Jad Ganem: Politicizing the Faith

 Arabic original here.

 

 Politicizing the Faith

An interview that Metropolitan Elpidophoros recently gave to a Greek newspaper demonstrates a striking paradox in church discourse when it comes to the relationship between the Church and politics. On the one hand, the metropolitan sharply criticizes the Russian Church, regarding it as employing Orthodoxy in the service of state interests and stating that the churches ties to "non-democratic organizations" harms Christianity in the long term. The paradox arises, however, when the discussion turns to his own role and the relationship between his archdiocese and the Greek government, since he explicitly states that his institutional duty is "serving Greece and national interests."

This discrepancy in standards raises a whole set of essential questions about the concept of "politicizing the faith" and who has the right to define the boundary between what belongs to the Church and what belongs to the nation. If using the faith to serve Russian politics is to be condemned, then how can "serving the national interests of Greece" be an institutional duty? Here lies a critical point: this discourse rejects employing religion for politics when others do it, but it excuses it when it comes from within the Greek-Constantinopolitan system.

The contradiction can be highlighted with three chief observations:

1) The metropolitan describes Russian influence in Syria as a "tutelage" that exploited Orthodoxy as a cover for a Russian nationalist agenda. This is a political characterization par excellence, which assumes that the role of the Church is to be completely apart from the state, even when the state is providing momentary protection. However, in contrast, when he is asked about his own role with regard to the Greek government, he emphasizes that it is his institutional duty to serve Greece "regardless of which government is in power."

2) The metropolitan repeatedly refers to "national interests" by characterizing them as the point of reference for his ecclesiastical activity in the United States. Within this context, he justifies any contact with the White House or interference in bilateral relations as a national duty. This statement shows that in his view, the Church is not only a religious institution, but part of the Greek state apparatus abroad, reproducing exactly what he criticizes when it comes to the Russian Church.

3) When asked about the baptism of children from a same-sex family, the metropolitan talks about "a distortion of the message of the Gospel," by classifying baptisms as "gay" or "straight." This admission gives the impression that the standard is not theological so much as it is tied to the social and political context, raising further questions about the extent to which his pastoral decisions are independent.

The metropolitan also talks about "a network of centers and paracenters" in Greece and America that is working to distort his image, stating that part of the media campaign against him is tied to internal political conflicts in Greece, which once again drives home the point that his ecclesiastical position now strongly intersects with national policies, despite his sharp criticism of such a phenomenon in the Russian context.

On this basis, the picture of a double discourse comes together: from one side, affirmation of the purity of the faith and its separation from authoritarian organizations, while from the other side an obvious integration of the role of the Church into Greek national identity. This problem is not only personal. Rather, it expresses the historical tension within the Patriarchate of Constantinople between its global spiritual identity and its nationalist role within the Greek diaspora. When condemnatory language is deployed against others' political use of Orthodoxy, while at the same time there is a demand for the bishop to serve "Greek national interests," the question naturally becomes: Is the problem a matter of principle, or is it an issue of who is acting on this principle?

This discourse reveals that the greatest challenge for worldwide Orthodoxy today lies not only in the division between ecclesiastical centers, but also in the ability of each center to transcend narrow ecclesiastical nationalism and to distinguish between what is of the Gospel and what is of nationalism. In a world where everyone uses religion to bolster political influence, there is a pressing need for fixed standards that do not change according to which national flag the speaker happens to be waving.

Jad Ganem: Antioch's Historical Responsibility

 Arabic original here.

 

Antioch's Historical Responsibility

 

It has recently been noted that Patriarch Bartholomew gave a direct address to the Patriarch of Jerusalem while standing before the royal doors during the sermon that he gave at Jerusalem's metochion in Istanbul on the Feast of the Holy Apostle James. His words contained clear ecclesio-political implications and was viewed by observers as an indirect attempt to pressure the Patriarch of Jerusalem to participate in the celebrations that the Patriarchate of Constantinople is organizing for the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.

In it, he said:

"We take this opportunity to repeat our fraternal invitation, which we have already sent in writing to His Beatitude the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to celebrate together on the 28th of November in Nicaea the 1700th anniversary of the convocation of the First Ecumenical Council, along with His Holiness Pope Leo XIV of Rome and our most blessed and beloved brother Patriarchs Theodore of Alexandria and John of Antioch. We shall also honor on November 30, at the Phanar, the sacred memory of Saint Andrew the First-Called, the founder of the Church of Constantinople.

This historic event, a tangible manifestation of the unity of Eastern and Western Christianity—of the four Patriarchs of the East and the Patriarch of the West, the Pentarchy of the Patriarchates—cannot be imagined without the presence of the successor of Saint James, the Brother of the Lord. We pray and hope for the positive response of our beloved brother, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos, in fulfillment of his sacred responsibility ‘for the unity of all.’"

It seems clear from this address that the Patriarch of Constantinople, who has led Orthodoxy to a profound rupture by granting autocephaly to the schismatics in Ukraine, is now attempting to replace Orthodox unity with a symbolic unity with the Catholic Church by trying to redraw the ecclesiastical map on the model of the ancient "pentarchy", which would give Constantinople a position of leadership at the expense of the autocephalous churches that were not established through decisions of the ecumenical councils.

The Phanar regards these churches, which today include the majority of Orthodox in the world, as implicitly subject to his jurisdiction and he wishes to keep the sword of manipulating their borders dangling, as recently happened in Ukraine, when it unilaterally changed the borders of the Patriarchate of Moscow, which had been settled for centuries.

