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Metropolitan Hilarion believes that Western countries tend to dictatorship

http://interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=10641

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."


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."

Brilliant thoughts. Thank you for posting this.

Alice

:lol:

a state run servant church in a authoritarian country has no say in judging others.

reminds me the Soviet era and it's newspaper's editorials - "the evil oppressive West and how is it rotting.

The people were quietly responding - rotting or not rotting, but the smell is awesome :D

I have to admit that this saddens me a little. I mostly admired Metropolitan Hilarion, and this stretches my admiration.

I think it is fair enough to offer broad criticism of culture, with a big brush. But, I agree with VoxPopuli--it is hard to read this without hearing echoes of state propaganda.

Notwithstanding that communists are bad guys, what actually has His Eminence said here that can be disputed?

Basically EVERYTHING.

Huh? You really think that? I'm not seeing it. If that's so, I find it interesting that everybody decided to engage the "commies bad" angle rather than his ideas.

there are no ideas. you can't see it because you are watching from outside - I know it from inside, and that is the difference.

Everything said is pure hypocrisy as all the accusations ( especially about the totalitarian state) directed at the West can and should FIRST be attributed to the state this head of the servant ( to the state) church is speaking about.

It is the ages old Russian mantra - West is baaaad, we are the messiah, and the savoir of the world, while torturing and enslaving own people to the extent not even imaginable at the vile west. This is mostly for the internal market and to keep own people out of the questioning of the own state.

Using western countries problems and naming them as such is not changing the situation inside the country they are being spoken.

So do you agree with him?

I do.

This seems pretty clear to me ...

The modern impersonal nation-state can get away with a lot more than a personal monarch ever could. Most citizens of republics (loosely defined) view the state as "us," while subjects of monarchs see the rulers as "the other." And so citizens tolerate things subjects never would.

At whose feet will the French lay their problems? Even if they manage to kick the leftist government out at some point, good luck overturning the decay instituted during the leftists' tenures. Responsibility is so diffuse in a republic, it's nearly impossible to defend against social decadence. At least with a true monarch, everyone knows where to point the pitchforks (usually).

The state knows that the church and the family are prior societies, and therefore threats to its hegemony. And so a Godless and impersonal state will always lurch toward dictatorship. At least with a hereditary monarch - or most private governments, really - there is a built-in imperative for the ruler to support his own family life, and therefore indirectly family life generally.

For these and many other reasons I wish Catholics wouldn't go so overboard into outright nationalism. I understand that, at least in the US, it's born of certain historical issues, but it really is an albatross around the neck of clear thinking. A more moderate patriotism that does not confuse "country" with "state" would seem to be in order.

Never in my life did I unburden myself of so much cognitive dissonance as the day I realized that "The American Way" simply can't be squared with Catholicism (or I presume Orthodoxy). Just look at the way republics squeeze the apostolic Christianity out of a society where ever they go, both in domestic and foreign policy. Look at the "republics" of the Middle East, and how well our co-religionists are doing under them. Although there are exceptions, Christians usually did better under the dictators, and especially under the hereditary monarchs, even if not Christian themselves.

Even under the best circumstances, to paraphrase Charles Coulombe, a Catholic Republic would still be a naturally anti-Catholic form of government, that just happened to be staffed by Catholics.

So for these and many other reasons, I wholeheartedly agree with the Metropolitan. The modern democratic state is a colossal mistake. Providence has for whatever reason given us Catholics (and Orthodox) living now the task of carrying the torch for the future while the secular barbarians grind our civilization into tiny little bits. So I suppose we should make the best of it, like Boethius, or Constantine XI.

All the more reasons to go out and make converts and fill our churches full of people who need us. We not only help them personally, but we slow down society's long weary drop into the next Dark Age.

In your view there really is no room for American patriotism at all, or any patriotism, if your country happens to be a republic. (I'm not even sure if merely constitutional monarchies pass your test.) Do you really believe that Catholicism is intrinsically monarchist? In the absence of a personal monarch, is it enough to resurrect one by the invoking the ghost of absolutism in an otherwise seemingly republican frame? Is this what the contemporary Russian criticisms of the West amount to--a kind of behind-the-back conjuration of the ghost of the czar? Or is Russia too only a 'Catholic Republic?'

Uh...

Uhh...

And what country would that be?

The Catholic Church itself is an aristocratic elective monarchy, so yes, I do.

More generally, a privately held government is more personalist than one composed self-seeking campaigners and careerist functionaries, whatever form these governments may take. "Monarchy" though is the most common of the privately held government types, so it is a good shorthand.

Further, mass elections themselves imply that truth is a matter of majority rule, and that the majority ultimately decides what is the realm of the state (as the Metropolitan said). It should be no surprise that socialized decision making (mass elections) leads to socialized economics and socialized morality.

And let's not forget the perpetual anxiety of "cold civil war" with which party politics blesses a nation. I could go on, but that's enough for now.



I can't speak to "contemporary Russian criticisms of the West," as I don't follow them closely enough for even parlor conversation. I'm only speaking to the Metropolitan's comments because I saw them here, and they happen to be right. Even if you presume he is speaking for selfish motives, it doesn't make him wrong.

At face value the story is about the West; Russia's really not at issue here, and so I don't have any opinion about them relative to this piece. I suppose it is legitimate to analyze the realpolitik behind his remarks if you wish to, but that does not concern me so much as the truth of his comments.