Misha,

Thank you for this gem of a quotation. Saint John of Kronstadt speaks similarly.

“When you doubt in the truth of any person or event described in Holy Scripture, then remember that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God (2 Tim. 3:16), as the Apostle says, and is therefore true, and does not contain any imaginary persons, fables, and tales, although it includes parables which everyone can see are not actual narratives, but are written in figurative language. The whole of the Word of God is one, entire, indivisible truth; and if you assert that any narrative, sentence, or word is untrue, then you sin against the truth of the whole of Holy Scripture and its primordial Truth, which is God Himself.”

Allegory is a wonderful thing and a very useful method of application of the Scriptures to our lives, but it needn’t be to the exclusion of history. It seems that some are so embarrassed by history that they cannot bring themselves to admit to it. And because something happened (often at the command of God) that seems repugnant to modern sensibilities they cannot bring themselves to accept that “God could do such a thing.” But just because these things happened (again at the command of God) at a specific time and within a specific context doesn’t mean they apply in the same way to us. This, it would seem, is what they (wrongly) think they must admit if such things actually occurred.

The conquest of the Canaanites provides the most fodder for embarrassment. But it is all-too-easily forgotten, or simply not known, what sort of people were destroyed. The book of Wisdom is clearest and most direct in this regard…

“Therefore chastenest thou them by little and little that offend, and warnest them by putting them in remembrance wherein they have offended, that leaving their wickedness they may believe on thee, O Lord. For it was thy will to destroy by the hands of our fathers both those old inhabitants of thy holy land, whom thou hatedst for doing most odious works of witchcrafts, and wicked sacrifices; And also those merciless murderers of children, and devourers of man’s flesh, and the feasts of blood, with their priests out of the midst of their idolatrous crew, and the parents, that killed with their own hands souls destitute of help that the land, which thou esteemedst above all other, might receive a worthy colony of God’s children.

Nor do they see the patience and mercy extended to them…

Nevertheless even those thou sparedst as men, and didst send wasps, forerunners of thine host, to destroy them by little and little. Not that thou wast unable to bring the ungodly under the hand of the righteous in battle, or to destroy them at once with cruel beasts, or with one rough word: But executing thy judgments upon them by little and little, thou gavest them place of repentance, not being ignorant that they were a naughty generation, and that their malice was bred in them, and that their cogitation would never be changed. For it was a cursed seed from the beginning; neither didst thou for fear of any man give them pardon for those things wherein they sinned.

Nor do they remember when they judge by worldly standards…

For who shall say, What hast thou done? or who shall withstand thy judgment? or who shall accuse thee for the nations that perish, whom thou made? or who shall come to stand against thee, to be revenged for the unrighteous men? For neither is there any God but thou that careth for all, to whom thou mightest shew that thy judgment is not upright. Neither shall king or tyrant be able to set his face against thee for any whom thou hast punished. Forsomuch then as thou art righteous thyself, thou orderest all things righteously: thinking it not agreeable with thy power to condemn him that hath not deserved to be punished.

“But what about the innocent children?” They themselves were spared from being reared in such wickedness, quite possibly to their eternal destruction. Death is not the end, nor is it the worst thing imaginable. God is both merciful and just.

“If something has been recorded in the Old or New Testament to have happened historically, and this or that deed was manifestly accomplished, and we interpret it for our own purposes, using ideas and thoughts for our own spiritual edification, do not suppose that we have disregarded the letter, or rejected the history. By no means! We neither condemn nor reject the perceptible event that has been committed to history. Since, however, we are [in] the world, we benefit today by interpreting everything that happened yesterday for our own purposes.”
+ St. Nilus of Sinai, Letter 2.223

“Those who want to go to the Bible to extract what suits their lusts and desires will inevitably be frustrated….To those who want to justify their holy wars, we say in colloquial Arabic, “Go knit with a different needle!””

Again, the irony. Fr George Massouh’s “desire” (even “lust”) is a false “peace on earth” where we are simply to die (in a false martyrdom) – a world where in the name of “peace” he would have us turn the Alter of Christ (i.e. the bloodless sacrifice) into a very bloody one indeed.

To Fr George Massouh who extracts a radical pacifism (and even a fear of the very suffering and death through which we are saved) from the Bible, I say “Go knit with a different needle!”…

Fr. Georges Massouh says:

….People are free, in matters of politics, to support this or that state in their wars, but not in the name of Christianity or in the name of the Church and not under the pretext of protecting the existence of Christians or under the pretext of defending minorities. The logic of the Church must be other than the logic of this world.