In light of this reality, an essential question is raised: what is being asked of Antioch to facilitate the realization of Constantinople's goals?

The first step, which anticipates the final one, is participation by the Patriarch of Antioch in the Nicaea gathering so that the meeting will not turn into a limited protocol meeting with the participation of the Patriarch of Alexandria alone, to compensate for the absence of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who seems reluctant to side with the Phanar's approach to events.

The final step is to re-submit Antioch's signature to the "Council of Crete," which it had refrained from participating in, as a prelude to recognizing the so-called "Orthodox Church in Ukraine," as happened with Alexandria and Cyprus: without a formal synodal decision.

Constantinople is counting on the recent political changes in the Middle East to push Antioch to revise its position, insinuating that its previous positions were "subject to Moscow's influence." However, those who are familiar with the firmness of the Holy Synod of Antioch's position rule out any retreat from it, since Antioch's decisions were formulated in a spirit of conciliarity and express a principled theological conviction and not an ephemeral political alignment.

The Patriarch of Antioch, who personally supervised the formulation of these positions and their synodal ratification, will not be willing to put himself on trial or to trade the mind of the Church for political interests. The Holy Synod of Antioch, which has historically been committed to the principle of independence and mutual agreement between the metropolitans, and has striven to preserve consensus as the guarantor of global Orthodox unity, will not squander its heritage for the sake of niceties of protocol or temporary balances of power.

Years ago, Metropolitan Georges Khodr precisely summarized Antioch's rejection of unilateral rule by patriarchs over the Orthodox world, which Constantinople advocates in order to justify the theory of "primacy without equals" for its patriarch, when he wrote:

"If the patriarch acts outside the See of Antioch, he does not speak for himself, but rather expresses the view of the Holy Synod. He does not say, 'This is the position of the Church of Antioch' unless he is armed with a decision of the Holy Synod. He is the synod's spokesman who conveys the mind of his brothers."

Between the invitation to Nicaea and an attempt to restore the ancient "pentarchy," Constantinople is betting on reviving a historical form of leadership at a time when Orthodoxy has in practice lost its unity. Antioch, however, through its theological history and symbolism, is capable of remaining the most balanced voice in the face of this tendency and the guardian of true Orthodox unity based on communion and not dependency.

The danger of the so-called "theology of the first without equals" does not only lie in the impulse for Constantinopolitan supremacy, but also in the transformation of the Patriarchs of the East into symbolic cardinals at the Constantinopolitan court, at a time when Orthodoxy is in need of a bold dialogue to restore her conciliar face and the unity that has been lost due to unilateralism and politicization. 

Fr Georges Massouh: Holy Wars... Ridiculous! (2015)

 Arabic original, written in 2015, here. May Fr Georges' memory be eternal!!!


Holy Wars... Ridiculous!

"My kingdom is not of this world" and not "My kingdom is not in this world" was Christ's response to Pilate when he interrogated Him before handing Him over to be crucified. Christ denied that His kingdom was "of" this world-- that is, in the image of this world, in the image of the kingdoms of this world.

Christ did not despair, despite His objectivity, of man's ability to attain perfection. He did not want to completely close the door in man's face. Rather, He wanted him to try to establish a kingdom that would be up to the standards of the Gospel. The "Christian state" in its various forms and identities has failed, from its establishment under Constantine the Great down to our present day. This state failed because it was "of this world"and was unable to be different from what prevailed among the nations. Indeed, with their brutal practices and the atrocities that they committed, Christian kingdoms have perhaps provided the ugliest examples among nations.

Christ realized this before it happened. He realized that nations are not built on sincere intentions, on righteousness and piety, or on lofty teachings. A state in this world means a state of this world. He did not have the slightest doubt that when Christians obtained power, they would be like all people who obtain power. They would be scornful, exploitative, despising the vulnerable. The logic of the state is not the logic of the Gospel. The Gospel calls for tolerance, forgiveness, love, and giving freely. The state calls for punishment, prison, law and taxes...

Christ realized this when He disdained and mocked political authority. On the day when He was crowned as a king, the day of His entrance into Jerusalem, unlike the custom of ancient or modern kings, He rode a donkey. He rode a donkey after having previously fled from the crowd when they wanted to make Him king. His closest disciples, like that crowd, did not understand Christ's logic, since they asked Him who among them would sit at His right and His left in His glory and almost quarreled over this question. They asked for an authority for themselves that they did not receive from Him.

Christ realized this, and nevertheless He called on Christians to be committed to the affairs of the world and of people, to defend values and virtues and proclaim the truth. Christianity, contrary to what some may imagine, is a religion that is not only concerned with spiritual matters but also strives for a better world where peace, justice, love and mercy reign... This requires struggle against evil and sin. Even though historical experience is discouraging in terms of the possibility of this promised, ideal kingdom, its realization is not impossible, even if it is difficult. A church historian once said that Christian emperors ruled more harshly than pagan emperors because a pagan emperor considered himself to be a god among many gods, while a Christian emperor considered himself to be the one God's sole representative on earth.

