The
soul is the most valuable of all God’s creations (Matt. 16:26). Our foundational political documents and the
life that flows from them ought to reflect this in some way. But they do not.
What
do we see instead?
There
is less than one week remaining before the various elections are held across
the Union, and members of the various factions
and parties cannot wait to do battle at the ballot box, to subdue their enemies
with the force of their vote. Their
anticipation is at a fever pitch. And
when elections are far off, still the different factions distrust and denounce
and work for the destruction of the others.
This
should tell us something about our spiritual state (that its current condition
is very dreadful and wretched), and about the effect of our political system on
our souls (it inclines us toward sin - pride, atheism, anger, and so on).
Father
Yuri Pushchaev elaborates on such themes in his essay ‘The Republic and the
Soul’ (trans. Mark Hackard). One outtake:
. . .
In democracy and a republic, all citizens are
called to politics, to participation in power. Democracy
is the power of the people. The ideal of the republic is born from the
aspiration that the people govern itself – through its representatives, as now,
or in antiquity, through direct democracy.
The metaphysical underpinnings of this are what
the well-known twentieth-century political philosopher Hannah Arendt called the
drive of people from the masses, the lower classes, to also “come into their
own,” signifying their existence and appearing to the world as a full
participant. Here people already begin to be directed primarily not by the
aspiration “to live a pacific and quiet life in every piety and purity,” but
rather the desire to be noticed in the world, to enter stormy political life
full of passions, anxieties, and temptation. Incidentally, the prominent
nineteenth-century Swiss historian of culture and one of the founders of
cultural research Jacob Burckhardt termed the polis the “chattiest” of all sovereign forms. What a sharp
contrast this is to the aspiration to live a calm and quiet life!
And most centrally, as soon as the people
establish or constitute a republic and comprehend that they now claim to govern
themselves and their fate, religion then inevitably begins to play ever less a
role in social and political life. This is logical – after all, in a republic
the one source of authority is the will of the people, which as the final
source already needs no religious sanction. The people themselves begin to
occupy the highest place: vox populi, vox
Dei. The Christian monarch, meanwhile, is the anointed of God, and
“a man submits to the authority of the monarch not only from fear, but also
from a conscience enjoined by God Himself.” Monarchy needs religion, and it
naturally flows from the premises of a religious worldview.
The ongoing displacement of religion in Europe for over 200 years into the “private sphere,”
where everyone can supposedly decide for himself which religion to hold, is not
accidental. The state promises to uphold the rights of religion within the
confines of personal space, but therein is a palpable deception. Historically,
the republican form of sovereignty, secularization and the loss of influence by
religion and the Church are tightly connected and mutually dependent processes
that developed to their full potency in the modern age.
. . .
Source: http://souloftheeast.org/2014/10/11/the-republic-the-soul/,
posted 11 Oct. 2014, accessed 16 Oct. 2014
A
Christian country will not be characterized by constant fighting amongst her
people, but by love, joy, peace, longsuffering, etc. (Gal. 5:22-3). And yet, there is much of the former and
little of the latter today in the States, especially at the national
level. It is time, then, to rethink the Union, as Dr Donald Livingston and others have been
urging us:
Even
as impeccable a Yankee as John Quincy Adams said that the Union
ought to last only so long as a spirit of friendship existed among the peoples
of the States. And even in his day
relations between the sections were growing embittered.
Things
are no better today. There is no reason
why the Union ought to continue on in its
present form if we truly desire to live quiet lives pleasing to God (I Tim.
2:2). What has New
York to do with Mississippi? Oregon with Arkansas? Connecticut
with Oklahoma? Why should the representatives of each contend
with one another year in and year out, trying to force irreconcilable worldviews
on peoples not their own?
It
is time we rolled back any overarching authorities (State and federal) so that
like-minded groups of people may live in peace together (whether an independent
Tennessee or an independent Northern
California or New York City
or Upper Peninsula of Michigan).
The
life of a country ought as much as possible to resemble that of the Church,
which is its very soul (ideally). And
what is to characterize the life of the Church, if not unity through love? Let us hear a word or two on this from Father
George Florovsky.
. . .
The
Church is completeness itself; it is the continuation and the fulfilment of the
theanthropic union. The Church is transfigured and regenerated mankind. The
meaning of this regeneration and transfiguration is that in the Church
mankind becomes one unity, "in one body" (Eph. 2:16). The
life of the Church is unity and union. The body is "knit together"
and "increaseth" (Col
2:19) in unity of Spirit, in unity of love. The realm of the Church is unity.
