Met. Hilarion

Metropolitan Hilarion Believes that Western Countries Tend to Dictatorship

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Secularization disguised as democratization released a colossal energy of subordination to power in the European states.

Met. Hilarion below affirms a thesis I developed in the essay “Homosexual Marriage at the Dusk of Liberty” where I argue that the legal codification of homosexual “marriage” effectively establishes the State as both the source and judge of human morality. This breathtaking arrogation of moral authority can only lead to the extinction of liberty.

Progressive ideologies have at their core a totalitarian impulse (see Malcolm Muggeridge “The Great Liberal Death Wish“). When Progressive ideas meld with the power of the State, those who hold views contrary to the Progressive social vision will be seen as enemies of the State. When that happens Christianity will become criminalized.

Met. Hilarion makes the same point from the European side:

“Free will of citizens is a preconditioned, not absolute characteristic of a democratic state. For example, two European states – the Great Britain and France – have recently legalized unisex marriages. For comparably short time, after the parliament approved this law, France has become a stage for protest demonstrations with millions of people participating. However, the state consciously and demonstratively ignored demands of people and used tear gas to disperse them,” the author of the article says.

According to him, “secularization in disguise of democratization” released “colossal energy of subordination to power” in European states.

“This powerful energy today strives to finally break with Christianity, which controlled its totalitarian impulses during seventeen centuries. Eventually, it unconsciously strives to set up an absolute dictatorship that demands total control over each member of society. Don’t we move to it when “for the sake of security” we agree to obligatory electronic passports, dactyloscopy for everyone, and photo cameras occurring everywhere? All these things can be easily used in other purposes that can also be interpreted as “strengthening security measures,” Metropolitan Hilarion notes.

Note too his point that the infrastructure for totalitarianism is already place.

Source: Interfax | HT: Koinonia

Moscow, July 24, Interfax – Modern Western states move to absolute dictatorship, head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Hilarion believes.

“Nowadays state sets a principle of secularity, independency from any outside authority that is authorized to point out to violations of morals or rights,” the metropolitan writes in his article published in the Pravoslavnaya Beseda magazine.

People are declared the only source of authority in a democratic state, and people should realize this authority through free will of citizens participating in elections and referendums.

“Free will of citizens is a preconditioned, not absolute characteristic of a democratic state. For example, two European states – the Great Britain and France – have recently legalized unisex marriages. For comparably short time, after the parliament approved this law, France has become a stage for protest demonstrations with millions of people participating. However, the state consciously and demonstratively ignored demands of people and used tear gas to disperse them,” the author of the article says.

According to him, “secularization in disguise of democratization” released “colossal energy of subordination to power” in European states.

“This powerful energy today strives to finally break with Christianity, which controlled its totalitarian impulses during seventeen centuries. Eventually, it unconsciously strives to set up an absolute dictatorship that demands total control over each member of society. Don’t we move to it when “for the sake of security” we agree to obligatory electronic passports, dactyloscopy for everyone, and photo cameras occurring everywhere? All these things can be easily used in other purposes that can also be interpreted as “strengthening security measures,” Metropolitan Hilarion notes.

He believes that latest developments in the world is “constituent restoration of Pax Romana, global international supremacy.” The metropolitan also says that if Roman authorities were in certain periods indifferent to immorality, today they strive to make “immorality normal.”

Met. Hilarion of Volokolamsk: Church and State in Russia

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Met. Hilarion of Volokolamsk is the Chairman of the of the Department for External Church Relations Moscow Patriarchate.

Key quote:

“We remain strongly convinced that the secular nature of the state does not presuppose the ousting of the Church from the public space or her marginalization and placement in a “ghetto”. The Russian Orthodox Church is not only a social institution that has played a tremendous historical role in the development of Russian statehood and formation of the Russian people’s Christian spirit, but also an important part of the modern civil society. By virtue of this fact the Church has a right to expect that her voice is heard. And now, at a time of relative wellbeing of the Church, relevant are the words of St. Tikhon, the Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, who said not long before his death, “Looking at the future ways of holy Orthodoxy without fear, we call upon you, our beloved children, do God’s cause and may the sons of lawlessness never succeed”.”

Your Eminence, Venerable Cardinal Schönborn,

Distinguished Participants in the Seminar:

We have assembled to discuss such topical issues as relations between Church and State, dialogue of Churches in the context of global migration processes, the place of religion in societal life and social service of the Church.

