This article contrasts the teaching on just war as presented by the 2000 document, ‘Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church’ (Moscow Patriarchate), with the insights provided by a similar social document issued in 2020 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, ‘For the Life of the World: Towards a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church’. The article argues that whenever religion is instrumentalised to justify the political ambitions of church and secular leaders, and especially when they are used as the main driving force behind military conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, it is the prophetic role of theologians and scholars to show that religion offers resources to deconstruct the weaponisation of Christian faith for political gain.

Ethiopia has often been portrayed as a unique case of peaceful inter-religious relations. The country has, however, seen an increase in violence between religious communities over the last decades, something which has been interpreted within the prism of extremism. Analyzing inter-religious dynamics in Ethiopia, Østebø argues that the notion of extremism is an inadequate analytical tool, and proposes instead an alternative approach that explores how mutually constitutive developments within each of the main religious communities in Ethiopia together have contributed to exacerbate inter-religious tensions. In particular, Østebø suggests a typology consisting of the intersected processes of expansion, protection, and reclaiming of space.

Religious education is probably one of the most attractive topics in law and religious studies – a truly bottomless pit which, every now and then, reveals new questions and new challenges. The most recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) concerning this matter is the one delivered on 31 October 2019 in the case of Papageorgiou and others. The judgment only became final at the end of January 2020, under Article 44(2) of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), so as yet it has not received much scholarly attention. However, it should be expected that there will be no lack of such attention, as the judgment deserves it for at least two reasons.

This article focuses on religious pedagogies as an essential part of the practice and the making of modern religion. It takes the case of the Syrian Orthodox communities in Kerala, South India to examine how shifts in pedagogical models and practice have reframed their understanding of knowledge and God. The paper highlights two moments of transformation—the nineteenth-century missionary reforms and twenty-first-century Sunday school reforms—that brought “old” and “new” pedagogies into conflict, redefining the modes of knowing and religious subjectivities they presuppose. For this I draw from historical and pedagogical materials, and ethnographic fieldwork in churches and Sunday schools. The paper diverges from widespread narratives on the missionary encounter by showing how colonial efforts to replace ritual pedagogies with modern schooling were channeled into a textbook culture that remained close to Orthodox ritualism. The “new” pedagogy turned learning into a ritualized practice that continued to emphasize correct performance over interiorized belief. Contrasting this with todays’ curriculum revisions, I argue that educational reforms remain a privileged mode of infusing new meanings into religious practice and shaping new orthodoxies, especially under the threat of heterodoxy. This reflects a broader dynamic within Orthodox Christianity that takes moments of crisis or change as opportunities to turn orthopraxy into orthodoxy and renew the faith. The paper engages with postcolonial debates on religion, education, and modernity, and points to more pervasive assumptions about what makes Orthodox Christianity and the modes of knowing and ethical formation in Eastern Christianity.