This article examines the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) as a history of trauma for Chinese Protestant intellectuals. Using Cai Yongchun—a graduate of Yenching and Columbia University—as an example, the article aims to 1) demonstrate the overwhelming conformity demanded by the Communist regime and 2) analyze how Christians like Cai sought to align with official lines through intellectual reconstruction. In sum, the party viewed Christian intellectuals as deeply suspect due to their religious and Western affiliations, thus targeting them in successive campaigns that began in the 1950s and culminated in the Cultural Revolution. Despite state marginalization, Christian intellectuals like Cai persisted in their patriotism, eager to remain relevant even amid ideological fanaticism. Active adaptation as such, however, facilitated the hegemonic project of revolutionary subject formation that championed the Communist leadership as the custodian of truth. Cai came to experience a fundamental and perpetual denial of the self, pressuring him to become an ever more faithful follower of Mao and his words. Nevertheless, the proletarian redemption proved elusive, and the old Christian identity resilient.

Although diverging influences have always characterized the relation between religion and democracy, in Italy, tensions arising from these divergences are especially exacerbated by the country’s current religious diversity and plurality, and they are magnified when combined with chronic emergencies such as immigration and international terrorism. These critical factors complicate the application of freedom of religion and the supreme principle of secularism (principio supremo di laicità), which are essential parts of the Italian legal system. This article analyzes these aspects of the law by considering the relation between Islamic communities and the state. In particular, the article focuses on both endogenous influences (Italy’s traditional system of state-church relationship) and exogenous influences (immigration and international terrorism). These factors muddle the interpretation of constitutional rights, including the right of Muslims and Islamic groups to be equal and equally free before the law.

This article analyzes the origins of the concept of symphonia, its historical development, and its utilization by the Russian Orthodox Church as a normative ideal for church-state relations. In various historical contexts, this concept has referred to different normative requirements; it relied on different paradigms in Byzantium and in medieval Russia and it acquired new meanings in Imperial Russia. The reinterpretations of this concept by the Russian Orthodox Church in order to legitimize its position in the political life of contemporary Russia take this concept far from its original meaning. Using methods from the history of concepts of, among others, Reinhart Koselleck and Quentin Skinner, the author considers how the semantic transformations of symphonia in modern contexts by the Russian Orthodox Church lead to a hollowing of this concept. This conception is hardly reconcilable with the normative logic of the actual Russian political and legal systems.

In the history of the religion-state relationship in China, a model of subordination of religion to the state has been dominant for centuries. In recent years, some Chinese Protestant churches have advocated the model of separation of church and state. Through a historical and theological analysis, this study argues that in order to relieve the tensions between Chinese Protestantism and the contemporary Chinese government, a better conceptual alternative is to reconsider the issue in terms of autonomy rather than separation or subordination, and to argue for legally allowing the coexistence of both official and nonofficial churches and grant different degrees of autonomy to each.

This article examines relations between the Orthodox Church of Cyprus and the British colonial government during the First World War. I argue that the Great War constituted the first turning point in Church-State relations during colonial rule in Cyprus which, following other developments, finally collapsed during the 1950s. I discuss how the dynamic of the Enosis movement for the union of Cyprus with Greece was bolstered during the Great War. This in turn, the article will show, had significant repercussions on the attitudes of the Orthodox Church and the British authorities, transformed their relationship and opened the way for future developments.

This article examines how Fascism’s economic autarky impacted on church construction in the late 1930s. The shortage of copper in Italy due to sanctions imposed by the League of Nations and the ensuing Italian policy of self-sufficiency led to the installation of loudspeakers instead of bells in newly erected churches. The amplified sound of recordings and of tubular bells could be heard from far greater distances than that of traditional bells. Although these technologies disregarded the Catholic Church’s directives on utilising modern technical equipment in liturgy, their use was tolerated because of the economic circumstances. Indeed, some clergy endorsed these sound systems as a means of modernising the Church and as an act of patriotism. The practice, however, risked conflating ecclesiastical and Fascist broadcasts since the use of loudspeakers for political propaganda was widespread. In one case, the Fascist anthem Giovinezza was played regularly from a church belfry: after the war, furious citizens destroyed this audio system. The decision by dioceses as to whether to adopt technological alternatives to bells exposed the conflicting positions within the Church towards both modernity and the Regime.

The literature on church-state relations in post-Soviet Russia has been slowly but steadily expanding over the past two decades. The period since 2008, however, remains underdeveloped, as existing analysis has focused on specific issues rather than attempting an overview of the larger trends since the above-mentioned changes in the leadership of both institutions. Seeking to address this gap, this article explores the implications of the nearly coincidental changeovers in leadership in the Moscow Patriarchate and the secular state for church-state relations in Russia, both near and long-term. The first part of the article sets up the context for understanding the new church-state dynamic, by discussing in some detail the state of the relationship under Patriarch Aleksii II. The conclusions are that, under Aleksii tenure, the church could be considered a relatively weak institution, as it was unable for the most part to strengthen its position in Russia through legislative means. The second part focuses on the process whereby the new patriarch came to be elected in 2009, intending thereby to shed some light on Kirill I's leadership style and political agenda. The third part discusses concrete changes in the church-state relationship that have occurred on the federal level since 2008. The final section proposes some conclusions regarding the importance of the Russian Orthodox Church as a political actor in the contemporary Russian Federation, suggesting that despite the recent gains in the church's political fortunes, the ROC's position in society and particularly vis-à-vis the government remains vulnerable in key respects.