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The Covid-19 pandemic embodied a major contemporary challenge for Orthodox churches. Indeed, they were called to adapt upon to health urgencies and to comply with inedited state regulations. In the article, we focus on the Romanian Orthodox Church and analyze qualitative material collected in two parishes in Bucharest. From the results, it appears the Romanian Orthodox Church nurtured a significant intransigence in dealing with modernity’s issues related to the pandemic context, especially resisting to the temporary closure of places of worship and the organic transposition of health regulations. We study the above processes within the frame of the contentions between the societal authority of religion and that of modern science, while at the same time considering those ones shaped by the state and the notion of nature. In short, this research would like both to shed new light on ancient tensions of Eastern Orthodoxy with modernity and to grasp some dynamic traits of this religion. Beyond the defensive Orthodoxy’s discourses, the examination of its liturgical space revealed a complex social setting marked by negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the centuries, Orthodox Christianity has developed conflictual experiences with respect to the main Western model of modernity. Recently, it has shown a complicated relationship with some of its phenomena such as human rights. According to this backdrop, we explore the sociological nexus among religion, modernity and human rights within the case of Orthodox Christianity. We study the main paths of tension between Orthodoxy and the main Western modern project, and then we focus on the Orthodox stances and churches' approaches with respect to human rights. Examining the Orthodox official documents on both subjects, we recognise common Orthodox orientations and issues, besides some paths of religious change. In short, the study sheds light on a social research perspective focused on the nexus among religion, modernity and human rights, and emphasises the recent Orthodox engagement with some facets of the modern project through the recognition of the paradigm of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]