Christ did not establish a kingdom "of" this world that launches holy wars led by His successors, heirs or followers. There have existed what some consider "Christian" empires, but even apart from their assaults on non-Christians, they committed massacres against Christians opposed to them and their policies. The [Holy] Roman Empire launched Crusades that targeted Eastern Christians alongside Muslims. The Byzantine Empire persecuted Syriacs, Copts and even Chalcedonian Orthodox (during the reign of Heraclius), just as the Byzantines and Bulgars slaughtered each other while both were unquestionably Orthodox and Protestants and Catholics slaughtered each other in Europe... and in the modern era--- and here we have no desire to open old wounds-- we can point to the Christians in Lebanon fighting and slaughtering each other in the name of Christianity...

In reality, today there is no "Christian" state and no "Christian" president or leader in the image and likeness of Christ on the face of the earth. Therefore the wars of this state and this ruler are not in any way "holy". People are free, in matters of politics, to support this or that state in their wars, but not in the name of Christianity or in the name of the Church and not under the pretext of protecting the existence of Christians or under the pretext of defending minorities. The logic of the Church must be other than the logic of this world.

Carol Saba on the Ukrainian Crisis and Orthodoxy's Impasse (I)

Arabic original, in today's an-Nahar, here. Read part two here.

The Ukrainian Crisis: 

The Apogee of the Crisis of Impasse in the Orthodox Church 

Part One

The new president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, recently visited the Phanar, headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul. He is someone who knows the importance of Russia's geostrategic reach in Ukraine and is working, contrary to his predecessor, President Poroshenko, to reach an understanding with it. After his meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew, Zelensky refused to sign a joint declaration with him, stating that "the state must not intervene in ecclesiastical affairs." In addition to the fact that the Ukrainian presidential delegation was purely secular, this position  may be considered to be a radical change contradicting the behavior of his predecessor, who openly interfered in the affairs of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, spurring Constantinople with pressure, promises and concessions to grant "autocephaly" unilaterally.

Geopolitical and ecclesiastical politics and interests intersected and on January 6, 2019 Constantinople granted a tomos of autocephaly to schismatic Ukrainian groups without any legitimacy, at the expense of the legitimate Ukrainian Church tied to Moscow, which had been granted autonomy and is recognized by all the Orthodox Churches.

Thus, despite the warnings of the Orthodox Churches, Constantinople imposed a new ecclesiastical reality in Ukraine, hoping that parishes would attach themselves to it and that it would be recognized by the Orthodox Churches. This has not yet happened, despite enormous pressure.

Moscow responded by breaking Eucharistic communion with Constantinople and withdrawing from all Episcopal Assemblies, committies and organizations in which the latter's bishops were present. This put the entire Orthodox world into a state of stasis and unprecedented crisis and no one knows how it will end. The struggle between Moscow and Constantinople is not a product of the moment, but is rather the end result of historical accumulations and the politics of competition for primacy between them over the twentieth century, which is impairing Orthodox conciliarity and leading the Orthodox Church off along papist paths that are ruinous for her.

Who is using who, the Church or international politics? The ambiguous geopolitical-ecclesiastical overlap in Ukraine, which is seriously damaging the credibility of universal Orthodox spiritual witness, has blown up the global Orthodox crisis and fanned its flames. Constantinople's critics speak of the intersection between its attack on Moscow in Ukraine and Western Atlanticist policies seeking to encircle Russia politically and ecclesiastically by separating the Church of Ukraine from the Patriarchate of Moscow to which it has belonged since the agreement signed by Ecumenical Patriarch Dionysius IV and the members of his Holy Synod in 1686 and sent to the tsars of Russia, the protectors of Orthodoxy at that time. Moscow's critics, on the other hand, speak of the necessity of preventing the expansion of the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is the largest, accuse it of greed to be "Third Rome" and identify it with the Kremlin's diplomacy.

Constantinople's offensive in Ukraine can, however, only be understood through an analysis of the factors behind the decline of its leading role and its transformation over the twentieth century on account of various geopolitical factors, the fall of the bipolar world and the Berlin Wall, and Russia's political return to its previous glories, as well as the engines of globalization, especially "Orthodox globalization", which brought its churches, on account of forced emigration, from the geography of the East to a worldwide geography on all continents.

Constantinople started to fear for the exclusivity of its declining primacy, especially after the Havana summit in February, 2016, between Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis and after the "Council of Crete" in June, 2016 failed to be a universal Orthodox council, a council of unity, after four large churches--Antioch, Moscow, Georgia and Bulgaria-- backed out. And so it started to behave confrontationally according to the principle of "cutting off my nose to spite my face."

But Constantinople's strike in Ukraine was not only painful for Moscow, but for the entire Orthodox world. Things took place without any agreement between the Orthodox Churches, but rather by a unilateral decision of Constantinople, as if the intention of the intersection of the geopolitical with the ecclesiastical is to remake a new global role for Constantinople that would give its primacy hierarchical content, as canonical leadership over the other Orthodox Churches, far removed from honorary primacy.

The new theory of the Ecumenical Patriarch's primacy worldwide is defended by Constantinople's new champions. At their forefront is the Ecumenical Patriarchate's new bishop in America, Archbishop Elpidophoros, who hold Turkish nationality, is avid to become the next patriarch and has strong American and Western relationships. This theory goes beyond the primacy of honor that the Ecumenical Patriarch has according to Orthodox tradition to a global "canonical" primacy that makes him "first without equals", where he is the one who knows the highest good for Orthodoxy and he is the one who decides without referring to his brothers, the leaders of the local Orthodox Churches and their holy synods, while they are to follow him...

How did Orthodoxy arrive at this crisis point?