Like all Orthodox who try to argue for a de facto hard pacifism (a radical individual and political pacifism for the Body of Christ) he weaves in and out of “worldly” and “Holy” logic (if I may put it that way), in the end simply to try to prop up his worldly understanding of the meaning of suffering, violence, and death. It is as if he forgot that at the center of Christianity is the Roman instrument par excellence of suffering, violence, and death. Thus, he says the second sentence just after the first with no understanding of the irony…

Btw, does one use “spiritual” scrip and sell “spiritual” cloaks in order to purchase “spiritual” swords? Inquiring minds want to know.

He praises Old Testament figures who engaged in violent endeavors, neither He nor John the Forerunner told the Roman soldiers with whom they spoke to quit soldiering, etc. Moreover, imagine a feckless Christian allowing a bully to strike him 70 times 7. I think such sayings are exhortations to patience in civil society, employing the hyperbole characteristic of the language He spoke (“If your eye offend thee, pluck it out . . .”).

Besides, if we were to take His words literally on these matters, there could be no Christian government and Christians, one and all, would be at the mercy of anyone who dared to use violence. That is certainly not the history of the Orthodox governments or Church Fathers. Recall that St. Basil declined to call killing in warfare murder or unlawful. Thus endeth the reductio ad absurdam.

But my real point is this: Fr. Vsevelod did not say “holy war”. He said, “священная борьба”:

“Борьба с терроризмом, за справедливый мир, за достоинство людей, которые испытывают вызов террора, – это очень нравственная, это, если хотите, священная борьба, и сегодня наша страна является, наверно, самой активной в мире силой, которая противостоит террору.”. – http://www.bbc.com/russian/news/2015/10/151006_syria_christians_holy_war

Which means:

“The fight against terrorism, for a just world and for the dignity of people who are experiencing the challenge of terror – this is very moral, it is, if you will, a sacred struggle, and today our country is probably the most active power in the world opposed to terror.”

Russians do have a phrase for “holy war”. It was used during WWII, “Священная война”.

Amen, Robert! I am an American and hang my head in shame for the actions of the current administration. We are fighting our moral battles here on our own soil, so I am thankful that President Putin has heeded the call to intercede in Syria…I do not think him nor President Assad monsters, but this opinion is the result of my own research. Far too many people are eager to embrace whatever attitude media tells them to take. His defense of Syrian Christians is an answer to prayer.

I agree with you, Giorgi. As Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 states:
“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. “

Secondly, this blog is not your personal soapbox. If you want to pontificate, start your own blog.

It is important to remember that the holy Fathers rarely relied on the literal reading of the Old Testament stories. Rather, they most often interpreted those stories in an allegorical sense. For example, the commandment to war against the Amalekites is interpreted as a command to undertake spiritual war against the passions. This form of interpretation is best illustrated in “The Life of Moses” by St Gregory of Nyssa and int “The Great Canon” of St Andrew of Crete.

We should also remember that the early Christian Roman Emperors deliberately delayed their baptism until shortly before their deaths, as they knew that their military exploits were inimical to a Christina life. The first emperor to be baptized earlier in life, was Anastasios who became seriously ill and was not expected to survive. We should also remember that the many soldier saints were canonized as martyrs, that is as victims of violence, not as perpetrators of violence and war.

The very concept of an ‘Orthodox Christian jihad’ is a serious deviation, even a heresy, as can be seen by the vigorous opposition of our Antichian hierarchs and theologians to this idea. This is Russian government propaganda discussed as theological opinion; but it is not in accordance with the Gospel nor the teaching of the Orthodox faith.

In reality, the Putin government is not fighting in Syria to protect the local Christians. If it were so, then they would have done so long ago. Where was Putin when our Archbishops were kidnapped by the Chechens or when Ma’aloula was sacked and our nuns held captive? Putin is in Syria now to prevent the next jihad in Russia. You see, fully one quarter of the Jihadists in Syria and Muslims from Russia.

