An Orthodox View of Contemporary Economics, Politics, and Culture
0 Comments Published by georgy on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 4:59 AM.
Hoxha's campaign destroyed life and property, but could not kill the spirit. The government eased its official policy of religious persecution in the late 1980s and finally lifted the ban on faith observances in December 1990. Today, Albania's religious roots are being watered again. The Muslim majority (about seventy percent of the population) is rebuilding its institutions, as are the Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic minorities.
In 1991, into this milieu of despair and destruction, came Anastasios, the newly appointed Archbishop of Tirana and all Albania. Anastasios, a former dean of theology at the University of Athens and an expert on world religions, set to work heroically rebuilding the Orthodox Church. According to one count, 1,608 Orthodox churches and monasteries were destroyed during the communist persecution.
In Albania, Anastasios turned the Marxist program upside down; he focused not on the state, but the person.
"The secret of substantive change, the guarantee of change, and the dynamic through which change occurs all lie hidden within the process of restoring and purifying the human person," he says.
Anastasios' ecumenical vision for social change, seen through the lens of Orthodox theology, has been admirably captured in a new collection of essays from St. Vladimir's Seminary Press titled Facing the World: Orthodox Christian Essays on Global Concerns. The essays, published during a period of 30 years, touch on topics such as human rights, Islam, globalization, and Church and culture. The book serves as an excellent introduction to the Orthodox mindset, and its interpretation of divine life and worldly affairs through scripture, holy tradition, and a trusty reliance on Greek patristics.
Anastasios' understanding of social and political events is, of course, characteristically rooted in the miracle of Easter. While not denying that it was the cross that reconciled humanity with God, Anastasios points out that in Orthodox Christianity the "emphasis on the Resurrection is the crucial element in the Christian ethos of the east; it pervades every thought and action, intensifies faith in miracles, and deepens the certainty that every impasse in human life will ultimately be overcome."
And what better place to hope for miracles than in Albania?
Laboratories of Love
In the essay "Orthodoxy and Human Rights," Anastasios takes a critical view of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, and the later development of these declarations into exhaustive lists of economic, social, and political rights. Anastasios makes an important distinction between rights declarations, and their enforcement through legal and political forms of coercion, and Christianity's preferred method of persuasion and faith. "Declarations basically stress outward compliance," he says, "while the gospel insists on inner acceptance, on spiritual rebirth, and on transformation."
Anastasios reminds us of Christianity's contribution to the development of political liberty. "Human rights documents," he says, "presuppose the Christian legacy, which is not only a system of thought and a worldview that took shape through the contributions of the Christian and Greek spirit, but also a tradition of self-criticism and repentance." Those words should be hung from banners everywhere new constitutions and declarations are being drafted.
Anastasios rightly discerns the secularizing motive and thrust behind much of what passes for human rights activism these days. He points out that a predominant ideology behind these declarations advances the "simplistic" view that people are radically autonomous beings, capable of advancing on their own innate abilities. This strict reliance on logic, the "deification of rationality," is but a short step to the logical denial of faith in a living God. Anastasios asks: Are human rights simply and merely an outcome of human rationality, or are they innate to the human personality?
"Rights declarations are incapable of inducing anyone of implementing their declarations voluntarily," he concludes. "The hypocritical manner in which the question of human rights has been handled internationally is the most cynical irony of our century."
Anastasios' solution to the problem of human rights is thoroughly Orthodox: "The power and means for promoting worldwide equality and brotherhood lie not in waging crusades but in freely accepting the cross." He urges a radically personal solution, one that takes as its model the saint, the martyr, and the ascetic. Here Anastasios draws on the traditional Orthodox understanding of freedom, which is ordered and tempered by ascetical practice, self-control, and placing limits on material desires. Churches are to become "laboratories of selfless love," places where the Kingdom of God is manifest on earth. "Our most important right is our right to realize our deepest nature and become ‘children of God' through grace," he says.
Lest this approach be interpreted as a justification of passiveness and quietism, Anastasios also urges Christians to exercise their ethical conscience in the world. "Christians must be vigilant, striving to make the legal and political structure of their society ever more comprehensive through constant reform and reassessment," he says.
