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This article was on the First Things website.

Orthodoxy, State and Society
Orthodoxy’s Political Choices
by George Weigel


In a conversation about Russian Orthodoxy some dozen years ago, that famous source who can only be quoted off-the-record, the Senior Vatican Official, said to me, “They only know how to be chaplain to the czar—whoever he is.”

Such asperity reflected deep frustration over the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow’s continued rudeness (some would say, cruelty) to John Paul II and its nasty habit of throwing sand into the gears of the international Orthodox-Catholic dialogue. And my interlocutor surely knew that there were exceptions to his rule: men like the late Fr. Alexander Men, axe-murdered in 1990, almost certainly because politicians and senior Russian Orthodox churchmen feared that this son of a Jewish family might, in a free, post-Soviet Russia, help craft a new relationship between religious and political authority; men like Fr. Gleb Yakunin, a founder of the Christian Committee for the Defense of Believers’ Rights who did hard time in the Gulag as a result; men like the country pastors who, since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, have been rebuilding Russian Orthodoxy in the countryside, one wounded soul at a time.

Yet there were also hard truths in that Senior Vatican Official’s comment. The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has been in thrall to political power for centuries, and its twentieth-century history was a particularly unhappy one. The Bolsheviks hated pious priests, so Lenin and his successors ruthlessly crushed authentic Russian Orthodox religious life—the expression of a great spiritual and theological tradition—wherever they could; the list of ROC martyrs to communism is a long and noble one. After Stalin rehabilitated the ROC in his campaign to ramp up Russian nationalism after the German invasion of June 1941, the leadership of Russian Orthodoxy, the Patriarchate of Moscow, became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Soviet regime, and specifically of its secret police, the KGB. Patriarchs of Moscow were senior KGB officers; the present Patriarch, Kirill, began his career as an ROC representative at the World Council of Churches in 1971 when he was twenty-five years old, a sure sign of KGB affiliation.

In recent years, Kirill and his “foreign minister,” Metropolitan Hilarion, have been mouthpieces for Russian president Vladimir Putin’s efforts to reconstitute something like the old Soviet Union in the name of a “historic Russian space,” an exercise in Great Russian irredentism that has taken a particularly grave turn in Ukraine; concurrently, they’ve conducted a campaign of seduction in the Vatican and among American evangelical Protestants, putatively in service to a united front against western decadence and secularism. But in the ironies of history (or the strange ways of divine providence) the Ukraine crisis, in which Kirill has been duplicitous and Hilarion mendacious, just might initiate a break in this historic pattern of Orthodoxy playing lap dog to authoritarian power among the eastern Slavs.

As the people of Ukraine rose up against the kleptocratic and despotic government of Viktor Yanukovych last year, in the Maidan movement of national moral and civic renewal, the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches faced a dramatic choice: stand in pastoral solidarity with the people, or stand with the state that was brutally repressing Ukrainian citizen-reformers? The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches (Byzantine in liturgy and Church organization, but in full communion with the Bishop of Rome), did not face this dilemma; the UGCC was long the safe-deposit box of Ukrainian national consciousness, and in the post-Soviet period it has devoted its public life to building Ukrainian civil society. But the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches did face a historic fork-in-the-road: civil society, or the state?

The choices made have not been unambiguous. But the evidence to date suggests that more than a few Ukrainian Orthodox leaders and believers have chosen to stand with civil society, rejecting the Patriarchate of Moscow’s support for Putin’s Great Russian nationalism. If that new alignment holds, it may eventually lead to a history-changing revolution in Orthodox understandings of the right relationships among Church, state and society: a development that would, among other things, vindicate the memory of Orthodoxy’s twentieth-century martyrs.

Let me ask a question, and I am not being facetious or snarky. Do you support the right of Pussy Riot to hold an impromptu and unapproved protest concert in an Orthodox Cathedral as an act of free expression? I don't mean you like or approve of their action, just to do you agree they should have the right?

That's a red herring and a total non sequitur.

They would have been arrested and convicted in New York or Boston or any American city if they did the same stunt. Criminal trespass on private property is not protected by the First Amendment.

Even the MP took issue with the sentence imposed. The Russian state's reaction and its propaganda use of the crime was as much a political desecration of the Church as was that of the aforesaid "performance artists."

Is it safe to say our accepted standard of civil society would be to allow the same protest to happen if the issue of infringement of private property wasn't at stake? I think the question is actually relevant. The author of the article states

"If that new alignment holds, it may eventually lead to a history-changing revolution in Orthodox understandings of the right relationships among Church, state and society"

My question is really, what is that right relationship? The author doesn't really explain. I am not taking a stand one way or another. I live in a free society and am not an advocate of another system. However, I'm not exactly sure how what we call civil society squares with church tradition and it's view of the right relationship between church and state. I don't know what is "right" from that standpoint. I remember reading a quote by St. John Chrysostom for instance that said it was appropriate to both physically take action against those who blaspheme and seek their punishment by civil authorities. I'm sure you could find other examples in Byzantine history that don't exactly support what we consider civil society.

It is worth pondering the difference between blaspheming God or the Church and blaspheming a political leader.

If one can conclusively demonstrate that those girls did the former, then fine.

They were clearly punished for doing the latter, where political authority cloaks itself in the robe of the Church for purposes of political legitimation. Old story, different actors. The blasphemy was committed by the political leadership in the first instance, one could argue.