The subjects proposed by the organizers of the seminar for us to discuss have a direct bearing on the service of the Russian Orthodox Church today. I would like to speak in more detail about church-state relations in Russia since this theme has been heatedly debated in recent times both inside and outside Russia.

For over millennium-long history of the Russian State, relations between the Church and the secular power have developed in different ways. During almost a thousand years beginning from the Baptism of Old Russia in 988 to the 1917 Revolution, the church-state relations in Russia shaped up differently. The form and content of these relations depended to a large extent on the historical context and the personalities of supreme hierarchs and state rulers. For instance, in the period from 988 to the autocephaly gained by the Russian Church in 1488, the state promoted the propagation of Orthodox faith without interfering in internal church affairs. In the subsequent period known as the Moscow Period (from 1448 to 1589), the princely government would often violate the established balance of relations and the principle of mutual non-interference by replacing an annoying head of the Church for a more loyal one. According to the church historian Anton Kartashev, “Russian metropolitans would soon see the overpowering authority of the Moscow Prince who would appropriate the title of tsar and the ensuing Byzantine idea of patronage over all the Orthodox Christians. At the same time, the installation and fate of metropolitans themselves would begin to depend equally strongly on the personal will of Moscow princes, as was the case in ruined Constantinople”. [1]

In 1589, the Moscow Council chaired by Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople installed the first Russian Patriarch Job. The model of relations between the Church and the secular power in the first patriarchal period proved to be a reproduction of church-state relations as were established in the Byzantine Empire in the form of the so-called symphony of church and state power. The introduction of patriarchal office became a logical continuation of the historical development of Eastern Christianity as the Orthodox patriarchates in the East, which were under the authority of Muslims, in the 16^th century looked to the Russian Church and Russian monarchs for support and protection. The election of a Patriarch gave a special status not only to the Church but also to the supreme power of the state which finally became aware of itself as the successor of Byzantine baseliuses.

Peter I abolished the patriarchal office and initiated the so-called Synodal Period in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. The abolishment of patriarchal office and the establishment of a Sacred Governing Synod in 1721 as in fact a ministry in the structure of governmental bodies headed by a secular person, the Chief Procurator, initiated a period of secularization and subjection of the Church to the state. It sometimes happened so that emperors would appoint as Chief Procurators persons, to put it mildly, not quite blameless not only in their morals but also in their religious views. The secularization continued under Catherine II who secularized monastery lands thus undermining their subsistence.

The year 1917 became a turning point for both the Russian Church and the whole Russian Empire as it marked the beginning of the chaos and terror of civil war of all against all. Russia saw the perfect fulfilment of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of Me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved (Mt. 10:21-22).

The Local Council of 1917-1918, which was held against a backdrop of the collapse of the entire state and social order, restored once abolished patriarchal office in the Church. In 1918 the Soviet power issued a Decree on the Freedom of Conscience and the Church and Religious Societies. It asserted the principle of the Church’s separation from the state and school. Religious organizations were deprived of the status of legal entity, the right to own property and to collect donations. The first Soviet Constitution of 1918 defined the clergy and monastics as nonworking elements and denied them electoral rights. The children of the clergy were deprived of the right to enter higher education institutions. The authority in the person of Lenin and later Stalin who replaced him initiated repressions against their own people on an unprecedented scale with the toll of millions victims. The Church was almost completely crushed as bishops and priests were executed without investigation and trial, churches were blown up, monasteries and theological schools closed.

The decrees “On the Separation of the Church from the State and the School from the Church” and “On Religious Associations” adopted in 1929 put the Russian Orthodox Church outside the law. The persecutions against the clergy and faithful sometimes abated and sometimes broke out with a new force as was the case in the pre-war period and the period after World War II. The number of martyrs for faith in the Russian Orthodox Church exceeds many a time the multitude of Christian martyrs who suffered in the first centuries of persecution carried out by the heathen Roman Empire.

The political processes in the late 20^th century in the USSR led to the collapse of the Soviet state. In 1990, Russia adopted “The Law on the Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Organizations”, which actually abolished the legal basis for exterminating the Church. The Council for Religious Affairs was liquidated and religious organizations recovered the legal basis for their work and the status of legal entity. The Church was given the right to own property, to engage in economic activity, to establish educational institutions for children and adults and to freely distribute religious books.

