Introduction

Abstract

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 heralded a period of political transformation and social euphoria, the beginning of a tectonic shift with global repercussions. While some of us were privileged to experience those first weeks and months firsthand, it was not long before these signs of the changing times were felt in the West as well—and expressed through unexpected, pithy observations. At St. Vladimir’s Seminary in Crestwood, New York, Professor John Erickson was taken aback when a student from the former Czechoslovakia took issue with his enthusiasm for ecumenism and pronounced: “When the communists were in control, we had to be ecumenical. Now we can be Orthodox.”¹ No less than many other cross-cultural insights voiced even as the changes were still occurring, this one may well have encapsulated more than what the student had ever imagined. The paradigm shift was not only political, but extended to the social and religious spheres as well. Religious believers, Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists, suddenly received the opportunity to practice their faith without fear of persecution. The new sociopolitical climate also opened the way to reflection about the future: how would it be shaped and determined by citizens and communities, who now possessed religious freedom? To what extent would they imagine their future in relation to their past? What kinds of new partnerships and relationships would be forged now that they were possible?