Sociologija pravoslavne tradicije
Sociology Of The Eastern Orthodox Tradition

Summary/Abstract: Summary Modern sociology is to a large extent a sociology which considers society as being composed of autonomous individuals. But, as Louis Dumont has demonstrated, modern (inworldly) individualism is the result of a transformation, initiated mainly by a changing Church/State relationship since the eighth century, of the outworldly indi- vidualism of early Christianity. This article centers on the question as to whether a similar transformation took place in the Eastern-Orthodox tradition. Early monachism and the Church/State rela- tionship in Byzantium and in Russia, further the Russian Old Believers, the Slavo- philes and the Populists are examined. The enquiry concludes that Eastern Orthodoxy has remained a tradition of holism and outworldly individualism, of ‘integral person- ality’ and of individualism as the lower path to salvation. Modern individualism has no cultural basis in this tradition. A sociology of the Orthodox tradition would there- fore be able to contribute new concepts or tools to a universal sociology.

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