Patriarch Bartholomew's Letter to the Primates

The Patriarchate of Antioch has posted an Arabic translation of the letter that Patriarch Bartholomew sent to the primates of the local Orthodox churches, requesting that they accept the creation of a new, autocephalous church in Ukraine and commemorate its metropolitan in the diptychs. Since this letter hasn't been available publicly anywhere else in any other language, I thought it might be useful to translate it. Bear in mind, however, that this translation of the Arabic cannot capture the precise wording and technical language of the Greek, which I hope will surface at some point.

Letter from His Holiness the Patriarch of Constantinople

Protocol No. /1119/

Your Beatitude and Holiness Patriarch of the Great City of God Antioch and All the East, dear and very beloved brother in Christ God and concelebrant of Our Mediocrity, Kyr John, we address you with great joy, kissing your venerable beatitude fraternally in the Lord.

We communicate via this fraternal letter of ours with Your venerable and very beloved for us Beatitude and with the Church of Antioch and we endeavor, following our predecessors of perpetual memory and their honorable canonical works, to inform you that for a long time we have received repeated requests for recourse from Kyr Filaret (at the time, of Kiev) as well as Kyr Makarii (of the city of “Lviv” at that time), seeking sympathetic oversight of them by the Great Holy Mother Church of Christ, so that they may join in communion with her, because they bear the same Orthodox faith and faithfully keep the Orthodox terminology, dogmas and beliefs common to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. We have likewise received for many years many requests, written and oral, in this regard from the honorable Ukrainian state pertaining to the granting the church of their country a system of internal administrative independence. That is, autocephaly.

We undertook together in our venerable Holy Synod to study all these situations, not only once or in a simple manner, but profoundly and extensively, and we came to the decision that we would move forward in the necessary steps to resolve this worsening situation, which for many years has occupied the body of the Eastern Orthodox Church, for an entire generation millions of Ukrainian brothers who participate with us in the same faith outside of canonicity and communion. Therefore we, by the mercy of God almighty, Archbishop of Constantinople New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, in accordance with the spiritual content of Canons 9 and 17 of the holy and God-bearing fathers who gathered in Chalcedon, have looked upon these the requests of recourse submitted by the persons mentioned above and those with them with a sympathetic eye and have returned them to the hierarchical and priestly ranks that they had previously and to ecclesiastical communion with all of us.

Therefore we cancelled the charter issued by our predecessor of perpetual memory, Dionysius IV, which he had issued under particular historical circumstances and in which the Patriarch of Moscow was given permission to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev elected by the holy clergy-laity council, with a condition that could not be broken, which is the canonical commemoration of the name of each Ecumenical Patriarch. Because of the distortion of the contents of this charter, the description of the the conditions described therein were misinterpreted and the Mother Church endured this until that time, preserving ecclesiastical peace. But, with the changing of external circumstances and the absence of the reasons for this charter, we have returned matters pertaining to Kiev to their canonical starting-point. That is, we have brought these regions back under the omphorion belonging to us once more.

After this decision of ours, we received a request from these returning hierarchs as well as from the state to administratively let go of these regions dependent on us by establishing an autocephalous church. We have likewise received a request to enter under our canonical protection from our brothers Their Eminences Simeon and Alexander, who had previously considered the activities of the Church of Constantinople, the mother of the Russians and the Ukrainians, to be of vital importance, so we likewise entered them into the framework of our canonical authority. On this basis, we called an exceptional clergy-laity council in Kiev on Tuesday, December 15, under the presidency of the exarch designated by us, His Eminence the Metropolitan of France, Kyr Emmanuel, sending an invitation to all the hierarchs in Ukraine without exception. From this clergy-laity council, which explicitly reiterated the request for autocephaly, His Eminence Metropolitan Epiphanius was declared, by a canonical vote, to be the first head of the autocephalous Ukrainian church, and who has sent us his irenical letter.

We write this so that Your beloved Beatitude may be reliably and securely informed.

Therefore, Our Mediocrity and Their Eminences the bishops with us, metropolitan and first in honor,  our beloved brothers and fellow-servants in the Holy Spirit, who constitute the venerable Holy Synod of our Holy Apostolic Patriarchal and Ecumenical See, since we agree, as the order requires, on these matters in a spirit of profound desire to perfect the course of the Great and Holy Church of Christ which at all times in every place under heaven, with sacrifice and self-emptying, of urgent, intractable and difficult-to-solve ecclesiastical issues, and which enjoys exclusively the responsibility of granting autocephaly, something that is manifest in practice in the situations of all the new local sister churches, we recognize the holy Ukrainian Church as a church with autocephaly and self-administration, declaring and respecting the responsibilities and rights belonging to the other autocephalous churches, as a partner in the same uprightness of belief and the same faith in everything and on this basis, as we issue our venerable patriarchal and conciliar tomos, approving and declaring all this, we safeguard this ecclesiastical work, by which dogmatic unity is kept strong and unchanged as likewise the relationship and bond of the holy Ukrainian Church to the holy Great Church of Christ, to the ancient sees of the east, and to the other sister local autocephalous Orthodox churches. Her new head is known by the title “His Beatitude the Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine.”