Globalization and the Church Fathers
In his essay on "Culture and Gospel," Anastasios reminds us of Christianity's emphasis on the "immeasurable importance of the human person and personal freedom." At the same time, he rightly warns of an interpretation of life that sees everything from a material, economic perspective. This tension between personal freedom and a distrust of the exclusively economic view carries over into his essay on "Globalization and Religious Experience." Here, unfortunately, he falls into an interpretation of economics and trade as functions of, as he puts it, "several hundreds of multinational corporations with power over the worldwide production and distribution of goods and information." He claims that the disparities between the "privileged" and the "deprived" are growing wider everywhere and cites one writer who claims that "only 20 percent of the population derives any benefit from free commerce."
Anastasios' distrust of economic globalization puts him at odds with the experience of Orthodox cultures-indeed back to the Byzantine era-which were always energetic traders. Indeed, one the biggest factors in the globalization of trade in the twentieth century was the remarkable growth of Greek merchant shipping on a global scale. Still, it is not wealth itself that Anastasios condemns, but what he perceives as powerful and rapacious economic powers that hoard it and consume it. In this, his outlook is entirely consistent with the views of wealth and poverty formulated by the Greek fathers.
In "The Dynamic of Universal and Continuous Change," Anastasios cites numerous Patristic sources to show that wealth is best understood in the context of stewardship. "If you exceed what is reasonable in wealth, you fall short to the same degree in love," said Basil the Great. And St. John Chrysostom: "Failing to give the poor some of what we possess is the same as robbing them and depriving them of life; for the things we are withholding belong to them, not to us." Greed is the culprit. And that is a vice even the poor can succumb to. "Many of the poor, who lack material wealth, happen nevertheless to have extremely greedy intentions," Chrysostom said. "The fact that they are poor does not save them, for they are condemned by their intentions."
Anastasios' cure for the ills of secular human rights movement-a personal dedication to living out the Gospel-is really the only cure for the world's economic evils or for that matter any other social ill. The root problem is selfishness, that pervasive evil. Such a solution may seem naïve or simplistic to the secular minded. And even the religious would not go so far as to put the lawful regulation of society on the honor system. Yet, outside of coercion and control, what else has ever worked?
Anastasios points out that spontaneous, brotherly love is Christianity's quintessential message:
"We have a duty to live out conscientiously the mystery of our faith-at the heart of which lies the rediscovery of the one, universal and divine koinonia-so that we can offer, without seeking anything in return or any worldly reward, the kind of genuine love that reveals the life of the Trinitarian God."
John Couretas is Communications Manager at the Acton Institute. He has twenty years of experience in the news, events and, public relations fields. Most recently, he was Senior Consultant with the Detroit office of Strat@comm, a public relations/public affairs firm.
Anything that is terrestrial is shrouded in mortality because time is the constant companion of this plane of life. Just as we can kill time that transport us to the land of timelessness, mortifying our own body lead to the land of the Living. The penultimate death of the
That which is mortal also is folded in the mysteries that are usually revealed by parables, allegories and symbols. A bare outline of the flowering and ripening of the Church is apparently brought to surface by St.John in the book of Revelations, 5-7. It is revealed to us by the magical number of SEVEN, the maximum time a number used in the bible; seven stars that represent seven angels are guardians of 7 churches, metaphorically portrayed as 7 lamp stands. These 7 lamp stands is likely the symbolic forms of the 7 stages of the church that has to pass through the ordeals and tribulations before it sees the Groom in the bridal chamber, or perhaps the 7 churches that stand for place names are also given in nominal symbols, Rev.2-3, the merits and weaknesses of those churches are also delineated in a hidden way. The last church in the list is the church in La-odice, and this church is presented as neither cold nor hot because it is an amalgam of profanity and purity of the last age, proclaiming that it is a mixture of secular and religious laws and regulations of the age of the apocalypse that write the post-mortem of the church.
