The Orthodox Christian World . Edited by Augustine Casiday. London: Routledge, 2012. xxii + 585 pp. $265.00 cloth.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)The Orthodox Christian World . Edited by Augustine Casiday . London : Routledge , 2012. xxii + 585 pp. $265.00 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesWestern (and especially American) scholars have long neglected the study of Eastern Christianity, one of the three great Christian traditions alongside Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Although the situation is beginning to change, it still receives less attention in the new focus on "world" Christianity by comparison with Western forms (Protestantism and Catholicism) in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Yet the demographic realities suggest something different: since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, there has been a steady resurgence of Orthodoxy and a continual rise in the number of Russians who self-identify as Orthodox. According to the World Religion Database , Russia ranks third in the world of countries with the largest number of Christians, barely behind Mexico. Four of the ten European countries with the largest number of Christians are predominantly Orthodox (Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Greece), and thirty-five percent of Europe's Christians are Orthodox--double the number of Protestants. Yet scholarly resources are few, and teachers often do not know where to turn or what to start with in order to include more about Orthodoxy in their classes or recommend to their students (graduate or undergraduate). Therefore, a volume such as the one under consideration is particularly timely and welcome.One distinctive feature of this collection of essays is that it considers both the Byzantine Orthodox traditions (those in communion with Constantinople) and the non-Chalcedonian or Oriental Orthodox equally, side-by-side. It brings together leading scholars in the field writing on their specialties. This hefty volume is divided into three roughly equal parts. The first considers various national Orthodox traditions: Greek, Russian, Armenian, Georgian, Syriac, the Assyrian Church of the East, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopian, Serbian, and Romanian. There are also three chapters on Orthodoxy outside traditional Orthodox lands (Paris, North America, and Australia), though Antoine Arjakovsky's article on Paris is more programmatic than a historical survey of the Paris school. The only glaring omission is Bulgaria. Part 2 is biographical in approach, with twenty-two sketches of lives of key figures ranging from Mary, Jesus' mother, to great theologians, churchmen, and spiritual figures; some are collective biographies (contemporary Athonite fathers, the elders of Optina Pustyn). Part 3 covers a range of major themes: ecclesiology and ecumenism, canon law, doctrine of the Trinity, ethics, women, hagiography, culture, literature, and music, mysticism, philosophy, and psychology. Very few essays have a focus that is too narrow or specialized; rather this is primarily a reference work for those seeking serious entry into the Orthodox Christian "world."Inevitably with a volume such as this, there are inconsistencies across the range of articles. Some of the articles on the national traditions, such as Andrew Louth's essay on the Greek tradition, focus exclusively on theological developments; others, such as Vera Shevzov's on the Russian tradition, are historical in a much broader sense. …