www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Orthodoxy and Western Civilization

Glory to Jesus Christ!
I just finished reading ,The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945
Something that struck me was the fact that many post-war conservative intellectuals were Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, or generally dismissive toward Protestantism-which is what the author said.
I am a conservative politically, and generally am a bit of a traditionalist-sort of like Russell Kirk, (if any of you even know who he is!).
Having just graduated from college, I am a scarred veteran of the PC wars, and I have often defended had to defend Western Civilization against its detractors-usually on the left.

Now, though, a different topic is on my mind-can Orthodoxy and Western Civ co-exist? Two things prompted this-the NATO intervention in Serbia, which caused a lot of pro-Russian sentiment to be expressed among Orthodox, and what I percieve to be anti-Catholic animosity (and by extension alot of Western Civ.) among rather zealous Orthodox, many of them converts.

This isn't necessarily about the validity of Catholic sacraments, re-union or about the theological problems that separate us. Rather, its whether or not the venerable traditions and institutions of Western Civilization can co-exist within an Orthodox mindset. Frankly, I find I have much more in common with people like William F. Buckley Jr, Russell Kirk and Michael Novak than Archbishop Chrysostomos and Fr. Seraphim (Rose) in defending "the permanent things," to use Kirk's phrase.

Another issue-look at the fault lines in Europe. Generally, former Communist countries that were predominately RC or Protestant are better off and friendlier toward the west than their Orthodox counterparts.

A related issue is that Orthodoxy right now is essentially identified with Greco-Slavic-Russian culture, rather than with Western Culture, which is either under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Rome or is Protestant.

I hope this isn't too hard to understand-one thing I really hate about the Internet is the awkwardness of this type of communication. Face to face is so much better.

In Christ,

Michael

Michael,

What a thought-provoking thread! Thanks. I'm afraid I can't do it justice as I'm not really well-read or well-educated but I've thought about these issues too. A lot. Simply because I live in the West and because of that have had a lot of my formation from Catholicism I can't dismiss it, plus I see the great culture-wars work done especially by Roman Catholics and especially in arenas like prolife. But I wonder — and here Fr Seraphim Rose spoke to me in his writings and bio — is the Catholic right we like so much merely the right wing, an integral part, of the same creature, the same system, that includes Amchurch, liberal Protestantism and out-and-out secularism? Echoes of Khomiakov: "papism' and Protestantism/secularism as two sides of the same Western rationalist coin. Western Catholicism degenerated into Protestantism in the Germanic lands, and in France a vitiated Catholicism turned into secularism at the Revolution. Now look at Eastern Europe: NO big Protestant movements, just some little homegrown heretical sects in Russia (Molokans and Doukhobors). Why? Why Protestantism, the French Revolution and at least the aftermath of Vatican II in the West, while the suffering Orthodox East produced saints who could have stepped out of the days of the Fathers? Men who could criticize secularism, much like our Catholic heroes, but with a new perspective and a potential way out not offered from anyone else.

http://oldworldrus.com

Hi Michael --

"Now, though, a different topic is on my mind-can Orthodoxy and Western Civ co-exist?"

Yes and no. There is much in Western civilization that is to be admired and that is not incompatible with Orthodoxy, and then there is much that is not to be admired and is not comatible with Christianity, never mind Orthodoxy. But, more fundamentally, Orthodoxy has crossed cultural lines before with some success -- the key issue is to discern what elements of Western civilization are fine, and what elements are not compatible -- and there's a lot of debate about that, of course.

"the NATO intervention in Serbia, which caused a lot of pro-Russian sentiment to be expressed among Orthodox,"

I think one can be critical of that particular action for reasons other than the historical Orthodoxy of Serbia. An excellent, completely secular, yet scathing, critique of Western policy in the former Yugoslavia is "To Kill A Nation" by Michael Parenti. It is a good antidote to Tom Friedman's nonsense and the party line of CNN and MSNBC. But, in any case, the NATO intervention there was a symptom of a much larger problem (see below).

"Another issue-look at the fault lines in Europe. Generally, former Communist countries that were predominately RC or Protestant are better off and friendlier toward the west than their Orthodox counterparts."

Although it's hard to swallow (ie, we don't want it to be true), the most convincing analysis I've read of this phenomenon is that of Harvard political scientist Sam Huntington, and the related insights of Robert Kaplan. There *is* a distinct and different Orthodox civilization within the broader 'European' civilization. To be sure, Orthodox civilization has more in common with Western civilization than perhaps any other world civilization system, but there are still differences, perceived on both the part of the West and the East. When NATO expanded, it did so to Protestant and Catholic countries, and not to one single Orthodox country. The only Orthodox member of NATO is Greece, a country which was asked to join as a bulwark to preventing a slide into communism at the end of the second world war.

