Eastern Christian Animal Sacrifice: Practices and Controversies from Antiquity to the Present

Why does animal sacrifice persist in Eastern Christian societies? How has it “survived” religious criticism, modern secularism, and even state atheism? At the crossroads of history and anthropology and drawing on case studies from the Balkans and the Caucasus, this book explores the dynamics and controverses surrounding practices that have never disappeared but have adapted to social, cultural, political, and religious forces across time and space. Through grounded descriptions of ritual pe...