Religion and Cultural Nationalism Insights

Cultural nationalism is a form of nationalism that prioritizes religion, language, tradition, and cultural heritage as pillars of national identity. In the Balkans, where Orthodoxy has been the main carrier of literacy, education, and collective memory for centuries, Orthodox churches played a key role in shaping national consciousness. The Serbian, Bulgarian, and Romanian Orthodox Churches represent three specific examples in which religious and national identity are intertwined. While the Serbs based their cultural nationalism on historical myths and memory (Kosovo, the Nemanjić ruling family), the Bulgarians built it through the language-liturgical struggle and liberation from the Fanars. However, the Romanians built it through the idea of continuity with Daco-Romanian origins and the integration of Orthodoxy into the state ideology. Based on the method of analysis and comparison, the work highlights the diversity of cultural elements while also revealing similarities in the influence, function, and significance of Orthodox churches in the former communist societies of Eastern Europe. The aim of the article is to compare these three churches using a comparative method and to show how cultural nationalism shaped their role in society. Then the similarities and differences in the strategies that connected religion and nation are explained.