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In “For Rome and Moscow, It’s Spring Again,” Sandro Magister on Chiesa looks at the book, in Italian and Russian, presented to Pope Benedict recently by Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk. It is a collection of the main speeches of Benedict, as cardinal and pope, on European culture made over the past ten years.
Pope Benedict and Abp. Hilarion
The title of the book is taken from an expression that Benedict used in Prague: “Europa, patria spirituale [Europe, spiritual homeland].” Magister translated the archbishop’s introduction (excerpts reprinted below). But listen to his amazement:
Those who expect an Orthodox Church removed from time, made up only of remote traditions and archaic liturgies, will come away shaken from reading the introduction to this book.
[ … ]
The image that emerges from it is that of a Russian Orthodox Church that refuses to let itself be locked up in a ghetto, but on the contrary hurls itself against the secularist onslaught with all the peaceful weapons at its disposal, not excluding civil disobedience against laws “that oblige the commission of a sin in the eyes of God.”
It is a text that is also striking for its frank, politically incorrect language, unusual for the pen of a high Church authority.
As you read Archbishop Hilarion’s words, note the stark contrast to the formulations of neo-dhimmitude we’ve been receiving non-stop from the Phanar of late. May God grant this bishop many years.
The help that the Russian Orthodox Church can give to Europe
by Hilarion Alfeyev, Archbishop of Volokolamsk
Introduction to: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, “Europa, patria spirituale,” Moscow/Rome, 2009
When traveling in Europe, especially in the traditionally Protestant countries, I am always astonished at seeing not a few churches abandoned by their congregations, especially the ones turned into pubs, clubs, shops, or places of profane activities of yet another kind. There is something profoundly deplorable in this sad spectacle. I come from a country in which for many decades the churches were used for nonreligious purposes. Many places of worship were completely destroyed, others were turned into “museums of atheism,” and still others modified to be used as secular institutions. This was one of the traits of the so-called “militant atheism” that dominated for seventy years in my country, and collapsed only in fairly recent times. But what is the cause of similar phenomena in Western Europe? Why has the space for religion in Western society been reduced in such a significant way in recent decades? Why does religion have less and less space in the public sphere? And again: why has this contraction of the religious presence in Europe coincided with processes of consolidation on the political, financial, economic, and social level? […] Continue reading →