ABSTRACT
The concept of ‘soft power’, which Joseph Nye (1990) first used in his book Bound to Lead: The Changing of American Power and later developed in his book Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004), is a concept that could be useful in understanding the case of the Orthodox Church in international relations after 1990. As far as churches are concerned, Nye refers only to the Vatican as an example; however, the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP) and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) are relevant to this concept as well. The Greek researcher Yannas (2009) wrote an article using this concept for the EP. Patriarch Bartholomew (2016), for his part, has also defined the EP as ‘an absolutely spiritual institution, a symbol of reconciliation and an unarmed power’.