The present law “On the Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations” was adopted in 1997 to reflect the profound changes which took place in the political and socio-economic domains of society. This law fixes a number of fundamental provisions in the field of cooperation between the state and religious communities. An analysis of the legal novels in this law shows that Russia has chosen for relations between the state and religious organizations a model different from that of “Established Church” prevailing in the world. The law has developed the basic principles of church-state relations fixed in the 1993 Russian Constitution.

In 2000, the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted an important document, “The Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Social Concept”, which, among other things, contains results of a theological reflection on church-state relations in the past and the present. I will dot down the key statements, which make it possible to come to a better understanding of the Church’s stance on this issue.

First, the Church recognized that the state is a necessary element of life in the world corrupted by sin, where both the individual and society need to be safeguarded against dangerous manifestations of sin. The state, however, is not an end in itself or an independent value but rather an instrument for restricting the domination of sin in the world. The Old and New Testaments call those in power to use the power of the state to restrict evil and to support good as the apparent moral sense of the state’s existance (for instance, Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 13-16). We know from church history that the apostles taught Christians to obey the authorities (cf. Tim. 2:2), although at that time the Church was persecuted by both the local Jewish authorities and the Roman Empire. The Church keeps loyal to the state, but to stand above the requirement of loyalty is God’s commandment to do the work of people’s salvation in any conditions and circumstances.

Secondly, Christians should avoid absolutizing power and understand its limits. They should recognize its earthly and temporal value called forth because of the existence of sin in the world and the need to contain it. The authority that drives God away from its conscience is prone to abuses and even the deification of rulers themselves as numerous historical examples have shown.

Thirdly, the nature of the state and that of the Church differ. The Church is founded directly by God Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ; while the divine institution of state authority is revealed in historical process only indirectly. While the goal of the Church is salvation of people for eternal life, the aim of state is to ensure their welfare on earth here and now. The state is an immanent part of “this world”, while the Kingdom of God where Christ will be “all and in all” (Col. 3:11) has no room for coercion, opposition between the human being and God and, accordingly, no need for the institution of state.

Fourthly, the church consciousness asserts that temporal wellbeing is unthinkable without respect for certain moral norms. For this reason, the tasks and work of the Church and state may coincide in this area. The state is capable of either giving the Church an opportunity for carrying out her mission or restricting this opportunity up to open persecution. The authority thus judges itself in face of the Truth and ultimately foretells its own fate.

Fifthly, from the Church’s perspective, the secular nature of a state does not have to mean the need to expel religions from every sphere of societal life, to remove the Church from participation in solving socially significant problems or to deprive her of the right to give her assessment of actions taken by the authority. The Church is an important institution of the civil society and she has a right to expect that her voice is sounded and heard. In particular, the Church has a right “to point out to the state that it is inadmissible to propagate such convictions or actions which may result in total control over a person’s life, convictions and relations with other people, as well as erosion in personal, family or public morality, insult of religious feelings, damage to the cultural and spiritual identity of the people and threats to the sacred gift of life”.[2] The principle of church-state separation in today’s situation presupposes only the division of terms of reference between the Church and the authorities and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.

Sixthly, the Church should not take upon herself the functions inherent in the state, namely, to oppose sin by violence, to make use of temporal powers and to assume restrictive or coercive functions of the state power. At the same time, the Church can request or appeal to the authority to use these functions of the state in particular cases.

Finally, in carrying out her social, charitable, educational and other socially significant projects, the Church expects assistance and promotion from the state. The areas of cooperation between church and state are vast and include, among other things, support for the institution of family, motherhood and childhood, religious-ethical and patriotic education and formation, social work, service in prisons, humanitarian studies, work in the field of culture and art and peacemaking on international and national levels.

The above provisions enable the Russian Orthodox Church to carry out her service in today’s society and to develop dialogue with the state power.

Today, members of the Russian Church are actively involved in various projects carried out by the Church both on her own and jointly with societal and public structures in various fields. The Church and the governmental institutes constructively work and consider debatable problems together. The Church has an opportunity to bear witness to the Gospel’s truth before both the people and the authorities and to express her position on socially significant issues standing on both Russian and global agenda.