Then the Lamb of God sitting on the throne of Heaven and the Heavenly hierarchy worshipping Him is portrayed in a vivid form and splendor. “ And I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with 7 seals….And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it….”, Rev.5: 1- 5. Only Jesus has the power of opening these scrolls. Just like having a book of Life, like the colossal software system, there are other books, Rev.20: 12, depicting the history of the stages that comes to the fruition of the end. The devil’s electronic seal that he inscribes, either on the wrist or forehead, is no. 666.Rev.
Signs of the Doomsday Catastrophes
1. First Seal-White Horse
“Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals…a white horse. And its rider had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer”, Rev. 6: 1-2. As Jesus is the embodiment of purity, the white horse that represents Jesus and His era upon which He rides is the result of the opening of the first seal. “The Lion of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals, Rev.5: 5. The Holy Church, the Bride of the Bridegroom, therefore, is the litmus test, also in collusion with the Jewish historical and covenant accomplishment, of the fulfilling of the subsequent prophesies that monitors the future times and the signs of the ripening of the age.
2. Second Seal-Bright Red Horse
The rider was permitted to take peace from the earth. This period unlocks the persecution that flowed rivers of blood, ordered by the cruel
3. Third Seal-Black Horse
Emperor
The age of Feudalism and the religious and moral decadence of the Medieval Period that highlight the atonement of sins by the label of the note of Indulgence invited various forms of unchristian recipes of sacrileges and blaspheme. Those disenchanted ones took their shelter under the precipices of art and culture, drifting away from the body of the church that led them finding the refuge under the pavilion of sex and its obscenities and promiscuities. Materialism, the byproduct of such profanities, simmered the heat of the flesh and its lusts. An adventurous lifestyle that spiraled by the wind of worldly desires for amassing wealth and triggering the passions of body life boiled the spirit of this world for putting a foundation stone for the Satanic kingdom for ever. The Western colonialism that led to materialism and its sophistications is the obvious product of such exoteric and exotic outlook on life, despite there were many contributions that triggered to high quality of life that eliminated certain superstitions and psychological and social oppressions that were rampant then.
4. Fourth Seal-Pale Horse
“I saw a pale horse, and its rider’s name was death, and Hades followed him; and they were given power over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth”, Rev.6: 8. It resembles about the flowering of the Western colonialism that took over its power towards the fourth of the earth. In order to plunder the wealth of the world they killed and besieged the land and its inhabitants in the four quarters of the world. The horse seemingly looked pale and anemic due to starvation for lack of nutrients, the reason for them to meander around the world to pluck the sweet fruits of the earth, paving the way for Industrial Revolutions and Herculean-like scientific discoveries. The high-tech culture of computerization is a death trap for the religious elites and worshippers; perhaps there are huge advantages in the creative field. It also could mean that paleness or yellow colour reflects the colour of saffron, the dress of the mystics because of the undercurrent result of global Christian evangelization by the Christian West, despite the main aim of the invasions were to loot the prosperity of the occupied lands. Christian missionaries also followed the occupiers, although they were officially banned by the invaders
The missionaries’ first aim was to convert the local Christians to their own leavened bread of Roman Catholicism or Protestantanism by hook or by crook. The Portuguese waged a war against the indigenous Christians of Kerala, the products of st.Thomas’ mission work in the first century, for mass conversion to Catholicism by killing, threatening and bribing. The Western empires and their religious crusades started by spice trading that gave them enough impetus from the support of the indigenous feuding rulers by killings and shootings; as is often said, having ‘weapons in the right hand and bible in the left’. As King David wrought his
5. Fifth Seal- Marxist-Lenin Communist Empire
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood….They were all given a white rob and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren should complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been”, Rev.6: 9-11. This piece is quite self-explanatory. These are the indications of purges of religious individuals and groups in the Bolshevik revolutions and Green revolutions in
6. Sixth Seal-Cataclysmic Destructions
The collapse of the
The chemicals and poisons that are produced for such vendetta, together with the cravings of leading a high-flying life, have the capability of ejecting byproducts of Himalayan proportions of lethal chemicals and gases which can devastate the planet for its ultimate death. Drinking water is a problem for half of the world; the uprooting of towns, cities and villages due to the madness of power games and dominations have created a chaos of pandemonium that cannot be tackled by any human mediations/interventions and inventions. The super-tech lifestyle is a curse that cut the root of spiritual aspirations, and has handed over the human race to the abysmal powers for a total run over. There are aggressions that kindle to suppression, oppression and repression which are the hidden weapons that rule the world in all quarters of the globe today. We are still probably sitting at the edge of the first step of the sixth seal; the full swing of it comes gradually.