It is anticipated that all these matters will be completed on the sixth of this coming January on the Feast of Theophany, where we desire to give the previously-mentioned tomos of autocephaly and concelebrate with the head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. We Inform your beloved Beatitude of this along with your holy sister church and we express our fraternal trust that Your Beatitude, since you are abundantly aware of the desire that Ukraine has long expressed, as well as of the exclusivity of the responsibility and privilege belonging to the Church of Constantinople to treat all ecclesiastical issues  without limits, you will be in agreement with this things that are taking place and from now on you, along with your Orthodox flock, will recognize the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as an autocephalous church with internal self-administration, commemorating the name of each Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine in the honorable diptychs directly after the name of His Beatitude the head of the Church of Czechia and Slovakia.

On this basis, we fraternally ask your love to pray to our Lord, the Founder of the Church, for the the new holy sister church, according to what has now been decided by you, so that she may remain in the ranks of patristic tradition forever, and so you may serve the unity of the fundamental body and eat mature spiritual fruit from her communion with all of us, who will have no excuse on the Day of Judgment if we want to ignore our brothers who find themselves in hardships in Ukraine before the terrible judgment-seat of the only Scrutinizer of  the hearts and souls of humankind and the Just Judge, our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom belongs glory, strength, honor and worship forever. Amen.

We embrace your venerable and beloved Beatitude with a holy kiss and we close with profound love in the Lord and all honor, praying for you that the twelve coming days will be blessed feasts.

December 24, 2018

The beloved brother in the Lord of your venerable Beatitude,

Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew

Jad Ganem: Who will Protect Constantinople from the Phanariots?

Arabic original here.

Who will Protect Constantinople from the Phanariots?

Tomorrow, a "unifying council" will be held in the Church of Holy Wisdom in Kiev, called by His Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. The holding of this council comes as the crowning event of a political plan in which Constantinople has become embroiled, with the cooperation of temporal powers in the country, to establish a national church in Ukraine. This plan would have never seen the light of day were it not for the Ecumenical Patriarchate's disappointment with the fact that the Church of Moscow did not go Crete, where the "Great Orthodox Council" was supposed to be held and her desire to take revenge on her especially after this council turned into a meeting of disputed legitimacy that exposed Constantinople's inability to play the role of first among the Orthodox churches, the impotence of Patriarch Bartholomew, and his failure to lead this world and coordinate activities between its various constituent parts. 

All the above, moved Constantinople  complex of inferiority towards Moscow, her pathological fear of the specter of "Third Rome", and the hatred that rules over some of the Phanariots because of the numerical superiority of the Church of Moscow. This is connected to the lack of any critical analysis in Constantinople of the mistakes committed by her delegates during the preparatory meetings for the Great Council, their arrogant behavior and indifference to the concerns of the autocephalous churches, in addition to the hazy image that Constantinople has created of the situation of Orthodoxy in Ukraine.

These accumulating factors drove the Phanar to hastily enter the “Ukrainian minefield”, ignoring all the appeals and warnings from the leaders of the Orthodox world, who warned of the dangers of rewarding schismatics, dividing the Orthodox Church and weakening her unity.

Perhaps Constantinople seized the favorable political opportunity to use Ukraine not only to punish Moscow, but to establish her papism over the Orthodox world and to subjugate the churches and their leaders to the Phanar's synod. But it escapes her that this papism, which is alien to Orthodoxy, will sooner or later be expelled by the ecclesiastical body, just as the body expels strange things. But to describe the punishment and persecution of the faithful in Ukraine on account of being disappointed by Moscow as a "unifying council" that will only unite the schismatics in the face of the Church struggling there is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Hope remains that God will inspire the Phanar's leaders to realize that "hatred only kills the hater" and that repenting of unilateralism and imperiousness would protect the great Constantinople from the inevitable fate that the arrogance and historical hatreds of some Phanariots will bring upon her.

Fr Touma (Bitar) on Partisanship in the Church

Arabic original here.

Lest Vision be Lost in the Church

"...wounded for our transgressions..." (Isaiah 53)

When two people disagree about something in the Church of Christ, if mutual understanding is not reached between them, they go to a third, whom they agree will judge between them and they are completely prepared to accept what he decides, as though it is from God. If they harden their positions and don't agree on any judge as an intermediary, advisors suggest a third party to come to them on their behalf. If they accept him with soundness of heart, because he is delegated by the group and the group has its right and precedence over its members because the spirit of prophecy is in it, as the Lord says to Moses, "Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel... elders of the people and officers over them... I will take of the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you" (Numbers 11:16-17). Moses was not reckoned as one of the prophets, but as an image of the coming Messiah, and so the Lord God spoke through Moses, "face to face, even plainly, I speak with him" (Numbers 12:8). I say that if those who are in a disagreement accept the one that the group names, the disagreement is resolved in humility and by imitating the Spirit of the Lord. Otherwise, the entire group must act on its own to settle the matter -- that is, the advisors within it. Call upon each other! First with a verbal call, as a preface to holding a council on the matter. Bilateral meeting is important, but honesty and mutual support is more important. So if the meeting bears fruit, this one and that, that one and this, meeting and understanding each other, the path of truth becomes clear. Otherwise, something hidden and harmful becomes clear in the positions, something alien to the Spirit of the Lord and thus to the Church of Christ. In that case, what should those who are zealous for the house of God do? It is no concern if they are few, nor if they are regarded as small in their nation. Greatness is in truth and not in station. Greatness is in speaking the Spirit and for us to reach in speech and truth the point of saying with the the apostles, the elders and the brothers, "It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us...." (Acts 15:28). Those who are zealous, then, in prayer and fasting, speak the word no matter their number, as a testimony to God. What happens after that? The Spirit and the Word have their own way, and your Lord knows best. But if none of the traditional praiseworthy things happen, then we are without a doubt in a painful place. When witnesses who have been delegated by the group in the Spirit are no longer witnesses to the legitimate truth, God brings forth from the impotent visible presence a fruitful, unseen presence that bears witness. In the end, the word belongs to the Lord and not to those who reckon it to be theirs. The Church perseveres, no matter the circumstances, with the little flock, which your Lord alone knows, forever leavening the dough in the Church and in history until the end.

