That's a pretty great explanation on how the Eastern Orthodox get to be so weird. When Church and State become really closely related both get pretty effed up. I like that you pointed out Byzantium was the continuation of the Roman Empire and thus had caesars/ basileoi and a pretty hierarchical social structure. Your byzantine history is spot on. I guess education didn't improve much since their monastic orders were into mystical theology.Thanks for the lesson!

The American Orthodox Churches are not nearly as weird and tend to be a little more intellectually sophisticated and democratic. One their best writers is David Bentley Hart. He's actually a pretty good thinker to wrestle with. If you, like me, prefer reading each factions best thinkers, I'd read some him.

I think there is always a distinction between the folk version of a religion and its intelligentsia. The same goes for all factions I assume. From capitalism and communism to Baptists and Democrats, there are always the ruddy followers and the intelligent skeptics.