Seventh seal- Furies of God
“When the Lamb opened the seventh seal …there were peals of thunder, voices, flashes of lightening, and an earthquake. Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets made ready to blow them. The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and a third of the heaven was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up… Read the chapters of Revelations from 9 to 12 that portray the work of seven angels and their trumpets which blossom the woes and 7 plagues one after the other in a sequence. God writes His seal on the forehead of His servants, Rev.7: 2-6, who pass through these ordeals, so that they avoid abusing the name of the Almighty God. The crushing of the church and a remnant of the true church that goes underground due to severe and ferocious persecutions is portrayed in ch.12.
Emergence of the Beast-Antichrist
“And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with 10 horns and seven heads, with 10 diadems upon its horns and a blasphemous name upon its heads…”. This is the delineation of the anti-Christ that unify the 10 Russian Republics, 10 horns, as also expounded by the Daniel prophesy, that broke away by the fall of Russian Marxist Government. The first Para of Cp.13 drives home the main prophetic utterance of Daniel, expounding the four animals that has the hallmarks of Babylonian empire of king Nebuchadnezzar, Roman empire, Western Anglo-Saxon empire and the Marxist regime of modernity, followed by the global empire of the Beast, Antichrist, that surface from the Inferno. The Beast that surfaces from Babylon- the combined parts of Iran and Iraq- rules the world with his iron fists and claws for 7 years of tribulation periods, the second half of which exhibits the incarnation of all monstrosities and atrocities, will crush and trample over the church and all other religions, during which the world experience the 7 wraths of God, 7 bowls and woes and 7 plagues …
“The fifth angel poured his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was in darkness; men gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores, and did not repent for their deeds…”,
Know that the woman apparently is the church that dances in tune with the chorus of blaspheme at the culmination of time. Not only that that ‘man of false countenance’ dishonours and smother the church of woman priesthood, but also all the gods and religions of the world. “He shall give no heed to the gods of his fathers, or one beloved by women….He shall honour the gods of fortresses instead of these; a god whom his fathers did not know….”. The gods of fortresses are what Jesus refereed to as the powers of darkness, pathala gopurangal, Mt.16. The gods of the fortresses are the 7 legions that fell from the heavenly hordes, and Beelzebub is the head of that fortress of darkness. In other words, Lucifer who fell during the time of timelessness will emerge once again to rule the world for 7 years because the God of Heaven also took 7 days (years or aeons) to create this world and put its inhabitants to the fiery test for 7 millennia. The 7 years at the fag-end of time will be given to the infernal powers for their wrestling with the handicrafts of God. As sketched in the great epics of India, the final blow between the five Pandava brothers-England, America, Australia, Canada and Newzland, together with their allies- and the 101 Kaurava brothers- 101 non-aligned nations, in collusion with their accomplices- will have to meet face to face and to be consumed in Kurushekthra battlefield- the temple or the body of the Guru, not Kuru, that is the Church. Since I have explained all such things in my books, I am not going to repeat it over again and again.