When two people disagree about something in Christ's Church, and each is hardened in his position, it is no longer possible or permissible for the issue to be, for you and for me, who is right and who is wrong, but rather who is in the truth. Each one regards himself as being right and his own position as correct, otherwise there wouldn't be a disagreement in the first place. The important thing isn't each one's perspective-- this we ear, examine and weigh-- but how they treat the issue. With what spirit? With a spirit of confusion or a spirit of understanding? With a spirit of listening to one another with the heart or a spirit of making pronouncements ex cathedra? With a spirit of aggression or a spirit of harmony? With a spirit of enmity or a spirit of peace? With a spirit of division or a spirit of unity? With a spirit of extermination or a spirit of reverence? With a spirit of submission to the powers of this world or with the fear of God? With a spirit of aversion or a spirit of friendliness? With a spirit of revenge or a spirit of conciliation? In a word, with the spirit of the world or the Spirit of God?

When the dispute broke out, then, I cannot consider myself-- you and I-- unconcerned with what is happening because in truth Christ alone is concerned; as it is neither fitting for me or for you to be partial to one side or the other, even if my conviction as a human inclines me one way or the other. Being satisfied to express an opinion at the level of who I think is in the right and who I think is not right keeps me at the level of human concern for the issues. But is there true human justice? In the Church, our concern rises above that! The question, in a situation of disagreement, is: what must we do to help both sides remain in the truth? That is, to keep the spirit of agreement, peace and unity in Christ between them, despite their disagreement. For us to really have an effective contribution in this regard, we need to mentally distinguish between the person and his position regarding the issue at hand. I am not committed to your opinion, whatever it may be, but I am committed to you. You are my brother by divine appointment! "You are all brothers," said the Lord Jesus. I may or may not like your opinion, I may or may not benefit from it. Here I am not talking about established dogmatic truths, but about procedural positions. And in procedural issues there are different opinions and the space for differences of outlook is wide. Factors of history and temperament, passions, sensitivities and similar things are not easily overcome. The matter requires that they be transcended with great humility and by the power of the Spirit in the soul. Therefore, the important thing in this case, in the absence of agreement, is for the Spirit of God to remain what brings together and for disagreements not to lead us into the depths of conflict. Therefore, you are my goal in the case of conflict, not your opinion. Confronted with people who disagree, you and I no longer have a position about what they say, but about who they are. We work hand in hand to affirm love in truth, despite all the difficulties. It is not only if we leave the disputants to harm Christ and His Church, and thus themselves, but we also participate in doing harm because he who is not with Me, so the Lord says, is against Me.

When the powerful are divided, the little ones are confused. And this at a time of weakness! Most are inclined to hesitation and reservation. They think over the steps to take a thousand times. Their primary concern is keeping what belongs to them. They go along, show deference and do not love. They say what they're not thinking and think what they're not saying. The priority for them is their own gains. Over the course of time, we have become accustomed to fearing the powerful in this world and likewise also in the Church, more than fearing God! This is even true with regard to those who are regarded as good. As for intruders in the Church-- and there are many of them-- there is no point to discussing them. As it appears, the spirit of weakness predominates. A very few walk in the spirit of bearing witness. Only a rare few accept do die for Christ's sake. Politics, in the worldly sense, has become a way of life in the Church, even if it has not generally kept pace with its malignancy and self-striving in the world. Dealing with God's wisdom, in love and truth, in a context of prayer and fasting, has little impact on the people of the Church in general. Most are satisfied with the wisdom of this world. This is because apathy overwhelms their souls. The warmth of the Spirit permits neither fabrication nor bargaining. And bargaining has, for the most part, become the accepted manner for resolving problems in the Church, just as it is in the world today, though naturally wrapped in an empty show of divine words. The exterior speaks of reason, logic, data and history, but where is the Spirit of God? Much talk and many arguments, but they embitter the soul, which means that the spirit behind them is unclean and not from the wisdom of God because the wisdom of God is peaceful, kind, full of mercy, without fear or hypocrisy. Has it not been said, "If you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there..." (James 3:14-16)?

Nothing justifies partisanship in the Church. The people of partisanship do not obey the truth (cf. Romans 2:8). The discussion of partisanship comes in the exposition of contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, backbitings, whisperings, conceits, tumults (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:20). Partisanship is a work of the flesh and not a fruit of the spirit (cf. Galatians 5:19). Thus there is no praise for partisanship, but rather a warning about it. Let us not consider ourselves better than others. Instead, "let each esteem others better than himself" (Philippians 2:3). Even if there is good in us, let us turn a blind eye to it and look for the good in others without favoritism, to the glory of God, so that the good may be our goal and not love of appearances and superiority over others. What is partisanship? It is when you are attached to a personality and thus to what he says and claim that this is from God and attack others who do not say what he says about procedural matters in the life of the Church! And when you attack him, you accuse him of unbelief, work to defame him, display his flaws, and invent things about him that do not exist in order to tarnish his image. Where does partisanship lead? To schisms and rivalries. Did the Chosen Apostle not warn about them? "May there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (1 Corinthians 1:10). Neither Paul is what is important nor Apollos, nor Peter, but Christ in all and for all! So unity in Christ refutes partisanship and partisanship topples unity.

