Posting Olavo’s reply to Dugin’s above.

http://debateolavodugin.blogspot.com/2011/04/r2-olavo-de-carvalho.html

I’m posting here just to note that we already have Dugin’s first reply in the debate.

Here’s the link:
http://debateolavodugin.blogspot.com/2011/03/alexander-dugin-first-reply.html

Macedonia,

Regarding your first paragraph above, I agree with you. Regarding the second, specifically the “Axios!” proclamation, I don’t know if it’s ever been tried but, frankly, I think that if three bishops want to consecrate someone as a bishop, synod approving, they can do so.

There is actually a process for dealing with errant bishops. We appeal to his synod or the head of his synod to intervene and/or judge him. It has to be something serious though. A bishop is a kind of “dhespotes”/”master/lord” in his diocese, hence the phrase, “Eis polla eti, dhespota”.

I’m not suggesting it’s like the military. It’s just that we who live in Western democracies tend to project Western democratic values into relationships that were established long before such modern values were in vogue.

“This is the way it’s going to be because this is the Church teaching?” or “this is the way it’s going to be because I say so?”

Scott –

I think I’m doing a poor job of communicating. I have a knack for that. I guess the short of it is that it’s supposed to be a synergy. If the Bishop doesn’t lord it over us, neither would I suggest that the flock lord it over the bishop. It’s eternal servitude on both ends, but it’s not blind obedience. Neither should you do things for a person that he/she is more than capable of doing for themselves. That would be a disservice to the entire community.

You ask who decides? Well, if we’re given the option to proclaim, “He is worthy” then we are given the option to say the opposite. The fact that we take that for granted these days, doesn’t mean it’s not something we ought to take seriously. We are part of a living Church, and much like a democracy, our Liturgical Life is active. It’s when a constituency becomes inactive in both a democracy, and yes, the Church that “bad things” start to happen.

A democracy fails when the voter relinquishes his/her responsibility as a citizen to the higher power; in doing so he creates a tyrant. A so a parish fails when the flock relinquishes the concept of a ministry or mission and gives everything up to either cultural make-up of the community or to the Bishop. This way, the flock is guilty of ethnopyletism or enables a Despot. And no, I’m not saying it is exactly like the voting process of a democratic state, nor do I suggest we start voting in our Bishops. But there is more to just mindlessly saying, “He is worthy/AXIOS” at any Bishop candidate suggested by a synod and committee. It’s much more than just agreeing with everything that a Bishop says or does, especially something tells you it’s not correct. Do I suggest that we enable a culture of constant skeptism of our clery like we do to our politicians, not in the least. But, Bishops are also not the cult of personality that we have created some to be. They’re certainly not infalliable on their own, nor are we expected to prop up failed mission – diocese if the Bishop is working himself to work with the communities to help them grow.

Macedonia, I am not a priest, but many times my own parish priest has stood in front of the congreation and said, “This is the way it is going to be..”

They were on matters regarding litugical observance. Funny, we obeyed. In other matters, the priest just makes a ruling such as non-Lenten food not allowed to be served duing fast periods. That is strictly on the priest’s say-so (no vote taken, no exceptions, more than a few folks objected). No smoking in the parish building–same thing. The list is actually pretty long.

My bishop has done similar things.
He places people under penance based on his interpretation of the cannons without discussion, debate or any appeal. That’s the way it is. Accept the penance or go by-by.
I had that happen to me personally so I now know the tremendous value of such an approach and the obedience required. It was a wonderful thing for me.

And I am in a jurisdiction which is considered by many as ‘worldly’.

Without obedience to the bishop, we have no Church.

“We are to be obedient to the Bishop in as much as he remains that vessel and Icon.”

We’ve been through this before. Who gets to decide whether he remains so?

“I wouldn’t suppose you would expect me to take your first setence seriously? You know there is a scriptural answer to this.”

Macedonia, you will notice something about the Gospel story where Christ washes his Apostles feet: They did not tell him to do so. When one of them wanted Him to wash his whole body, He did not obey. The service of a bishop is not to obey his flock. His service is to look after them. A bishop owes his laity no duty of obedience.

Now, I agree with you that priests and bishops do not habitually order people around. They don’t have to and they should do all that they do in love. Moreover, in the American context of religious freedom, no one has any reason to pay attention to what they say other than as a matter of conscience. This has not always been the case.

The reason I phrased what I said above as “telling” your bishop to shine your shoes was to illustrate something about servitude. It is not mutually exclusive with authority. In fact, most people are both servants to some and authorities over others. And the nature of service can vary.

You see, we throw words like “servant” and “service” around quite freely in our society. These words actually have teeth – – or had teeth in generations past. When an apostle opens his letter with a salutation describing himself as “a servant of Jesus Christ”, he is actually using a Greek word which refers to a slave. That is one type of service. The reaction you would provoke by ordering your bishop to shine your shoes would clarify that that is not the type of service a bishop owes you; i.e., he has no duty to obey you. If he chooses to serve you by voluntarily shining your shoes – – well, then he is being an icon of the Savior.

I wouldn’t suppose you would expect me to take your first sentence seriously? You know there is a scriptural answer to this.

What if we don’t yell AXIOS? What happens to that Bishop, does he “assume the authority” anyways because “he’s the authority?”

I’m wondering if either of you two are Priests? If so, have you ever walked into your parish, stood in front of the altar and told your parish this is how it’s going to be because I say so? As the “stand in for the overseer” the priest has that authority right? Whose authority are we actually acknowledging?

