ORTHODOXY, CAPITALISM, AND “THE WEST” IS ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY STUCK IN THE PAST?

by Nathaniel Wood

In a recent essay for the Bloomberg View, Leonid Bershidsky attempts to explain why traditionally-Orthodox countries “remain stuck” in the anti-capitalist, anti-Western, and authoritarian mindset characteristic of the communist era. Drawing support from a new World Bank working paper, Bershidsky locates the source of this mindset in supposed theological differences between Eastern and Western Christianity.