There seems to be quite a lot of confusion about kingship today. Seeing President Obama mocked as 'King Obama' due to his unlawful actions regarding Libya, guns, etc. is proof of it. Yes, a king often does possess the power to make new laws; nevertheless, if those new laws purposefully and repeatedly conflict with the canons of the Church or with good, long-held national traditions, then he forfeits the title of 'king' and can be opposed if that is what the Church counsels.
A true Christian king is not to be feared. Dr Vladimir Moss, with the help of Nicolas Berdiaev, explains why below. The differences between a despot like Pres Obama and a king worthy of the name (called an 'autocrat' or 'tsar' in the passage quoted) will hopefully be made more clear.
In the eighteenth century the Russian autocracy gradually developed in the direction of western absolutist monarchy or despotism. The difference between autocracy and despotism was well characterized by Nicholas Berdiaev as follows: “[In the Orthodox autocracy] there are no rights to power, but only obligations of power. The power of the tsar is by no means absolute, unrestricted power. It is autocratic because its source is not the will of the people and it is not restricted by the people. But it is restricted by the Church and by Christian righteousness; it is spiritually subject to the Church; it serves not its own will, but the will of God. The tsar must not have his own will, but he must serve the will of God. The tsar and the people are bound together by one and the same faith, by one and the same subjection to the Church and the righteousness of God. Autocracy presupposes a wide national social basis living its own self-sufficient life; it does not signify the suppression of the people’s life. Autocracy is justified only if the people has beliefs which sanction the power of the tsar. It cannot be an external violence inflicted on the people. The tsar is autocratic only if he is a truly Orthodox tsar. The defective Orthodoxy of Peter the Great and his inclination towards Protestantism made him an absolute, and not an autocratic monarch. Absolute monarchy is a child of humanism… In absolutism the tsar is not a servant of the Church. A sign of absolute monarchy is the subjection of the Church to the State. That is what happened to the Catholic Church under Louis XIV. Absolutism always develops a bureaucracy and suppresses the social life of the people.”
Source: Vladimir Moss, Autocracy, Democracy and Despotism - Part 2: The Age of Reason (1453-1789), 2012, p. 390.
No comments:
Post a Comment