As an example of dialogue between church, society and state in education, I can cite the project for teaching the Basics of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics discipline in all Russian regions. In our country there is a legal provision for teaching in public schools the disciplines devoted to the study of moral principles and historical and cultural traditions of Orthodoxy and other world religions or, alternatively, for teaching secular ethics. Parents are given the right to chose one of these disciplines within this course.

The first practical steps have been made to revive the army clergy. At present, there are 240 vacancies for staff priests, and 814 non-staff priests serve in the Russian Army Forces. [3]

The Russian Church is actively involved in social service. Orthodox church asylums and orphanages are established; aid to old people, the disabled and homeless is given; assistance is given in the treatment and rehabilitation of those dependent on alcohol and drugs and in restoration of their social relations and work skills.

Almost in all the dioceses of our Church, their ruling bishops have appointed clergy to take pastoral care of inmates of penitentiaries. Today, 905 priests serve in them.

The Russian Church is active in presenting her position on topical issues of today in the UN, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and other international organizations. She attaches a special importance to the strengthening of relations with governmental bodies and the civil society in other countries (including through contacts with the diplomatic corps accredited in Moscow). The aim of these efforts is to inform people in other countries of the Church’s position on burning issues having the ethical dimension. Among them the problems of euthanasia, abortion, legalization of same-sex unions and trafficking of people.

The revival of the Church and the expansion of her work, her growing authority in society and cooperation with the state in diverse areas have provoked displeasure in certain social circles. There are censures in the mass media for the Church’s “interpenetration with the state”, “clericalization of society”, and the like. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, in his address to the Bishops’ Council in 2013, reminded the public once again that “the Church does not interfere in the affairs of state governance, and the state does not interfere in the affairs of the Church but both work together for people’s benefit”. [4]

We remain strongly convinced that the secular nature of the state does not presuppose the ousting of the Church from the public space or her marginalization and placement in a “ghetto”. The Russian Orthodox Church is not only a social institution that has played a tremendous historical role in the development of Russian statehood and formation of the Russian people’s Christian spirit, but also an important part of the modern civil society. By virtue of this fact the Church has a right to expect that her voice is heard. And now, at a time of relative wellbeing of the Church, relevant are the words of St. Tikhon, the Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, who said not long before his death, “Looking at the future ways of holy Orthodoxy without fear, we call upon you, our beloved children, do God’s cause and may the sons of lawlessness never succeed”.

Author’s notes:

[1] Kartashev A. V. Essays on the History of the Russian Church. Sretensky Monastery, 2009, v. 1, p. 394 (Russian)

[2] Bases of Social Concept. https://mospat.ru/en/documents/social-concepts/iii/

[3] Report by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill to the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church (2 February, 2013), p. 58. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/2770923.html.

[4] Ibid. p. 47.

Russian Orthodox Bishop: Syrian Christians Facing ‘Extermination’

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Over at the Acton Institute blog, John Couretas writes about his recent interview with Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, about increasing Christian persecution around the world. One focus was the mid-east where the Western “Arab Spring” policy has in fact unleashed a torrent of persecution against Christians. Iraq’s Christian population had to leave after the American invasion in 2003. Today the same is happening in Syria, especially as we arm insurgents who we are told are freedom fighters but in fact are Islamic radicals.

Met. Hilarion is careful in his criticism…

It is possible already now to speak of an external military interference in [Syria] as thousands of extremist militants in the guise of opposition forces have unleashed a civil war in the country,” Hilarion said in the Moscow lecture. “Extremist groups, the so-called jamaates consisting of militant Wahhabites armed and trained at the expense of foreign powers are purposefully killing Christians.

…but is is clear that “external military interference” applies to the United States and other Western powers. When America arms insurgents (the policy of the Obama administration), we are arming Islamic radicals who will displace the Christian population if they succeed in overthrowing Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria.

What about Assad, the favorite whipping boy of American liberals and neo-conservatives? Couretas writes:

Despite having few illusions about the nature of Assad’s autocratic rule, many Christians feared that the Islamist groups, involved in what the West initially viewed as another “Arab Spring” uprising, would eventually turn on them. Indeed this is what has happened.

The illusion informing American foreign policy is that democratic principles can be imposed on other countries by force. It can’t. First of all, representative government is a cultural impossibility in an Islamic dominated country. Secondly, America should not be in the business of “nation building.” It distorts our self-understanding and responsibility in the world. There are some places in the world were a dictatorship is the best type of government a nation can produce. America has made matters worse in Syria by removing the barriers that held the persecutors of Christians in check.