The expansion of NATO exemplifies the restoration of the old order in Europe -- that of a division between Western Christendom and Orthodox Europe. The NATO war against Serbia is another aspect of this. During the 1990s, there was so much negative press about the Serbs, and about Orthodoxy as well -- coming from a media that was hell-bent on convincing the world that the trouble in the former Yugoslavia was related to that dangerous brew of religious nationalism, historical mythmaking and prejudice -- largely due to the backwardness of Serbia resulting from the fact that Serbia, due to its Orthodoxy, did not participate in the great intellectual trends of the past several centuries in Western Europe. Never mind the facts that the Western-orientated RC Croatians egged the war on by taking hostile actions against their own Serb minority (actions which, in the context of the war crimes committed by the Croats against Orthodox in WWII, were outrageously provocative), that the Germans jumped the gun (in an almost sickening case of historical 'bill-paying') by recognizing their former allies Croatia too quickly, almost making a war inevitable, that the Croatians manipulated Western media to the point that their, um, 'cleansing' operation in the Serb Krajina in 1994 was almost unreported, etc. Of course, Milosvic was a despicable war criminal, without question -- but so was Tudjman -- the reason why one got away with it and the other didn't is because one is perceived as being Western, while the other is much, much easier to demonize because he is not Western. By the time that Kosovo became an issue, the West sort of viewed Milosevic as the devil himself (we always seem to need at least one of these so that we can justify foreign policy actions) -- and so we witnessed the spectacle of NATO assisting historical Islam consolidate its hold on the historical centre of Serbian Orthodox Christianity. The fact that this had many Orthodox up in arms is very understandable. The West's need (particularly our American need) for clear lines between the good guy and the bad guy resulted in a demonization of one of the parties to the recent Yugoslav wars, and that choice of demon was largely conditioned on the fact that the Serbs, because they are not Western, because they have that funny alphabet like our not-so-long-ago arch enemy Russians do, because they are cooky Orthodox with all of that incense and foolish idolatry, etc. -- because of all that it was much easier for the West to see the Serbs as backwards, bloodthirsty, unreconstructed criminals than, say, the Croatians. In reality, there were criminals everywhere -- Serbs, Albanians, Bosniaks, Croats -- but there was a need to demonize, and it was easier to demonize the Serbs than anyone else.

The books that Western authors have been pumping out in the past several years about Eastern Europe are very telling and reflective of this new divide as well. Books like "The Serbs" by Tim Judah (highly acclaimed in the secular press, but in reality offering nothing more than anti-Serb propoganda -- Serb history according to the West, which basically means according to the Croats) or "Why Angels Fall" by Victoria Clarke exemplify a Western secular mindset that considers the East backward, and largely because of the Byzantine heritage and the Orthodox Church. This kind of trash is unfortunately influential -- but, more importantly, is rather reflective of the new division growing up in Europe. It's not simply a case of "Orthodox bashing the West" -- there's a lot of West bashing the Orthodox going on right now, right under our noses if we care to open our eyes.

None of this in inevitable, of course. The two European civilizations *can* coexist, and can even work very closely together. Orthodox civilization can't embrace Western culture wholesale, of course (and that seems to be what at least some Westerners unfortunately want -- not just in the Orthodox culture, but around the world), but there are elements that can and should be embraced, and above all, we should not continue to make myths about each other, and demonize each other. The events of the last 12 years or so are not encouraging, and a lot of damage has already been done, but there is always hope.

Brendan

UN Srebrenica

www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/srebrenica/unsrebrenica.htm [haverford.edu]

Abdur --

No denials that the Serbs committed horrible war crimes in the most recent instalment of the Balkan Wars. But, they weren't the only ones who committed war crimes -- that's my point. There was, and is still, a rather lop-sided view of that affair in the Western mind.

Brendan

Serge wrote:

Big Snip

" . . . . Echoes of Khomiakov: papism and Protestantism/secularism as two sides of the same Western rationalist coin. Western Catholicism degenerated into Protestantism in the Germanic lands . . . ."

Serge,

I might be inclined to agree completely with you in your reply (That means that I agreed with everything but the sentence that I quoted) but what about Judaism? Prior to the early 19th century in Germany there was one Judaism. The the Period of Enlightenment happened in Germany and no longer was there one Judaism. Rather, we now saw two forms of Judaism - Hasidism/Orthodox and Reform. Today, we have at least 5 movements in Judaism that sprung out of that period of enlightenment.

