What happens when states fail to provide support to populations in need? What are the mechanisms of religious and political engagement with populations affected by organized violence, displacement, and resettlement? The book argues that when state structures fail to respond to violence, religious institutions are often among the first actors to assist and empower forcibly displaced populations. Establishing humanitarian initiatives, fostering transnational conservative networks, and promoting geopolitical interests has defined the interplay between religion, politics, and society in the Eastern Christian world from the end of the Cold War to the present day. This book advances a Religious Failure Index, which highlights the ways in which religious institutions engage with state governance, geopolitics, and international affairs. It offers a rigorous narrative of the ways in which Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Christian communities exert authority in a multi-faith geographical space marked by political rivalry, conflict, inequality, and forced displacement in Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine.

Lucian N. Leustean is a Reader in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom. His publications include, as editor, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe (with Grace Davie, 2021), Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century (2014) and Representing Religion in the European Union: Does God Matter? (2012).

Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Religious Failure, Geopolitics, and Forced Displacement in the Eastern Christian World
Chapter 2: Russia’s Orthodox Exceptionalism, Geopolitics, and Forced Displacement
Chapter 3: Autocephaly, War, Humanitarian Structures, and Forced Displacement in Ukraine
Chapter 4: Orthodoxy, Humanitarian Entrepreneurship, and the Refugee Crisis in Serbia
Chapter 5: Orthodox Conservatism and the Refugee Crisis in Bulgaria and Moldova
Chapter 6: Religious Mobilization, Ethnic Identity, and Forced Displacement in Georgia and Armenia
Conclusion: Is Eastern Christianity a Failed Religion?
References
Index