Alex

One could argue that the incident was civil disobedience as opposed to being solely an act of religious blasphemy. I'm not so sure. But, even so, either way the act was criminal. Time, place and manner restrictions limit free speech in most Anglo American based constitutional systems and they committed a serious crime and breech of the peace which warranted arrest, production, conviction and penalty. The penalty imposed in Russia would indicate that the civil authorities viewed the action for what it was - an affront to God, but of more concern to the Russian state, it was a challenge to its perception of authority and power. Hence the sentence.

That being said had they done the same at St. Patrick's in Manhattan, they would have been sentenced to probably no more than thirty days with a fine depending on any prior criminal.history. A restraining order preventing them from entry onto property of the New York Archdiocese for eighteen months probably would have been issued as well.

In theory, alignment between Church and state was to place the state at the service of the Church in building up the Kingdom of God on earth. In practice, it seems to have worked, more often than not, the other way around.

It's certainly no news that the RCC did a real 180 on this question at Vatican II, and IMHO, the council fathers rightly discerned that it was time to retire a long-held policy that in most cases simply did not work as intended.

Now, one might certainly argue that it could still work in some cases, or even that the ROC is a stellar example of how Church and state can effectively work together for the good of all. I don't know much about the subject, but ISTM the evidence fails to support that conclusion.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

It is really unfair on the part of Weigel to expect this kind of post Vatican II relationship to the state in the Orthodox when for centuries Rome had the same altar and throne alignments as well.
Russian Church and society is still recovering from a decades long abuse crisis known as communism -- even Rome should know that Rome was not built in a day.
So often the West's expectations of the East are along the lines of a "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" kind of logic.

Good point. We tend to forget that western church state relationships evolved out of empires and kingdoms over a period of centuries. The eastern European churches and that of the Balkans Constantinople developed in a different "test tube" under the rigid control of the Ottomans and the persecution and control of the communist era.

Clipping my reply as it seemed way to long. I still find the article confusing in the point it is trying to make.

AMM, I certainly enjoy it when we can discuss differing opinions peacefully, as brethren.

While I agree that “symphonia” between church and state is a good thing, my contention is that true symphonia begins from God's end, which means it can only take place when it has its origin where the Holy Spirit dwells--that is, in the hearts of the people.

The Church's mission is to sanctify its members by means of prayer and the sacraments, and to instruct them in the ways of God. If she performs this mission effectively, it will have a *tremendous* effect on all aspects of the society in which they live (albeit a quiet one, since the Holy Spirit's works are seldom done in such a way as to attract attention), and that includes civil government.

The state's mission, on the other hand, is *not* to enlighten the people with regard to what is right and wrong, but only to give force of law to what is already regarded by the consensus of the society (more about this below) as right and wrong. To understand this better, it is helpful to recall St. Paul's words:
Clearly, the pourpose of civil law is not to enlighten such as these, but merely to curtail their activities.


I don't doubt that, but I would contend that even if by some miracle all ungodly legislation were repealed and replaced by godly legislation, it wouldn't last because the people--both inside and outside the government--would sooner or later reject them and replace them.

In my opinion, this rejection would take place even in a monarchy (although probably more slowly), because a ruler who completely ignores the will of his people will be seen as a tyrant, and will not remain in power for very long.


This is a very important consideration, and I think the best answer is that for the entire Patristic period, the Empire was simply a given--something they wouldn't have questioned because there was no reason to do so.


Of course not. The very expression "get with the times" implies that the prevailing philosophy is right, simply because it's the prevailing philosophy (can you say "circular logic?"). I hope I'm not giving the impression of doing that.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Playing the devil's advocate, I ask a simple question. What period in the history of the Church - East or WEst -, did the grand symphonia between the interests of the State and those of God through His divinely ordained Church actually work in practice? Not in principle, but in practice?

I agree with Epiphanius that the Fathers are not necessarily the proper source in which to seek a model of civil governance. Empire, of the Roman variety, was a given whether it was Rome herself, the new Rome or any of the sovereign Christian monarchies which developed over the ages.

So then, what is the answer to my query?

Beats the heck out of me . . .

Alex

Me too

dd

While it was not perfect, the symphonia between the Byzantine State and the Church did provide a higher degree of stability and unity for both than would have been the case otherwise. When working properly, the Emperor provided a locus of unity that transcended all factions working in the best interests of the Church. Of course, the symphonia frequently broke down, but in every case, the Church was successful in repelling attempts by the Emperor to either dictate doctrine or alter the fundamental teachings of the Church--perhaps not immediately, but over the long term.

The symphonia also worked well in Kyivan Rus', at least down to the period of the Mongol Conquest. During the Muscovite period, it broke down catastrophically and permanently, with the Church becoming captive of the state.

Just how it worked in practice is described fairly and objectively in Meyendorff's Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions, as well as by J.M. Hussey in The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire.

Dear Stuart,

You always have to have the last word, don't you?

OK, OK, you're right.

Alex

Deacon Richard, thank you for taking the time to reply to my questions.

When you said


I think you’re probably getting closest to my own view, although I will admit I am not a particularly political person. Mark 12:17 is also a passage that has always stood out to me. The model of civil society you outline above is I think a worthy one. It is of course not that simple, and that civil law or actions taken by the government to maintain civil society, often veer in to areas that are highly morally problematic. We know this can go well beyond protection of individual rights and in to the positive enforcement of moral precepts. I do believe it is all related to the thorny topic of religious justification for violence, holy war, and warrior saints. Exactly what is allowable in the temporal world in defense of religious values? It is a difficult topic.