Kings dominate the story of the Bible, but the scriptural narrative expresses ambivalence towards monarchy. Some years after the people of Israel are rescued from slavery in Egypt and brought to the land God promised them, they begin to desire a king to rule over them. In one sense, the unfolding narrative suggests this desire is a good idea: kings are anointed by prophets, they unite the people, they build the temple in Jerusalem, and they win victories and defend—often against improbable odds—the tiny nations of Judah and Israel in battle.
Nonetheless, Israel’s experience of monarchy begins with the prophet Samuel warning the people against having a king, and indeed the subsequent history of faithless and idolatrous kings more than backs up that dire admonition.

The common Orthodox canonical tradition essentially represents the church law of the Byzantine Empire. This becomes evident when comparing the pre-Constantinian and post-Constantinian canonical orders. Before Emperor Constantine, the canonical order was primarily based on biblical exegesis, charismatic decision-making, customs, the advice of prominent bishops, advisory opinions of local synods, and pseudepigraphic church orders attributed to the apostles or their immediate successors.

Establish a national church led by your head of state and call this individual “Defender of the Faith”: to some contemporary ears this might sound like a recipe for a coercive, farright form of Christian nationalism.

When King Charles III was crowned in Westminster Abbey on May 6, 2023, in the first explicitly Christian coronation held anywhere in the world in seven decades, he was hailed as Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith—the latter being the English translation of the centuries-old Latin formulation Fidei Defensor.

Many churchgoing Orthodox Christians are oblivious to the canonical disarray and infighting between churches that are, in many ways, a direct result of the historical interplay between Church and empire. The faithful are, understandably, happy to get to a functioning parish with a good priest on the weekend. However, for those who have serious interest in church life and history, that is to say, an interest in the Church as both a historical and spiritual institution, an objective assessment of Orthodox Christianity today is a challenge and an exercise in patient resolve. Keeping up with current events lead to moments of incredulity and frustration, and even at times to despair.

A constitutional monarch of the United Kingdom, who must by law be a faithful Protestant, carries the titles “Defender of the Faith” and “Supreme Governor of the Church of England.” The oil used for the sacramental anointing of King Charles III was consecrated at the Anastasis, the Church of the Resurrection, by the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Anglican Archbishop. This ritual act placed the king within a subtle and complex set of historical and sacral relationships that link the British monarchy to the Orthodox monarchies of Russia and Greece and, through them, back to Byzantium and to Rome.

Amid the diversity of twentieth-century Orthodox saints, the stories of two women, Princess Alice of Greece and Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia, illustrate how lives that begin in high privilege can develop into service and even martyrdom. Contemporary discourse tends toward a negative view of privilege, especially privilege bestowed by accident of birth. What it fails to consider, however, is the ancient tradition of noblesse oblige, the obligations bestowed by high birth.

In the woods about a half-hour’s drive from Yekaterinburg, Russia, is a gentle depression covered with moss and grass, its slope smoothed over by time. It is the site of an abandoned mine shaft, surrounded by a wooden-roofed causeway. The gilded domes and crosses of Holy Royal Martyrs Monastery emerge through the foliage, located about four kilometers from Porosenkov Log. This depression in the earth, today known as Ganina Yama, is the sacred center of the monastery, the reason for its construction, and a powerful draw for hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over Russia.

On a recent trip to England and Scotland, I reflected on the long history of the monarchy and the Church in the land of my forebears, stretching from the sixth century to the present day. The struggle to find the proper relationship between the two has been fraught.

Looking East in Winter is a diverse and rich collection of essays from Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and a professor at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Throughout his scholarly and pastoral work, Williams has often taken it upon himself to present lesser-known treasures of Eastern Christian thought to the West in an interesting and accessible way.

Folk art, forgotten churches. What relationship have such subjects with monarchy and Christian empire? Perhaps more than meets the eye. Olya Gluschenko and Costis Drygiankis, in their photo album “On the Roads We Travelled”: Unfrequented Places in the Metropolis of Demetrias, present an intimate view of sacred space as experienced in the earthly spaces where the eternal and the temporal meet.

It was Great Saturday morning, 2000, in Lagos, Nigeria. Holy Week was coming to its Paschal culmination. The services were celebrated in the Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Resurrection, where a diverse congregation consisting of Nigerians, Greeks, Cypriots, and Orthodox immigrants from various other countries came together to participate.