The words speak for themselves. He does not hold the authorities responsible for their own moral choices but blames the victims for their imperfections. Defend it, rationalize it away, whatever. It’s still sick.

It is a matter of level of understanding. St John Maximovich did not blame those who took him to court. He blamed the devil. The problem was how come they have such sick/mad/possessed authorities. Can you blame a sick person?

Anyway, read the entire book to see who Fr. Arseny was, rather still is. Saints do not die.

Hi Harry,

Re: what’s it going to take to get folks in Islamic countries to consider changing?

Just like always…the blood of martyrs, courage, faith, prayer and fasting.

Certainly not appeasers more concerned with retaining buildings than souls.

Just my humble opinion…(which will not be appreciated in Phanar).

Dean

A missionary of Christ – those who have ears, let them hear.

“Who is at fault? The authorities? No, we are at fault ourselves, we are only reaping what we ourselves have sown.”

“Understanding all this, I cannot point a finger at our authorities . . .”

Eliot,

The words speak for themselves. He does not hold the authorities responsible for their own moral choices but blames the victims for their imperfections. Defend it, rationalize it away, whatever. It’s still sick.

Dean, as the model that works appears to be ‘acculturation’, what’s it going to take to get folks in Islamic countries to consider changing?

Orthodox Beacon has a story about it: Metropolitan Jonah Delivers Keynote Address at St. Moses the Black National Conference.

It will certainly benefit you if you read the entire book. Fr. Arseny is not defending the authorities, he is only saying that “we are only reaping what we ourselves have sown”.

No Eliot, in this instance, he was not. Christ acknowledged that those who condemned Him were guilty and asked for their forgiveness. Fr. Arseny refused to acknowledge the culpability of the murderers and torturers and instead transferred blame to the victims (much like a modern liberal would do, searching for “root causes” to explain away the choice to do evil). Reread the quote above that Fr. Johannes posted. He simply refuses to hold the tormenters responsible for their own chosen moral actions. Moreover, he blames those victims (for he is talking to everyone around him) who may or may not have had some part in setting the stage upon which the tormenters’ moral choices were made. That’s inexcusable. He saves God’s honor by saying to the victims, essentially, “you deserve it”.

No doubt trials and suffering can aid us in our salvation. That’s not in question.

The reason that this matters is because if you are not willing to say that a person is responsible for their actions, true forgiveness is impossible. After all, it wasn’t their fault to begin with, what’s to forgive? We’re all just victims of circumstance. That isn’t really forgiveness at all. You ignore the perpetrator and instead chose to accuse yourself, probably out of the very human tendency to see onesself as unworthy. But this doesn’t really help anything. In fact, it adds insult to injury. How would it feel to be told that there’s no injustice in the horrible persecution being inflicted upon you? Probably not too well.

This line of thought really deserves to be confronted wherever you find it.

Dean, you’re right about the “two strategies.” The imperial strategy was essentially a colonial one based on racialism. This antagonized the non-Greeks, thereby making the Islamic advance easier than it needed to be. (The Muslims were welcomed as liberators by many of the Monophysite, Nestorian, heterodox Christians.)

“Melkite” comes from the Semitic root word M-L-K, which in Hebrew is melek and in Arabic malik. Both mean “king.”

Hi Harry,

I’ve read in more than one of Fr. Meyendorff’s books that the reason the various heresies (I’m not sure it would be limited to Arianism) had such fertile ground in the Middle East was that the Orthodox Church had not acculturated to the local culture, and came to become viewed more and more as the “imperial” church. I believe the word “Melchite” actually means “imperial”, or so I’ve been told by a Melchite bishop.

I’ve always said that Orthodoxy has pursued two grand strategies during the past 2000 years. The first, what I’d call colonial Orthodoxy, was what was practiced in the Middle East by the Byzantines. It kept the Church in the Greek language (the lingua franca of the East) but came to be considered part of the occupying power. The second, the national model, is where the Church acculturated, took on the local language and culture. This is what ave us the Slavic churches – ie the bulk of the Orthodox Church in the world today.

One path leads to extinction, the other leads to evangelism and life. This is essentially the same question that Terry Mattingly is asking in his article today at http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/religion-faith060210/religion-faith060210/

By the way, one of the most amazing parts of Byzantine history is to read the accounts following the initial Byzantine losses to the Muslim Arabs. Keep in mind that Heraclius had only recently demolished Persian power and returned the Cross to Jerusalem. Then, suddenly, the Byzantines were seemingly swept away by these nomads.

The real problem if you really dig into it, was that in many cases, the gates of the cities were simply opened up to the invaders. I remember one quote from a Syrian person of the time, saying “Whoever these people are, they could not possibly hate us as much as the Romans do.” Go and read about the way Alexandria fell….should never have happened…but the Monophysite population had had enough of the Byzantines.

In any case…these two grand schemes have been pursued…and it’s pretty clear which one works. One gave us Rachmaninoff vespers, the other gave us minarets.

Best Regards,
Dean

Worse yet, Pope St. Cyril helped his uncle Pope Theophilos exile St. John.