These Jihadists groups are the inheritors and descendants of Muslim mercenary armies formed by the Russian government in the 1990’s under the umbrella of the “Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus.” These militias were used as surrogates in the Russian invasions of Georgia and the attendant ethnic cleansing and genocide against Orthodox Christians in the occupied territories. Later these Muslim militias rebelled against their Russian overlords and eventually morphed into the “Caucasus Emirate”, which is allied with Al Quaeda and ISIL. Putin now fears that if Bashar Al Asaad falls and the war in Syria ends, these jihadist will return to Russia to carry on jihad on Russian soil.

The idea that the Russian government is a protector of the Orthodox faith is absurd. In the invasions of Georgia, Orthodox holy places and clergy were specifically targeted. In 1992, the holy martyrs, Hieromonk Andrea Kurashvili and sub-deacon Giorgi Adua were brutally tortured and killed by the Abkhazian forces under Russian command. In 2008, the Russian and Ossetian military rocketed the ancient Ghvrtaeba Cathedral and the Shrine of the Protomartyr Razhden in Nikazi. The next day, the looted the cathedral, desecrated the holy altar and then burned that ancient temple of God. Can such people be considered protectors of Orthodoxy? Of course not.

The sad fact is that there are some who want to insinuate politics into the life of the church. Such ‘political Orthodoxy’ is a deviation from the truth of the Gospel and a deception of the evil one. Sadly. Fr Johannes has still not explained why he is publishing theological opinions contradictory to the clearly expressed teaching of our Antiochian Orthodox Patriarchate, its hierarchs and theologians.

Fr Georges Massouh: I did not Come to Bring Peace, but a Sword

Those people who rush to the Bible in order to justify their words and deeds that are not in accordance with Christ excel at producing some verses in support of their errant opinions, but only after cutting the passage off from its context and distorting it from its true intent. Quite a few have resorted to this method in order to back up their opinions about what is falsely and slanderously called “holy war”.

Jesus’ saying, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matthew 10:34) is the verse most commonly cited among supporters of the idea of holy war. However, if we continue reading the passage in which this verse occurs we will discover– if we allow ourselves to be guided by the exegesis of the Fathers of the Church– that it has no connection to military wars or struggles or battles. The text continues with Jesus saying, “For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it” (Mathew 35-39).

What is meant by the sword, then, is not the chopping weapon used in wars, but rather the word of God that cuts between good and evil, between righteousness and iniquity, between goodness and sin… Likewise, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). In his explanation of the verse, Saint Hilary of Poitier (d. 367) says, “When we are renewed by the water of baptism by the power of the Word, we are separated from the root of our sins and our will. We are cut off from our unbridled attachment to father and mother, as by the sword of God, and are separated from them.”

As for Saint Jerome (d. 420), it appears even more clearly in his exegesis of the passage, and he recalls that after Jesus said “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword”, He divided a man from his father, mother and relatives “so that he will not place family allegiance ahead of faith … We must preserve this order in all our relationships. Love your father, your mother and your children, on the condition that your love of family does not come into opposition to your love of God and it becomes impossible for you to hold on to both at the same time. Rejecting your family is better than rejecting God.”

Blessed Augustine (d. 430) is of the same opinion, so after mentioning that the father says to his son “I begot you” and the mother says to her son “I bore you”, the father says, “I reared you” and the mother says “I sustained you”, Augustine commands each one of his readers to say to his parents, “I love you in Christ, not instead of Him. You are with me in Christ, but I will not be with you apart from Him.” But if the parents say, “We do not care about Christ,” then for Augustine the choice is clear: “Say to your parents, ‘I care about Christ more than I care about you. How can I obey the one who reared me and lose the one who created me?'”

As for when Jesus said, “He who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one” and His disciples responded, “It is enough” (Luke 22: 36-38), Saint Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) says, depicting the Holy Apostle Peter saying to Jesus, “Why do you order me now to buy a sword when you forbade me from using it? Why do you order me to possess what you forbade me to unsheathe?” Then comes the response according to Ambrose, who continues: “You said, O Jesus, to Peter when he offered two swords, ‘It is enough’… This seems evil to many, but the Lord is not evil. Despite his ability to take vengeance, He chooses to be crucified. There is a spiritual sword to sell what you possess and buy the Word.”

Those who want to go to the Bible to extract what suits their lusts and desires will inevitably be frustrated. The true believer is the one who goes to the Bible to search for what the Bible wants to say to us. We do not make it say what it does not say after distorting it, chopping it up and fragmenting it. To those who want to justify their holy wars, we say in colloquial Arabic, “Go knit with a different needle!”