In confronting the repercussions of partisanship, holding fast to the spirit of unity, peace and agreement in the Church, you do not stand with someone against someone else, even for a moment. You might point out a point of truth that one side has or a fault in the other side. But in the present context, it comes as a presentation of falsehood even if it's true because it causes harm and is taken differently from its intent. Academic and historical arguments, in the context of an emotional confrontation, inflame the conflict and don't put an end to it. In a case such as this, every argument has its counter-argument. So what's the use? When the heart's intention is in the balance, the voice of reason is of no use. The heart is only calmed, if it is to be calmed, with the balms of gentleness and kindness. At the end of the day, man is a heart. "Give me your heart, my son!"

People form parties against each other out of ignorance of deceit. In either case, because they do not speak with the Spirit of God. If their intentions are good, your Lord finds a way to turn their path toward Him. If their intentions are wicked, they twist in abysses of loss, hatred and emotion, thinking that they are zealous for God in a good way. In the end, they are filled with bitterness and a sense of decline. They blame God's Church and accuse God of being unjust. They turn away from Him, as though they are the ones in the right and surrender themselves to great pains.

Within this framework, the issue of the Church and politics has its own dialectic. From the beginning, the Church suffers from the pressure of politics and politicians on her. In history, religion was a tool in the hand of rulers, to the point that kings sometimes considered themselves gods and demanded that they be offered worship. Authority, in this age, is inclined to seek worship. The temptation has always been that the only purpose for God or the gods is to support authority and those who wield it. This has gone on throughout history. Therefore, politicians have rarely refrained, practically speaking, in the history of the Church, from deifying themselves and then from eagerly working to lobby the Church or subject her to their aims. Since the Church by nature has no master but the One in heaven, even if she commands that what belongs to Caesar be rendered unto Caesar, freedom of conscience in Christ was generally not preserved in her, especially in lean times, except by undergoing violence, persecution, imprisonment, torture or martyrdom of blood. In this regard, there are great models from Saint Athanasius the Great to Saint Ambrose of Milan, Saint Basil the Great, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Mark of Ephesus and many others. Despite the occasional good times and many bad times that the relationship of the Church to the state has known, especially in the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine system made the framework of the empire ecclesiastical and the emperor a representative of Christ in governing the oikoumene, in principle according to the faith of the Church, preserving and supporting her.

Today, with globalization, things have changed. We are faced with a sweeping current that is totally alien to Christianity. Politics has become completely worldly. It no longer has a religious character. It has its aims and its agendas and the Church in itself means nothing for it. Or perhaps, on a personal level, for very few. This being the case, if the Church is anything other than a moral force, politicians will attempt to seize her, wanting to dominate and exploit those belonging to her within the framework of a worldly vision that has absolutely nothing to do with the Church. In this sweeping system of globalization, if the Church holds fast to her traditional identity, she not only annoys policymakers in the world, but also constitutes a threat to their efforts and an impediment to their arrangements. Therefore, the politics of globalization seeks to fragment and dissolve the Church. On the level of the spirit, the Church is in an existential confrontation with the spirit of the world. Convergence is impossible. In a case such as this, without any exaggeration, the Antichrist, in the precise meaning of the term, comes today in the garb of politics, seeking, in disguise and putting on the appearance of Christ, to overthrow Christ the Lord in those who believe in Him.

"I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). This is the credo of one who holds fast to Spirit and to truth, in Christ and in his relationship with people wherever they may be, to whatever nationality they belong, and whatever country they are from. Constantinople, apart from Christ, means nothing to us! But the faithful who are zealous for the Spirit of the Lord, whether or not they are called by the name of Constantinople, wherever they reside, mean everything to us. We belong to them and they belong to us, for we belong to the same land: the land of the living-- that is, Jesus Christ. Everything else is external adornment, chatter and vanity. So too the Moscow of the faithful. They are dear because the Lord's Christ has made us their brothers in His flesh. And Ukraine, which has been sacrificed in history for Christ's sake, with the blood of her martyrs, the sweat of her ascetics and the toils of her faithful. This is what has meaning for us! And so, in this manner, in every place and region. The martyrs of Christ in Russia are our Church. The monks of Mount Athos are the body of Christ within us. The relics of the saints in the Kiev Caves are our bones! If the wounds of history divide us, what will dress the wounds, unless it is the Spirit of Christ, who alone brings us together? A church based on disagreement, coercion, enmity, division, hatred and struggle between brothers is the Church of Satan and not the Church of Christ! If canons, arguments and historical facts lead to estrangement between believers, then what do they have to do with us? Let them fall. Shadows and silhouettes do not quench our thirst for the Spirit of the Lord. Nothing brings together except the crucifiedness of your Lord. But the one who bows before his brother as the Lord bowed His head upon the cross alone stands in the truth. Everything else is false.

Do not call politics your imagining that in it you have a concern other than the concern of your Christ. Christ alone is the concern! Behold, Satan has sought you in order to sift you and beware of letting things go too far!

