one), without any particular
weighting.
Range 630, where 6 complete absence, 30 full presence.
Data before the slash pertain to all aliates, after the slash: maximum religious believers 5 on
a 15 pro-trait scale.
For each item, means with dierent superscript letters are signicantly dierent.

environments were met. We are dealing with a homogenous civil religion

phenomenon in all three environments, and there are no substantial dierences as to homogeneity, though the results for the variance explained in
the Serbian case are slightly lower. We have yet to test whether civil religion
is more present among the Serbian Orthodox, as would ensue from Tomka
and Vrcan (see Table 6).
The Serbian Orthodox are closer to the US Protestants this time, but still
the level of civil religion is clearly highest in the last, ``Western Christian''
environment, contrary to the expectations arising from Tomka and Vrcan,
but in line with what what, for example, Furseth found: that civil religion
is less present in Europe than in the US (Furseth, 1994).
Discussion

We are not maintaining that there are no important distinctions meriting

study between Eastern and Western Christianity from a sociological point
of view. Some of them have been appropriately pointed out by Tomka
(e.g., symphonia, which seems to operate in the political systems of some
countries, including Serbia). But we found no merit in the argument that a
``special research methodology'' is needed, substantially dierent than for
Western Christianity. In fact, Western Christianity itself is no monolith,
including on those issues Tomka so easily raises as having to do with ``rationality''. Roman Catholicism lays a stress on saints that varies only slightly
from that found in Orthodoxy, but in a manner completely alien to most
of Protestantism, another branch of Western Christianity. These saints are
understood as active beings, able to help religionists, and to conduct miracles,
and all of this may be eectively entreated by believers. How this holds with
``rationality'' is a matter meriting study. In any case, all of this does not
amount to a need for ``special methodologies'', not primarily because of
the disunity within Western Christianity, but because of the methods and
techniques developed in the scientic study of religion, which use universal

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Social Compass 55(1)

instruments, some of which are close to being ``religious doctrine free and
open ended making them usable with virtually any Christian denomination
and perhaps with non-Christian religions'' (Donahue, 1985: 415).
Furthermore, studies of Christianity (and of other religions) may be
conducted qualitatively and quantitatively, and political impact can also
be studied. This may demand particular methodological approaches, including the study of the governance of religious entities, of their legal status, of
their political impact, of judicial rulings pertaining to religion etc. But the
Huntingtonian assertion that ``Eastern Christianity'' is so dierent as to
need a special methodology does not seem warranted. Even though Huntington's popular assertion may function at the level of the analysis of world
politics, the sociological study of religious life is a dierent matter. Tomka's
assertions are poorly based in sociological ndings (his assertions are practically nowhere to be found in Borowik, 2002, nor in Greeley, 1995).
In contrast, most important dierences among the samples have to do with
the strength, the intensity of religiosity in the environment, even producing
structural pattern dierences (as noted in Table 3). This indicates that the
strength of religiosity in the environment is the most probable explanatory
variable, whether the society is a ``moral community'' or not (Stark, Kent
and Doyle, 1982), and not confession or ``religious culture'' (at least within
Christendom). A similar nding was reached by Donahue, according to
whom the strength of substantial (intrinsic) religiosity determines the direction of the relationship with other variables (1985: 404).
Beside these ndings, we oer another line in the study of particuliarities of
Orthodoxy.

Punishing God
We asked respondents to express their position on the statement ``Sometimes
I feel God is angry at me''. This statement is indicative of guilt religiosity and
of a perception of the punishing, vengeful nature of God, as presented in the
Old Testament. Such an understanding prevailed during the rst centuries
of Christianity, whereas the justice-rationalizing ideas of Purgatory in
Catholicism and of mercy in Protestantism have modied this idea, including
the literal understanding of the Last Judgment. Serbian respondents scored
highest on this element of religious belief and feeling (see Figure 3).
The error bar indicates a signicant peak among Orthodox Serb believers.
Tamhane's post hoc test reveals a mean dierence between Orthodox Serb
believers and Catholic Slovenians of :36 (sig: :011), and between Orthodox Serbs and Protestant Americans of :37 (sig: :001).
This is not a chance nding, it has to do with the understanding of God.
Studying popular Serbian piety, ethnologist Bandic writes that among
Serbs ``Christian beings have taken on pagan traits, signicantly contrasting
to their likeness in the Christian teaching. The Christian God himself is no
exception'' (1991: 146). Further, he writes that God `` . . . curses those who
have oended him . . . he is more like a mighty ruler . . . and no one skips
his justice'' (1991: 193). The Serbian Orthodox popular comprehension of
God is primarily one lled by fear of punishment. This is how one is

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Sometimes I feel that God is angry at me

Flere: A Special Methodology for the Study of Eastern Orthodoxy?