A portion of the article is reproduced below. For the complete posting go to the Acton Institute Blog.

Source: Acton Institute Blog | John Couretas

The Russian Orthodox Church has been among the most active witnesses against Christian persecution around the world, particularly in the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East. In November 2011, Kirill, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, visited Syria and Lebanon. In a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Kirill said that he shared a concern with Assad about the “spread of religious radicalism that threatens the integrity of the Arab world.”

That sentiment has been expressed widely in Christian communities in Syria — some of them dating to apostolic times — as civil war has progressively taken a heavy toll. Now almost two years on, as many as 30,000 people may have perished. Despite having few illusions about the nature of Assad’s autocratic rule, many Christians feared that the Islamist groups, involved in what the West initially viewed as another “Arab Spring” uprising, would eventually turn on them. Indeed this is what has happened. Entire Christian villages have been depopulated, churches desecrated, and many brutal killings have taken place at the hands of the “Arab Spring” insurgents. Most recently, Fr. Fadi Haddad, an Orthodox priest, was found murdered with brutal marks of torture on his remains. Car bomb attacks are now being waged against Christian neighborhoods. (See these backgrounders on the Syrian crisis from the Congressional Research Service and the Council on Foreign Relations).

In February, Hilarion delivered a lecture in Moscow titled “An Era of New Martyrdom. Discrimination of Christians in Various Parts of the World” in which he cited the work of groups such as Barnabas Fund and International Christian Concern. In his talk, he detailed the dire situation of the Coptic Christians in Egypt and in Syria, and various other nations. He noted that Muslims and Christians of various confessions – Orthodox, Roman and Syro Catholics, Maronites and Armenians – co-existed in Syria through centuries and that, until recently, “Syria was a model of wellbeing as far as interreligious co-existence was concerned.” What’s more, Syria has accepted 2 million refugees from Iraq, with several thousand of them being Christians, as they fled persecution in their homeland.

[…]

For the complete posting go to the Acton Institute Blog.

European Civilization – From the Edict of Milan to Christianophobia

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On October 2, 2012, the DECR chairman spoke at the opening of an international reflection-action conference on ‘Spiritual Feat of Sts Constantine and Helen Equal-to-the-Apostles – the Beginning and Triumph of Christendom in Human History’, which took place at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Dear Participants and Guests of the Conference,

Allow me to greet you on behalf of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. In his statements, His Holiness has often addressed the theme of Christian values which have formed the European civilization and become the spiritual foundation of our people. It is an important theme to be constantly revisited.

The Christian world is approaching a remarkable date, the 1700^th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, which entered the world history as a most important legal document dividing the two eras – those of heathen Roma and Christian Europe. As far back as 1675 years ago died the initiator of this document, Emperor Constantine the Great, proclaimed by the Church to be holy and equal to the apostles. Speaking about the significance of the holy Emperor Constantine’s deeds for Christians, it is necessary to recall those times of persecution which the Church of Christ had experienced before Roman citizens and subjects were granted freedom of religion.

Our Lord Jesus Christ warned his followers: ‘If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you’ (Jn. 15:20) and ‘they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake…’ (Lk. 21:12). In addition to the persecution by the Jews, which had begun already during our Saviour’s life on earth, the heathen Roman society, too, saw Christians as new enemies. There were several reasons for it. The heathen worship was a source of subsistence for a whole range of persons including pagan priests, producers of idols and oracles. Christians, who rejected the worship of false gods, were accused of godlessness and abandonment of the faith of the forefathers, which was a great dishonour and a moral challenge to the whole people. Extremely suspicious was their evasion from pubic amusements and circuses, which did not add to people’s sympathy for them. Their refusal to recognize the emperor as god, to worship his image and to offer sacrifices provoked suspicions of their disloyalty and high treason. The most terrible crimes began to be imputed to Christians, who were seen as man-haters and people of low life.

Jesus Christ explained to his disciples the reasons for this attitude to be shown to them by those around them: ‘If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you’ (Jn. 15:19).