Archimandrite Touma (Bitar)
Abbot of the Monastery of Saint Silouan the Athonite-- Douma, Lebanon
Sunday, November 4, 2018

Orthodox Synaxis on the Problem of Romiosyne

The must-read blog Orthodox Synaxis has posted a translation of a speech by Patriarch Bartholomew where he speaks of the "precedence" of his people in Orthodoxy and as the center of "Romiosyne". Because this ideology lies at the heart of the Greek occupation of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, readers of this blog should take note of how His Holiness speaks off cuff on such issues.

 The introduction states:

In addressing the ongoing political and ecclesiastical conflict in Ukraine, many have rightly brought up the Russkiy Mir (“Russian world”) ideology promoted by many in the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. This ideology, concocted as a reaction to the loss of Russian control over Ukraine and Belarus after the fall of the Soviet Union, seeks to assert a spiritual and cultural unity of the peoples descended from the Kievan Rus, presumably under Russian leadership. Perhaps not totally unexpectedly, there has been much less analysis of the dominant ideology of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the concept of Romiosyne. This culturally and ecclesiastically irredentist ideology seeks to regain the preeminence in the Orthodox world that the Greeks of Constantinople enjoyed under the Ottomans, just as the Russkiy Mir attempts to regain the preeminence that Russia held under the Soviets.

The 75-year period of Soviet rule left an inescapable mark on the leadership of the Church in Russia, Ukraine and the other former-Soviet states and similarly the 500 years of Ottoman rule inevitably left its enduring mark on the worldview of the leadership of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. We can see this in the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s reliance on Ottoman-era documents to assert territorial claims in Ukraine and the way that recent statements (e.g., Patriarch Bartholomew’s 1 September address) borrow from the rhetoric of this period to speak of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the “source” and “beginning” of the Orthodox churches.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate’s ideology of Romiosyne is a no less desperate attempt to cling to a bygone empire than Russia’s Russkiy Mir ideology even if, in the absence of military strength to back it up, its field of action is largely ecclesiastical. This can be seen on display in a recent speech by Patriarch Bartholomew to an audience of parishioners from Istanbul. In it, he speaks of the preeminence of their common genos in the Orthodox Church and triumphalistically mocks “Slavic” attempts at usurping it. The language that Patriarch Bartholomew uses is somewhat difficult to translate into English precisely because his is a post-imperial ideology rather than a nationalist one of the sort that we are more familiar with. That is, where one might use Hellenismos to describe the nationalism of the Greek nation-state (ethnos), Romiosyne describes a concept of Greekness that transcends nation-states and is centered more on the role of Greeks in the Orthodox Church than in worldly politics. The key term in this speech is the word genos, which is the origin of the word ‘genus’ and could be translated as ‘race’, ‘kind’, ‘sort’ or, as we’ve chosen to translate it below, ‘people’, though it is noteworthy (not to say alarming) that in this speech Patriarch Bartholomew uses the term phyle (‘tribe’ or ‘race’) as a synonym of genos.


Read the speech itself here.

Link: Orthodox Synaxis

Since much of the material posted here recently has dealt with Antioch's response to the Patriarchate of Constantinople's attempt to unilaterally create an autocephalous church in Ukraine, I thought this might be of interest.

There's a new blog, Orthodox Synaxis, that appears to be trying to present perspectives on this issue in a manner similar to Antioch's perspective- not a pro-Russian opposition to the possibility of an autocephalous Ukrainian Church, but a rejection of unilateralism on the part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

It says about itself:

Orthodox Synaxis was created in response to the current threat to global Orthodox unity, which is manifesting itself in a conflict between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Patriarchate of Moscow, regarding the ecclesiastical situation in Ukraine. This website is focused on the underlying ecclesiological issues: primacy, conciliarity, autocephaly, etc., as opposed to historical and territorial claims specific to the case of Ukraine. This website will house important primary source texts, as well as relevant analysis.

Of particular interest, is has published the 1993 position papers of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Church of Greece on the issue of autocephaly, autonomy and the manner in which they are granted. To my knowledge, these do not exist in English in an accessible manner elsewhere.

Link to the main page.

Where are the Grown-Ups?

This was posted in Arabic on Facebook and I think it's the most cogent reaction to the whole Moscow-Istanbul mess that I've seen. Translated and posted here with permission of the author.

Where are the Grown-Ups?

by Jad Ganem

Anyone who observes what has been said and written in the Orthodox world in recent days related to the controversy surrounding the Ukrainian crisis is shocked at the low level of theological discourse among leaders and those considered scholars. One can’t but lament their slipping into a language of mobilization and sterile debate to justify one position or another, adopting the manner of court poets.

The average believer can only wonder why those who have been assigned responsibility for preserving unity do not seek to repair the cracks rather than resorting to history-books to justify schism? Why do they ignore the purpose of the official positions and studies that their local churches have prepared about the issue of autocephaly and how it is proclaimed ? Why aren't they publishing these studies for the public instead of competing to publish centuries-old documents? How can a church say something and its opposite? How can a church deny its official interpretation and consistent analysis of the issue of autocephaly for the sake of a momentary project? How can leaders in all the local churches not lift a finger when certain individuals throw down the memory-hole the results of efforts made over generations to find a common approach to the issue of autocephaly?

By your Lord, stop fanning the flames of discord! Stop dancing at the edge of the abyss! Stop being a stumbling-block for the faithful and a laughingstock before the whole world! Stop using God, the Fathers and the canons for your demonic projects! In the eyes of God and of history those who are pressing for schism and those who fall into it will only be servants of the prince of this world. Who will stop our descent into hell? Where are the followers of the One who prayed that they all might be one?