The Holy Spirit is the authority, the Bishop is a vessel of the Holy Spirit, and Icon of the Savior. We are to be obedient to the Bishop in as much as he remains that vessel and Icon. How does the flock know this? Because the flock, being of the Royal Priesthood, are also vessels of the Holy Spirit. Our obedience to the Bishop is as one of veneration before an Icon (as our veneration should be before our Brothers and Sisters as well). He is there for our marathon “practice” (if you will) of our promised, and hopeful, eternal obedience of Christ the Lord. But that same sort of obedience exists between a husband and a wife, boss and co-worker, husband and wife, child to parents, rich man towards the poor, all of us towards our neighbor. As long as it’s in Christ.

And as Christ gave the Apostles (our Bishops) and example of how they should serve, scripturally, “so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” The Apostles were almost scandalized that the Lord and Savior, the True Authority, would humble Himself. But how else would they know where true authority is sewn from if not from humility, service, and not wanting the vestments and titles? I’d like to think that I’d run towards that sort of leadership… think.

If we look at things this way, then yes, I can agree with you both. The problem is that we rarely look at it this way. Unfortunately, we look at the “overseer/servant” who leads in example, and yes, has authority IN CHRIST only through the late Byzantine version of Despotes. So in essence, you’re right it may not be completely democratic in the conventional, secular sense that we have come to accept, but it is hardly tyrannical. I would even have a hard time calling it the same sort of monarchy that we understand in the secular sense of human governance.

In any case, I’ve enjoyed the far country with much more ease than I have my Lord’s Home. So pray for me a sinner. And I’ll let someone else take it from here.

Fine, Macedonia, the next time your bishop arrives for a visit to your church, walk up to him and tell him to shine your shoes with his omophorion.

Bishops are indeed servants, but they are also “overseers” as Michael points out. Christ gave them considerable power as well as a duty of service. I do not dispute that there are “checks and balances” (a term from American legal parlance introduced into the discussion by someone who has chided me for introducing Western legal concepts into Orthodoxy, btw) as Fr. Johannes asserts. These are conciliar and canonical in nature. If a bishop makes an uncanonical or heterodox ruling or statement, his action can be appealed to a court of his brother bishops. If a council errs in its statements, a push by the Church at large, civil leaders, clergy and laity, might cause it to reconsider. No argument from me that there are self-correcting mechanisms within the Church.

But the Church is in no sense a democracy or democratic. Thank God. You might call it “episcopocratic”. And I will concede the semantic point that in a council, the bishops could choose to arrive at their decisions according to majority rule. Of course, that’s a very select group that gets the franchise.

Macedonia,

Let me clarify something because in re-reading Fr. Johannes story regarding the monk I may have misunderstood the degree or nature of abuse inflicted upon him. I should not have said that I agreed that Fr. Johannes did the right thing without more information. I’m not asking for more information because it was a personal pastoral situation. However, it really does depend on how bad the monk was treated. Some people percieve “tyranny” differently than others. If he was being physically abused or psychologically tortured, that’s another matter.

Macedonia,

Perhaps, but it does bring to light a point. I agree that he did the right thing regarding the monk. But he generalizes from that to a broader point about freedom and coercion:

” . . obedience, in order to be meaningful and true, presupposes freedom. Freedom, in other words, precedes obedience. Obedience has to be freely given in order to have value. When that freedom is denied, than obedience turns into coercion and deep interior distortion take place.”

The implication is that this is valid as a general proposition. My remarks were geared to showing that this proposition is not valid at the level of civil government. Persuasion to virtue would be better. But no government is pacifistic. There is a value to coerced obedience, especially with respect to the malevolent. The real question is what constitutes malevolence. A democracy leaves this determination up to the voice of the people because the assumption is “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” – “The voice of the people is the voice of God”. That is why democracy is more akin to Bolshevism or Nazism than a Christian autocracy would be – – the idolatrous nature of its foundational principle. It is no wonder that all three have led to mass murder on an historic scale and monstrous social distortions.

The monk you mentioned did, in fact, invoke the authority of the priesthood, to address his problem. It was not freedom he lacked, it was an hierarchical blessing to exercise it. What you did was not radical, it was a simple exercise of your priesthood, to loose on earth and in heaven. If that’s radical, we are all in trouble.

Michael, I have no authority to challenge the order of an abbot. I had no authority to tell the monk what to do. He is not “under obedience” to me. (The entire notion of “under obedience” is so fraught with spiritual danger that it is best left to men who have four of five decades of real experience with matters of the Spirit in my opinion.) This was a simple example of the truth setting a person free. Obviously the man trusted me. That was clear when he came to see me. But if I were hauled in front of a spiritual court presided over by the abbot, I’d get a stern rebuke, maybe even a suspension, about not obeying ecclesiastical authority. And, if the Church were as fixed and static as you and Scott insist it should be, he’d be right. But the monk would also still be in turmoil.

Scott, Bishops are servants. Overseer doesn’t not preclude “lording over” the flock. Furthermore, where do we “get” our Bishops from if not the Body? There’s something more to this than just a motionless body sitting around “waiting for the love.”

Father Hans is completely correct. It may not be pristinely structured like, for instance, our US Government. But the concept is there. There are checks and balances in Orthodoxy. The Body of Christ is a part of the process of Church doctrine. Nothing is accepted by the Church if it is not finally filtered through the Body. Even at the local parish level.

Committing murder, Scott, is not a good example to refute Fr. Hans’ explanation. I’m sure if the monk came up to Fr. Hans and said, “Hey, I have this yearning to take a life” Fathers’ reply would not be “you’re free to do so, and it might even be blessed by God”