Heathen intellectuals, without taking the trouble to plunge into the essence of Christ’s teaching, described it as ‘pernicious prejudice’ (Tacitus) or ‘rude and unstinting’ (Pliny the Younger). Among those who came out against Christianity were Stoics, Epicureans and New-Platonist including Lucian of Samosata, Celsius, Flavius Arrianus, Hierocles. Some did not understand the courage and steadfastness of Christian martyrs in their faith, while others believed their teaching to be ‘a random walk in the air’ which, unlike the views of Neo-Platonists, did not even recognize the truth of other religious systems and philosophical views. Verily, Christianity became ‘to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness’ (1 Cor. 1:23).

The public opinion was now quite ready and the only thing required for mass persecution was the political will. What was needed was a spark to set fire to the explosive mixture of rumours, stereotypes and established ideas of Christians. And this spark, in the literal sense of the word, was provided by the fire in Rome kicked up, according to some evidence of contemporaries, by Emperor Nero. Rumours of his complicity in the disaster began to circulate and to supress them he accused Christians of the arson. Tacitus thus described the developments: ‘To get rid of the rumours, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace… Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired’ (Tacitus Annals XV.44).

The persecutions were sometimes to subside sometimes to flame up. Under Diocletianus and his successors, the persecution against Christians became the empire’s last spurt to paganism. Rome’s religious pluralism proved to be incompatible with ‘rigid’ and ‘intolerant’ citizens and subjects who sought the absolute Truth. Once again the powerful state machine failed to cope with unarmed Christians who did not even put up any resistance, which led to radical changes in the empire and St. Constantine Equal-to-the-Apostles was the one who initiated and carried them out.

Historians and theologians were especially interested in the question what exactly made Constantine the Great to take side with Christianity. Clearly, he, just as his father Constantius Chlorus, adopted a favourable attitude to Christians originally under the influence of his mother, the holy Empress Helen Equal-to-the-Apostles. But what was it that ultimately guided the emperor when he initiated the preparation and publication of the Edict of Milan? – Was it a naked political calculation devoid of sincere religious feeling or sincere acceptance of Christ in his heart? Historical sources, which tell us about the personality of Constantine the Great, are rather polar. There is church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, on one hand, and heathen author Zosimus, on the other, who felt aversion to the personality of the emperor. These sources were used as a basis by later researchers who added their own subjectivism to this question. There are, for instance, sceptic assessments by German historian Jacob Burckhardt, who described Emperor Constantine as a smart politician and pure pragmatist with no religious motivation whatsoever. It is impossible to agree with it at least because by that time there had been no more than 10% of Christians in the empire, and to rely on such a narrow segment of the population meant to venture upon an extremely risky political experiment, the more so that this risk was not groundless as neither Senate nor Roman public supported Constantine’s religious policy. It was evident from the celebrations marking the 20^th anniversary of the imperial rule in Rome when the emperor did not take part in the sacrifice made on the occasion of his arrival in the capital, which led to the Romans’ open indignation ready to develop into an armed rebellion. The open hostility of predominantly heathen Rome became one of the factors which compelled Constantine the Great to think over a new capital city for the empire.

The turning point in the emperor’s religious perception of the world happened during his battle with usurper Maxentius before which Constantine had been instructed by the God of Christians about the way to defeat the enemy.

In 313 in Milan, a conference took place between Constantine the Great and Licinius during which the Edict of Milan was issued on behalf of the two personalities augustus, addressed to presidents of the provinces. Its text has survived in Lactancius’s book ‘On the Deaths of Persecutors’ and in ‘Church History’ by Eusebius of Caesarea. The edict disavowed the previous acts concerning Christians. Unlike the 311 Edict of Galerius, this document proclaimed full religious freedom to the Roman citizens and subjects: ‘…no one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion, of that religion which he should think best for himself’. Thus, the heathen worship de jure lost its dominance.

St. Constantine the Great began a gradual process of raising the legal status of the Church. It continued, with certain setbacks and attempts to restore the hegemony of heathenism, under his successors, and Theodosius the Great was to complete the empire’s legal rupture with heathenism.

The Edict of Milan laid foundations for future relations between church and state, which were to be described by Justinian as symphony of priesthood and kingdom.