What does that mean? Well, the impression I get is that Germany has been a hot bed for reform. Spain has a rich Jewish tradition and is one of the places where Jews, from Jerusalem went when the diaspera occured. The Jews in Spain are called Sephardic Jews and are like the Hasidic Jews that lived in Germany prior to the period of Enlightenment in Germany. No reform occurred in Spain and Judaism was not split apart in Spain. Throughout the entire rest of the world Judaism was quite fine without reform. However, reform occurred in Germany.

Look at the modern field of psychology. Where has the greatest innovation in psychology occurred? Germany. Frued, etc., etc. I think that there is a fair amount of "free-thinkers" to be found in Germany. Folks who do not have any reservations about going out on their own and doing things their own way. Don't get me wrong, there were problems in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany when the Reformation occurred. However, rather than reform from within Luther set off and did it his own way. That just got the ball rolling with the whole Reformation Movement.

Two things, I think, can be drawn from this. 1. The west is different than the east in many regards on of which is the mindset. The west (Western Europe in this case) explored the new world and had that "free-thinker" menatlity where they thought they could do it better than it was being done or had been done. 2. The west is more re-active in it's response to matters than is the east. People in the east seem to be more inclined to be led than to lead. What I mean by this is look how Russia fell to Communism so swiftly and completely. Look at the other Eastern European countries and how they responded to Communism. There was a time when all of the Eastern European countries were Communist and were led by terrible dictators. There were never any Western European countries that became Communist. I think, personally, that mindset has a lot to do with that.

I have to ask this question: what would have happened to Orthodoxy had it had any significant presence in Germany during the Reformation? Would it too, like Catholicism and Judaism, suffered an irrepairable split or would it have withstood the tide(s) of change?

Peace,

Rob

Rob,

Thanks. I haven't thought of an answer to your questions — perhaps Brendan can field this as he has done so well on this thread.

Please, Rob, when quoting me, include my punctuation. You made it look like I was using the word "papism' when I wasn't — Khomiakov was. That's why I put distancing quotation marks around the word.

http://oldworldrus.com

"What I mean by this is look how Russia fell to Communism so swiftly and completely."

Wasn't that swift. Remember the Civil War? That went on until the mid-20s.

"Look at the other Eastern European countries and how they responded to Communism. There was a time when all of the Eastern European countries were Communist and were led by terrible dictators. There were never any Western European countries that became Communist. I think, personally, that mindset has a lot to do with that."

With all due respect, it had *nothing* to do with that, and everything to do with the "deal" struck between the Brits, Americans and Soviets regarding the post-war map in Europe. Eastern Europe was handed to the Soviets as their sphere of influence. The communist regimes there were installed by the Soviets while the countries were heavily garrisonned with Soviet tanks and troops. That's the reason why the Eastern European satellites were created -- many of which, by the way, were Catholic in whole or in part (eg, Poland, Hungary, then-Czechoslovakia) -- and why the Baltics (which are Catholic and Protestant) were incorporated into the Soviet Union. Mindset had little to do with it -- tanks and guns had a lot to do with it.

It *is* true, however, that the kind of communism that took root in the Soviet Union -- and which was transplanted into the Eastern European satellites -- was very muhc influenced by the Russian Orthodox experience. The use of "iconography", the idea of a total system, etc., all drew upon the Orthodox tradition to create an alternative anti-Christian "new ideological orthodoxy".

Brendan

[ 01-04-2002: Message edited by: Brendan ]

Dear Rob,

In terms of how communism took over Orthodox (and Eastern Catholic) countries, they did this with force of arms and after armed struggles with insurgent armies fighting them at a time when the West was, truth be told, pro-Soviet.

To the great credit of Orthodoxy, it was only in the 20th century that communism showed its face in Eastern Europe and took hold there.

In Catholic England, "Our Lady's Dowry" as it was once called, the people simply "rolled over" and accepted the new religous status quo, English Recusant Martyrs notwithstanding.

The same was true throughout most of the Protestant countries.

And the French Revolution? The slaughter of Catholics there in the 18th century? The entire ethic of "La Republique" is rooted in anti-Catholicism and anti-clericalism in a formerly great Catholic country.

And how was the Church a leader in these situations? The Church was simply a victim. It paid for its mistakes, real and imagined, at the hands of modernist thinkers and radicals who, in any nation, see religion as an opiate.

The Church in Russia and Ukraine and elsewhere survived communism, produced its Martyrs and is now experiencing a rebirth under still bitter conditions with western missionaries adding to the problems.

The Churches in the West who suffered the various revolutions have never recovered, but were obliged to try and live on the coattails of "modernity" and the "with it" ethos.

The conservatism and traditionalism of the Eastern Churches are its strength. Ultimately, people may wander away from the Church, but they often return to the "tried and true" ways. Modernizing the Church has failed to make it an attractive harbour for the spiritually tired and suffering.

Alex

Alex,

This is your finest hour!!