Triune Devil
The trinity of the Devil that consists of the dragon, beast and the false prophet, Rev.16: 13, will impose their tentacles to drag away the faithful from the vicinity of God. The false prophet is likely to be the false church that becomes a part of the evil trinity at the culmination of time. The vandalisers of the true apostolic faith of the early church should truly know that they are inviting the evil trinity into the body of Christ through all their latest innovations: bringing in the heretical and pagan elements, birthday, wedding day and all other worldly pomposities, into the body of Christ. There are over 2, 300 denominations and countless cults that make the church unholy due to the desecration by injecting the foreign and heterogeneous poisons into the body of Christ for defilement. They have been doing such disservice to the Lord for a long time. Any thing that is alien to the sanctity of the church is unholy which seek the wrath of God eventually. The Female and gay clergy- final net result of all blasphemes that we have been experimenting- the abomination of desolation of what prophet Daniel foretold- Mt.24: 15, are the ones that make the church as a corpse at the end of the day, when the Holy Spirit desolate, due to defilement, from the altar where the true sacrifice take place. The reason for the church to become a part of the evil trinity at the end of the day is simple and easily understandable. The writing of the obituary of the real church that is in the geriatric ward is real and imminent, the reason for Jesus to forewarn that when He comes, He won’t find true faith in the world.
Secular Influences
The absurdity of the demolition of the values of the church that once dictated the social ethos is because of the materialism that gulped all that is sane and holy, opening the way for the atheists and agnostics and pagans to dictate the secular rulers to rewrite the laws and statutes to their tastes. The democratic system of governments that people chose didn’t mean to change all that is pushed and pressurized by a firebrand minority that pull the plug of a silent majority. However, the flesh that is weak looked for a high- skating pleasurable life where the mundane daily life has its own sufferings, accepted the fast rack lane for an easy-going high-tech life style, forgetting that everything that is transient will eliminate a spiritual life that lead to a land of the living. Democracy is the best form of Government, but the sensual freedom that overtakes the duties and responsibilities of afterlife is suicidal. The lax freedom that allows anyone to fiddle with one’s own flesh is a highway that leads to eternal darkness, the fruit of which is the gnashing of teeth and biting of the undying worms because there is no more death in the
Prof E S John,
What does it mean to “be a Christian?” American society has some interesting ideas to say the least. To some, being a Christian is synonymous with being abstinent: Christians “don’t smoke, drink, or chew, nor go with girls who do.” To others, being a Christian means aligning yourself a certain strand of politics such as the Moral Majority or the Progressive Left. To a growing number, being a Christian means pursuing biblical scholarship with the intent of purging the Church of historical oppression and making everyone feel welcome whatever his or her personal creed. To another growing movement, being a Christian means to follow Christ as best as one knows how usually using one’s conscience as a guide.
All of these options have some truth in them. However, they fail to address key facets of what it means to find one’s life in Christ. Living is messy business. As we try to be in the world, but not of the world, we are bound to face challenges beyond our individual ability to pray, reason, or adapt. Living in Christ means hiding ourselves in Him (Colossians 3:3). We are called to abide in Him and walk the same way in which He walked (1 John 2:6). We are called to be transformed by the renewing of our minds that we may know God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will (Romans 12:2). Most directly, Christ commands us to be holy as the Father in Heaven is holy (Matthew 5:48). How in the world are we, sinful as we are, going to approach this Christian life by our own merits and doing? The answer lies in a simple truth expressed in Acts 11:26, “And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.”
There are four things to notice about this simple truth. Taking them in contextual order, for no reason than that an order must be presented, we see first that we are “in Antioch.” This reflects a geographical location intimately acquainted with the social and cultural framework of the day. Second, we see that there were “disciples.” Let it not go without saying that this word is expressed as a plural, representative of the unity present within the early community. Third, it is in this time and place that we have this “first” event. The necessity of the word “first” expresses that this practice spread beyond this place and time. And finally, we have the word of choice “Christian.” Why did the three elements of place, community, and practice join together to cross the biblical threshold of what it means to be Christian? Moreover, how does the life of the Orthodox Church reflect these three elements throughout history to present day?
To begin, we have a place. The Bible bears witness to Antioch as being a place where a significant number of Greek Gentiles heard the apostolic teachings of Sts. Barnabas and Paul. The inclusion of Gentiles and their customs challenged the early Church particularly when it came to the question of rites of initiation. God addressed this issue by sending Peter to see the Holy Spirit fall upon a group of assembled Gentiles in the same way of the first Pentecost (Acts 11:1-18). The Apostles and elders of the Church gathered to address these issues again (Acts 15:1-29) with the Church together making the decision. Gentiles and their customs where welcome with the noted exception of certain foods and sexual immorality. This establishes a firm precedent within the Church of extending welcome to those outside of her doors while at exactly the same time calling her people to live in holiness according to the Spirit of the Law.