Recalling in our days the high price paid by Christians for this freedom, we are grieved to see how easily today’s Europe is parting with her Christian identity. The concept of European integration has left aside the religious component. First, any reference to God and Christianity was removed from the draft Constitution of the European Union and later from the Lisbon Treaty, which has replaced the yet non-ratified Constitution. As a result, the whole ideological basis of the European integration was reduced exclusively to freedom, democracy and rule of law – a secular paradigm inconsistent with Europe’s civilizational heritage. The secularization has led to the fact that most Europeans have ceased to correlate their life with the Gospel in order to live according to the ‘consumer society’ standards. More than that, Christianity has become an alien element in public life, which has increasingly encountered manifestations of Christianophobia.

Regrettably, the dominant secular worldview is ousting religion from public space, being declared now ‘a private affair’. That is to say, you can do whatever you wish at home, to believe in whatever you wish ‘in your soul’, but you should cooperate with the state and society only according to established rules, the same for all. This seemingly fair approach becomes a true challenge for Christians when these rules begin to contradict the foundations of Christian ethics. The recognition of such things as abortion, euthanasia, same-sex unions by the secular society makes Christians outcasts since they cannot agree with them as a norm for human life.

The logic of modern secularism reminds that of heathen Rome: you can believe in whatever you like but you are obliged to offer sacrifices to gods which are ‘tolerance’ and ‘pluralism’. The faith in God and readiness to follow His commandments are increasingly described as private opinion and it has become simply indecent, out-dated and archaical to proclaim it too loudly. To name things by their proper names, for instance abortion as infanticide, euthanasia as murder and suicide, is now treated as acts of intolerance incompatible with pluralism of opinions and declared ‘infringement on citizens’ rights and freedoms’.

More and more often in the European Union countries we see discrimination against citizens who express active Christian position. Moreover, even the wearing of Christian symbols, such as baptismal crosses, can be seen by some employers as a violation of ‘corporate culture’. There are voices speaking of the need to ban public Christmas celebrations under the far-fetched pretext that it may insult people of other religions. Similar struggle against the presence of religious symbols in schools have been waged for several years in the European Court of Human Rights under the case of ‘Lautsi vs. Italy’ – a vivid example of an attempt of a single person, under the pretext of the infringement of her rights, to impose her own will on millions of people. ‘The religious neutrality of society’ built by proponents of European secularism has turned in practice into a ‘value cleansing’ of this society.

How can Christians oppose such tendencies? What does the power of Christianity lie in? It is determined by the faith of Christians, their ability to live up the Gospel’s law, to bring the light of Divine Truth to people. Having lost the ability to be the salt of the earth, Christians become unable to oppose various ideologies asserting their own rules of common human life.

Today’s conference sets as its task to reflect on the 1700 year-long journey of the Church of Christ from the Edict of Milan to our days – the era filled with many events significant for Christians. And the most important thing in this reflection is an answer to the question about the future of Christianity, the place and role of Christian values in the life of the society, the family and the individual.

Thank you for your attention.

Interview with Met. Hilarion on Unity and Primacy in the Orthodox Church [AUDIO]

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Metropolitan Hilarion

I published the article below earlier, but after listening to the recording of the interview, there’s a lot more to report. The planning for a Pan-Orthodox Council continues, and one of the benefits is that thorny issues raised in the past such as the granting of autocephaly, the role of the Patriarch of Constantinople in world Orthodoxy and others are finally getting serious attention. Reading between the lines, it is clear that Constantinople’s claims to universal supremacy have been rejected although they still possess a primacy of honor and limited authority to call a council and so forth.

Met. Hilarion speaks highly of Pope Benedict calling him a “man of faith” and expressing particular appreciation of Benedict’s knowledge of Orthodoxy. No promises concerning a meeting between Rome and Moscow are promised, although the newest date mentioned is 2013 which represents the 1700th anniversary of the signing of the Edict of Milan.

Listen here:

Source: Catholic News Agency | Benjamin Mann

Orthodox archbishop: we’re internally divided on question of “primacy”

Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Sep 30, 2011 / 12:51 am (CNA).- A leading Russian Orthodox official says the Eastern Orthodox churches have yet to resolve the question of authority among themselves, a condition for future progress on the issue of the papacy.

“I would say that there are certain divergences, and there are different positions, of the Orthodox churches on the question of the primacy,” said Metropolitan Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, in a Vatican Radio interview following his Sept. 29 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at Castel Gandolfo.

“As we discuss the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, within the framework of the next commission, we do not only discuss the primacy of Rome; but we have to touch the issue of the primacy in general,” noted the Orthodox metropolitan, apparently referring to future proceedings of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.

