Theology doctoral Candidate Mikheil Nebieridze, as part of the 6th meeting of Georgian theologians abroad, gave a lecture in Eichstätt on the topic: “A Theological Understanding of State Order: William Cavanaugh and Ecclesiological Challenges in the Contemporary Era.”
The lecture addressed an analysis of the political theology of the American theologian William T. Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh’s central thesis was discussed, that after the so-called “Age of Religious Wars,” with regard to the “Holy” The associated authority, loyalty, and transcendental legitimation have simply moved from the Church to the secular state, and they have not disappeared. In this regard, special attention has been paid to Kavanagh’s finding that the modern state, an ostensibly neutral institution, in fact performs quasi-theological functions—by claiming citizens’ ultimate loyalty and allegiance, forging social unity, and invoking symbolic systems.
The report also discussed Kavan’s important observation that the state, by acting on individual human bodies, including, in extreme cases, through inhuman treatment such as torture, brings about the systemic destruction of the social fabric. The language of human rights is insufficient in this regard: The state’s primary target is not the individual, but the social body, and the Church, as the Body of Christ (Corpus Christi), is precisely the alternative social body that opposes this logic.
Against this backdrop, the lecture posed the question of what challenges the Church faces when the state assumes functions traditionally reserved for the Church, and what response the Church can have to such a reality: The path of assimilation or that of Eucharistic, sacramental distinctiveness.
Mikheil Nebieridze – Graduated from the Tbilisi Theological Seminary in 2015. From 2016 to 2021, he studied at the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt in Germany, where he received a Licentiate of Theology degree in Systematic Theology on the topic: Human Rights in the Theology and Practice of the Orthodox Church (Summa cum laude). Since 2023, they have been working on their doctoral dissertation in political theology at the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and serves as a research assistant at the university’s Faculty of Theology. Her dissertation topic is: “A Political Theology of Isolation: The Transformation of the Theologico-Political Orientation of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the Wake of its Changing Relationship with the State.”