>> Europe’s collapse is a spiritual collapse. All the other disasters in Europe come from this spiritual collapse – the total loss of faith.
>> If Europe had faith, it would still believe in itself.
I agree. Isn’t it odd that when people reject faith in God, claiming to believe in themselves, they inevitably end up believing in nothing – least of all themselves.

>> It would say to Arabs: we are not racist, come and work here and live here, if you wish. But there is one condition. You must first be baptized …
Frankly, I think that following this paradigm is what got us where we are today, as it requires the use of man’s devices (i.e. coercion) to achieve God’s ends. Contrast this with Pope John Paul’s words from “Ut Unum Sint:”

Taught by the events of her history, the Church is committed to freeing herself from every purely human support, in order to live in depth the Gospel law of the Beatitudes. Conscious that the truth does not impose itself except “by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power”

I think that if the Church had been doing this back in the 7th Century, Islam would have never become as powerful as it did. Instead, by “enforcing” the Gospel, we turned it into something that needed to be enforced, rather than a force in its own right. It was this very enforcement that led to the divisions that so weakened the Church, whereas the authentic Gospel is in itself a force for unity.

“Merci” for another interesting text, Fr.

A few questions for you (they could be answered by a full text in your web site):

How was the Christian social doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church ( http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/3/14.aspx ) received by the other orthodox juridictions? And in the West? Is there some significant differences with the one Roman Catholicism produced in the 20th Century (notably John Paul II’s modernized version called “Laborem Exercens” in 1981)? What is your own take on it?

-In XC
Luc
Canada

>> Despite many commonalities, we don’t share the same vision as the RCC without using a reductionist model of Jesus Christ,
>> the Church and salvation. Is that what we want? Would that do any good, since such a model has already been rejected?
What we share is Christ Himself, who can neither be divided, nor reduced to any single manner of human expression.

>> Is this simply a political settlement to divide up the sphere of influence, agreeing not to get into each other’s way?
>> OR is it really a commitment to work in unison and speak with one voice on the secular/Islamist assult?
First of all, I think “not getting in each other’s way” is already a good thing. Let us not forget that to outsiders–secularists, Muslims and others–our disagreements seem petty, but our willingness to let them get in the way of our unity in Christ looks to them as if the Gospel we preach were no more powerful than their own beliefs.

Working in unison will take some time to achieve, but limited cooperation, with the help of God’s grace, will lead to that unison.

>> [a commitment to work in unison] is not evangelization in my understanding, it is, we hope, speaking prophetically.
>> That is a good thing but still far short of actual evangelization.
I’m not sure why speaking prophetically would be *far* short of actual evangelization.

>> I hope it really is a holy alliance, but I have my doubts. I’m not from Missouri, but my father was.
Nothing wrong with that! As St. Paul said, “test all spirits.”

Or put another way, “re-evangelization” in Western Europe in league with the Vatican presupposes that the Vatican (also) has and teaches the Evangel to begin with, which we as o/Orthodox believe it does not. For the same reason I’m leery of the MP publishing works of the pope of Old Rome, unless Metropolitan HILARION’s preface warns readers of the errors in what follows, and in Latinism in general, and how they are corrected by Holy Orthodoxy. The Vatican can publish the Fathers of the Church, let alone Patriarch KYRILL, but without teaching them aright, it is “a clanging gong, signifiying nothing” (Holy Apostle Paul and Shakespeare, now there’s a holy alliance, in this English major’s eyes!!).

“Europe’s collapse is a spiritual collapse. All the other disasters in Europe come from this spiritual collapse – the total loss of faith. If Europe had faith, it would still believe in itself. It would say to Arabs: we are not racist, come and work here and live here, if you wish. But there is one condition. You must first be baptized, But because Europe no longer has any faith, it is ‘tolerant’ to Islam. What does ‘tolerant’ mean? It means indifferent, unbelieving. This is dangerous. This is what makes people tolerant of the devil too. What does it matter what you believe – we must be ‘tolerant’ – satanist or Christian, it’s all the same to dead souls. The demographic collapse of Europe is of the same order. Europe does not believe in life, because it has lost faith in God, the source of all Life, the Maker of Life. Therefore, it believes in death – abortion, euthanasia, all of this is the industry of death and Europe is in love with this industry of death. If Europe believed in the Resurrection, it would never abort its future. The origin of this is in the Roman Catholic and Protestant obsession with the crucifixion of Christ, not with the Resurrection.”

1. Despite many commonalities, we don’t share the same vision as the RCC without using a reductionist model of Jesus Christ, the Church and salvation. Is that what we want? Would that do any good, since such a model has already been rejected?

2. Is this simply a political settlement to divide up the sphere of influence, agreeing not to get into each other’s way?

3. OR is it really a commitment to work in unison and speak with one voice on the secular/Islamist assult?

4. The latter is not evangelization in my understanding, it is, we hope, speaking prophetically. That is a good thing but still far short of actual evangelization.

5. I hope it really is a holy alliance, but I have my doubts. I’m not from Missouri, but my father was.

This is very good news. Thanks for passing it along.

In Christ,

FrG