“And here, of course, we have different traditions – not only between the Catholics and the Orthodox, because we never had such a centralized system as the Catholics have – but we also have some difference among the Orthodox, as to what should be the role of the ‘first hierarch’ in the Orthodox Church.” The Patriarch of Constantinople occupies that role, but his prerogatives are not fully defined.

Metropolitan Hilarion was scheduled to participate in the last session of the Catholic-Orthodox commission, held in 2007 to discuss the question of papal primacy. But an internal dispute between Constantinople and Moscow, over an Orthodox group in Estonia, prompted the Russian representative to walk out. The two churches also dispute the status of the Orthodox Church in America.

On Thursday, the metropolitan made an apparent reference to these types of difficulties between the Patriarchs of Moscow and Constantinople, saying that “if a particular Orthodox church will want to impose its own vision of this primacy on other churches, then of course we will encounter difficulties. And this is what is happening at the moment.”

Meanwhile, the world’s local self-governing Orthodox churches are also attempting to organize a historic Pan-Orthodox Council, comparable to the Church councils held in the Byzantine empire during the first millennium.

The new gathering has been in preparation for 50 years, as the Orthodox world seeks to determine how the Patriarch of Constantinople should exercise his authority.

“We believe that his role should be the primacy of honor, and also he is afforded some coordinating role: for example, he can convene the Pan-Orthodox Council,” said Archbishop Hilarion. “Of course, previously – in the history of the ecumenical councils – it was not the Patriarch of Constantinople, neither was it the Pope of Rome, but it was the (Byzantine) Emperor, who convened the councils.”

“So we have this model (of primacy), which is emerging in the Orthodox tradition. But generally, for centuries we had a very decentalized administration. Each autocephalous church is fully independent from other churches in its self-governance. And therefore we do not have a very clear picture as to what should be the role of the primate in the Orthodox tradition.”

“Without having this clear and unified vision, we cannot easily discuss the issue of how we see the role of the ‘Primus Inter Pares’ (‘first among equals,’ an Orthodox concept of the papacy) in the universal Church,” Metropolitan Hilarion admitted.

The phrase “first among equals” signifies the typical Orthodox view of the Pope as having a primacy of honor but not jurisdiction. In his 2010 book Light of the World, Pope Benedict said the “first among equals” view of the Pope was “not exactly the formula that we believe as Catholics,” due to the Pope’s “specific functions and tasks.”

Until Orthodoxy clarifies its own systems of authority, Archbishop Hilarion said, hopes for progress on the question of the papacy between Catholics and Orthodox are “probably not too high.”

“But still, there is hope, because if there is willingness to accommodate different positions and to produce a paper – or several papers, maybe – which would clearly state the differences, which would outline the way forward, then we can progress.”

The Moscow Patriarchate’s ecumenical representative also expressed hesitation about a possible meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow, which has never occurred in the centuries since Moscow’s elevation to patriarchal status in 1589.

There are hopes that such a meeting could take place in 2013, on the 1,700th anniversary of Christianity’s legalization by the Emperor Constantine. But Archbishop Hilarion said Catholics and Russian Orthodox believers should not jump to conclusions about when a meeting may occur between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow.

“We believe that such a meeting will take place at some time in the future. We are not yet ready to discuss the date, or the place, or the protocol of such a meeting – because what matters for us, primarily, is the content of this meeting.

“As soon as we agree on the content, on the points on which we still disagree or have divergent opinions, then I believe we can have this meeting. But it requires a very careful preparation, and we should not be hurrying up, and we should not be pressed to have this meeting at a particular point of time.”

Despite his cautious attitude toward this meeting and other ecumenical matters, Metropolitan Hilarion spoke warmly of Pope Benedict XVI himself.

During his recent trip to Germany, the Pope met with representatives of the Orthodox churches in the country, and spoke of a “common engagement” among Christians to ensure that “the human person is given the respect which is his due.”

“His Holiness is a man of faith and whenever I meet with him I’m encouraged by his spirit, his courage and his dedication to the life of the Church worldwide,” Metropolitan Hilarion said after his meeting with the Pope on Thursday.

“Of course I’m very impressed by his knowledge of the Orthodox tradition and the attention he pays to the dialogue between the Catholics and the Orthodox… I believe that this attitude of the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church will greatly help us in our way towards better mutual understanding.”

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