Forms of religious glocalization: Orthodox christianity in the Longue Durée

Abstract

This article advocates a “glocal turn” in the religion–globalization problematic. It proposes a model of multiple glocalizations in order to analyze the historically constituted relationship between world religions and local cultures. First, the conceptual evolution from globalization to glocalization is discussed with special reference to the study of the religion. Second, the necessity for adopting the perspective of the longue durée with regard to the study of Eastern Orthodox Christianity is explained. Third, an outline of four forms of religious glocalization is proposed. Each of these forms is presented both analytically as well as through examples from the history of Eastern Christianity (from the 8th to the 21st century). It is argued that this approach offers a model for analyzing the relation between religion, culture and society that does not succumb to the Western bias inherent in the conventional narrative of western modernization and secularization.