97

3.0

2.8

2.6

2.4

2.2
Slovenian
Catholics

Serbian
Orthodox

US Protestants

FIGURE 3
Means of agreement with the statement ``Sometimes I feel God is angry at me'', by country
confessional samples of devoted believers

Note: only religious belief at levels 4 and 5 (range 15) of the three country confessional groups
are considered.
Circles indicate means; vertical lines indicate standard deviations.

meant to understand the use of the saying ``Ima Boga!'' (God does exist!),
which is invoked exclusively when someone is unexpectedly punished or
aicted by a misfortune after having committed deeds considered inadmissible, but who has until then escaped due punishment. This may be the basis
for understanding some other traits of Serbian Orthodox belief, including the
situation we encountered with religious motivation.
Possibly this dierence between Eastern and Western Christians was not to
be expected theologically, as Eastern Christianity (in contrast to Western)
teaches that humans did not inherit Adam's sin directly, but ``it was the
results of the sin of our rst human parents . . . that passed on to human
beings'' (Campbell, 1996: 49). The Orthodox doctrine of theosis may theologically sound anthropologically optimistic, as it describes the possibility
that humans might attain godliness, but in fact it underscores the sinfulness
of man, particularly as it doesn't indicate a way, a method of regaining godliness. Furthermore, such a nding is only to be expected, considering that in
general Orthodoxy is relatively more true to the original Christian stress on
the sinful, fallen nature of man and his loss of holiness, loss of likeness to
God etc. In addition, one should note again the extent of pre-Christian
belief layers in empirical Orthodoxy. Lossky's presentation of Orthodox

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Social Compass 55(1)

anthropology is also a rather pessimistic one, tting with the ``punishing

God''. Thus Lossky writes, ``But human will chose the opposite path.
Separating itself from God, it submitted itself to the power of the devil''
(1989 [1978]: 134).
One needs to question on the generality of such a comprehension of God:
is this typical of Eastern Orthodoxy in general, or a peculiarity of Serbian
Orthodox religiosity? Although we do not have solid data, the famous
dictum of Dostoyevsky, ``If God did not exist everything would be permitted'', indicates the same way of thinking, in which the justice of this
world is disregarded, and justice, a harsh justice, is found only in God.
Rancour-Laferriere, analysing religious art, concluded that ``among Russian
Orthodox believers to this day a sense of guilt is pervasive . . . '' (2003: 14).
Thus we may assume that this understanding of God holds at least for Slavic
Eastern Orthodoxy.
One limitation that needs mention when it comes to the possibility of
generalizing this study is that we have studied only one Orthodox religiosity
(and two Western ones), and there may be dierences within Orthodoxy itself
that we did not study. On the other hand, the fact that we studied higher
education students of approximately the same age gives validity to the
comparison.
Not all the relevant contentions from Tomka's article have been tackled.
Thus, he writes of (Orthodox) ``religion being the cosmic location of the concrete corpus of society . . . a general atmospheric medium, an overarching
and integrating yet undierentiated part of the cultural universe'' (2006:
257) in the traditional society to which Orthodoxy allegedly clings. ``Eastern
Orthodoxy moved rather in the direction of arts and the intuition of wholeness. Communication theorist McLuhan would distinguish between the
`cold' (less pre-formed) nature of Eastern Christianity and the `hot' one of
Western Christianity'' (2006: 260). Reading such passages, this author is
tempted to quote Mills giving a nal assesment of Parsons' Social System
(Mills, 1959), but will refrain, out of respect for the latter two sociologists.

NOTES
1.
Tomka does not explain how Eastern Orthodoxy can be a ``new phenomenon''
or similar to one.

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Sergej FLERE is professor of sociology at the University of Maribor,
Slovenia, and is a long-standing member, and former Council member,
of the ISSR. His recent publications include: ``Is intrinsic religious orientation a culturally specic American Protestant concept? The fusion of
intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientation among non-Protestants''
(forthcoming, European Journal of Social Psychology 2008, available at
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp. 437); and ``Gender and religious orientation''
(2007) Social Compass 54(2): 239253. ADDRESS: University of
Maribor, Filozofska fakulteta, 160 Koroska, Sl2000 Maribor, Slovenia.
[email: sergej.ere@uni-mb.si]

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