Dan Lauffer

My point, whether I made it or not, was that we shouldn't judge the split in Catholicism by what happened in Germany. I hope that I illustrated that Germany has just been a place that has been open to change and revolution.

I guess I focused my response too directly on what Serge had written. Serge, no worries, I know you wouldn't call Roman Catholic papists.

Peace,

Rob

Alex,

What, pray tell, did the majority of your post have to do with mine?

For Dan to say that this was your finest hour you must have slammed me something fierce. Yet, all I did was relate how and why Western Europe has had a rebellious streak, on many fronts, for quite some time.

I did not mention victimhood of the Church. Rather, I pointed out how other religions had been affected by the mindset of Western Europe. I also asked whether Orthodoxy would have been so affected had it had a presence in the same region during the same period of time.

Hmm, Dan's elation once again makes me wonder if there can EVER be a dialogue between Eastern and Western Catholicism.

Rob

I am going to disagree with Alex on one point and expand on his writings to another point.

Excellent book out by a British Professor, Eamon Duffy, on England and the Reformation. He makes a strong case that the reformation and Catholic practices were much more popular and much more difficultly suppressed than commonly beleived. I'm blanking on the title.

As to Communism in Russia (and irreligion in France) I think much of the blame can be laid at the feet of the religious establishment. As people (or poor people anyway) left the farms and moved to the cities, the estabished churches in France, England, and Russia did nothing. The City of Mancheaster was a village with a village parsh before the industrial revolution. In 1820, it still had a single Anglican parish. Following a later time frame of maybe 80 years, Russia and the ROC repeated this.

The difference?

Wesley.

The Wesley brothers pointed out this pastoral failure. No response from the establishment other than to be told to stick to their own parish. The response:

"The world is my parish"

They preached in the fields and at camp meetings and in rented halls and in foundrys and factories and any church or chapel that would have them.

The result -- no meaningful communist movement in Britian. And one of the highest working class chapel attendence rates in Europe for the next hundred years.

Russia? No Russian Wesley and no churches or ministry for the uprooted new urban class.

Result? Communism.

The big picture is that Western and Eastern Europe are both parts of a whole consisting of Eastern and Wesern Hellenism. Hellenism had split between Eastern Hellenism that spoke Greek and Western Hellenism that was Latin speaking. Now the two were originaly part of a whole and there has been exchanges between the two halves of the West. The two strains of Hellenism have been nutured by the the other. After the fall of Constantinople Eastern Hellenism enriched the West and brought about the Renaissance. When Constantine moved the Roman capital to Constantino Polis the New Rome in the East he refreshed Eastern Hellenism with the vitality of the West.

Orthodoxy is but an aspect of Hellenism as is the Catholic right is the other half. The industrial revolution was claimed by the Protestant Movement but that is a false claim. It started with the Catholic Rhur valley and in Catholic France as well as among those locked out of wealth in the Uninted Kingdom. In the UK it was the Catholic and Protestant middle class and Highlander/Lowlanders that needed an avenue to success. They used value added products and entered the upper class in the UK. Cooperation was one of the keys to the Industrial Revolution and the pooling of capital in joint stock companies. The Dutch/Belgium sought profit from trade and manufacturing. The Spanish and French monarchies banned the Jesuits from the school systems and were seeking an enlightened educational method. The Jesuits found refuge in N. England and Scotland and in safe areas of Europe and fostered excellence in education.

Now the West was lucky enough to have traditions of freedom and property rights and those tools are vital in an industrial economy. Russia was cursed with despotic governments. It inheirted the culture of Byzantium but not the constitution nor social strucure that had boxed the Emperors into being more resonable.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Dear Kurt,
You are right in part. You are failing to look at the works of St John of Kronstadt and St Elizabeth (Romanov) of Moscow and their valiant efforts to do exactly that. They provided shelter, spiritual comfort, health facilities, Food, and education to the poor entering St Peterburg and Moscow. The problem was two fold, they were of course about 40 years to late to stem the problem and there was a very well developed violent revolutionary movement in the Russian Empire years for over 60 years.


St John of Kronstadt and St Elizabeth were successful in their areas but the need was too great, the country too vast to be resolved successfully as the Wesley brothers did as a team in the much smaller coutry of Industrial England.. Stories about both saints indicate they often works 18 hours and then prayed and slept for the grand total of about 4 hours and started it all over again. If more had caught the vision, who knows what could have happened.


The real challenge is for today, has Russian Orthodoxy learned their lesson and have the idea of how to address the many spiritual needs of the modern Russian people for spiritual and social programs coming from and thru the church and her children?

Your brother in Christ,
Thomas

[ 01-04-2002: Message edited by: Thomas ]