This canonical precedent helps us move beyond Acts 11:26 towards the life of the Church today. The official pronouncement of welcome was not made in Antioch, but in Jerusalem. Moreover, while several bore testimony, it is not Sts. Peter, Barnabas, or Paul but St. James extends this decree. The elders came together as one body and, in good order, made a statement reflecting the life of the Church that allowed it to go beyond the first Jewish disciples. This precedent continued when Sts. Cyril and Methodius brought the gospel to the Slavs. The question related to Liturgy and catechetical education. Drawing testimony from the Pentecost where those present were enabled by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Gospel in the languages of the day (Acts 2:7-11), the Church continued her practice of celebrating Liturgy in the vernacular of the people. Orthodox missiology seeks to identify intrinsic parts of culture that honor God and the places within the culture that point people towards fullness in Christ. However, the Church body as a whole extends the welcome and erects the necessary fence for that culture. This community partnership remains evident even today as the Orthodox Church extends into North America.
Community forms a central part of an Orthodox Christian experience. As noted earlier, “disciples” is expressed deliberately in the plural. The defining mark of those following Christ is the love they have for one another (John 13:35). Tertullian aptly stated, “One Christian is no Christian.” The earliest record of Christian community places apostolic teaching at the forefront (Acts 2:42); in Acts 11, we read that the community is under the instruction of Sts. Barnabas and Paul. This connection with the Apostles is essential because there were many false teachers. Sts. Paul, Peter, John, and James all warn about the teachings of false teachers. Implicit in this statement lay a belief that the new community is safe within the bounds as defined by the Apostles. Here again, the plural is essential. One Apostle on his own could be in error as evidenced when St. Paul confronted St. Peter on his fear regarding eating with Gentile believers (Galatians 2:11-14); however, the unity of the Apostolic Tradition, the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church, empowers believers to this day.
Returning to the text again, the final pronouncement is that of being “first.” The nature of first necessitates that a continuum of second, third, and fourths are able to follow. The community at Antioch was Christ-centered, Apostolically-instructed, and mission-orientated. These communities remain and exist through to this day. The mere presence of the Holy Scriptures and ancient creeds speak to this community. Divinely inspired letters from the Apostles to various Christian communities circulated widely in the Church to provide instruction for life in Christ and were canonized to be the Scriptures we know today. As Christianity grew through the first centuries, the Creed evolved through the first two ecumenical councils to be what we confess today. The words of the earliest believers remain on our lips and permeate our hearts. The witness of the seven Ecumenical Councils guards us as believers today from falling away from the original deposit of faith. Moreover, a cloud of witnesses, faithful men and women throughout the ages who have found their rest in Christ, surrounds us (Hebrews 12).
And with this, we arrive back to the original question: What does it mean to be a Christian? Literally, to be a Christian means to be a “little Christ.” As we look for daily guidance, it is appropriate to turn to the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of the creed. Today, the Orthodox Church stands as one church, united through the Mysteries of Baptism, Chrismation, and the Eucharist. Today, the Orthodox Church remains true to the teaching of the Apostles, standing firm against all heresy and division. Today, the Orthodox Church has spread far beyond the geographical confines of the Middle East to be universal, becoming truly catholic. And today, the Orthodox Church remains true to the teaching of the Apostles.
The key feature of life in Christ through life in His body is to recognize that the only stability exists in the Church as a whole. As individuals, we fail; as a community, God promises to never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). We must all strive to become like Christ in every way, laboring together and encouraging each other along. In the Orthodox Church, we find ourselves in a continuum outside of time and space. It cannot be contained in any person, parish, or principality. The call is to follow Christ to be like Him; I am of the firm belief that the Orthodox Church gives the necessary tools for this pilgrimage towards Heaven.
by Catechumen
Source:
http://ahumblelight.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/on-the-road-to-antioch/