And of course this unity is no outward one, but is inner, intimate, organic. It
is the unity of the living body, the unity of the organism. The Church is a
unity not only in the sense that it is one and unique; it is a unity, first of
all, because its very being consists in reuniting separated and divided
mankind. It is this unity which is the "sobornost" or catholicity
of the Church. In the Church humanity passes over into another plane,
begins a new manner of existence. A new life becomes possible, a true, whole
and complete life, a catholic life, "in the unity of the Spirit, in the
bond of peace (Eph. 4:3). A new existence begins, a new principle of life, "Even
as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us ... that
they may be one even as We are one" (John 17:21-23).
This
is the mystery of the final reunion in the image of the Unity of the Holy
Trinity. It is realized in the life and construction of the Church, it is the mystery
of sobornost, the mystery of catholicity.
. . .
The
gauge of catholic union is that "The multitude of them that believed be
of one heart and of one soul" (Act 4:32). Where this is not the case,
the life of the Church is limited and restricted. The ontological blending of
persons is, and must be, accomplished in oneness with the Body of Christ; they
cease to be exclusive and impenetrable. The cold separation into
"mine" and "thine" disappears.
The
growth of the Church is in the perfecting of its inner wholeness, its inner
catholicity, in the "perfection of wholeness"; "That they may
be made perfect in one" (John 17:23).
The
catholicity of the Church has two sides. Objectively, the catholicity of the
Church denotes a unity of the Spirit. "In one Spirit were we all baptized
into one body" (1 Cor. 12:13). And the Holy Spirit which is a Spirit of
love and peace, not only unites isolated individuals, but also becomes in every
separate soul the source of inner peace and wholeness. Subjectively, the
catholicity of the Church means that the Church is a certain unity of life, a
brotherhood or communion, a union of love, "a life in common." The
image of the Body is the commandment of love. "St. Paul demands such love
of us, a love which should bind us one to the other, so that we no more
should be separated one from the other ... St. Paul demands that our union
should be as perfect as is that of the members of one body" (St. John
Chrysostom, In Eph. Hom. 11.1, Migne, P.G. lxii, c. 79). The novelty of
the Christian commandment of love consists in the fact that we are to love our
neighbour as ourselves. This is more than putting him on the same level
with ourselves, of identifying him with ourselves; it means seeing our own self
in another, in the beloved one, not in our own self .... Therein lies the limit
of love; the beloved is our "alter ego," an "ego" which is
dearer to us than ourself. In love we are merged into one. "The quality of
love is such that the loving and the beloved are no more two but one man"
(In 1 Cor. Hom. 33, 3, Migne, P.G. lxi. c. 280). Even more: true Christian love
sees in every one of our brethren "Christ Himself." Such love demands
self-surrender, self-mastery. Such love is possible only in a catholic
expansion and transfiguration of the soul. The commandment to be catholic is
given to every Christian. The measure of his spiritual manhood is the measure
of his catholicity. The Church is catholic in every one of its members, because
a catholic whole cannot be built up or composed otherwise than through the
catholicity of its members. No multitude, every member of which is isolated and
impenetrable, can become a brotherhood. Union
can become possible only through the mutual brotherly love of all the separate
brethren. This thought is expressed very vividly in the well known vision of
the Church as of a tower that is being built. (Compare the Shepherd of
Hermas). This tower is being built out of separate stones-the faithful.
These faithful are "living stones" (1 Peter 2:5). In the process of
building they fit one into the other, because they are smooth and are well
adapted to one another; they join so closely to one another, that their edges
are no longer visible, and the tower appears to be built of one stone. This is
a symbol of unity and wholeness. But notice, only smooth square stones could be
used for this building. There were other stones, bright stones, but round ones,
and they were of no use for the building; they did not fit one into the other,
were not suitable for the building and they had to be placed near the walls. (Hermas,
Vis. 3:2:6,8). In ancient symbolism "roundness" was a sign of
isolation, of self-sufficiency and self-satisfaction — teres atque rotundus.
And it is just this spirit of self-satisfaction which hinders our entering the
Church. The stone must first be made smooth, so that it can fit into the Church
wall. We must "reject ourselves" to be able to enter the catholicity
of the Church. We must master our self-love in a catholic spirit before we can
enter the Church. And in the fulness of the communion of the Church the catholic
transfiguration of personality is accomplished.
But
the rejection and denial of our own self does not signify that personality must
be extinguished, that it must be dissolved within the multitude. Catholicity is
not corporality or collectivism. On the contrary, self-denial widens the
scope of our own personality; in self-denial we possess the multitude within
our own self; we enclose the many within our own ego. Therein lies the
similarity with the Divine Oneness of the Holy Trinity. In its catholicity
the Church becomes the created similitude of Divine perfection. The Fathers of
the Church have spoken of this with great depth. In the East St. Cyril of Alexandria; in the West
St. Hilary. (For Patristic quotations very well arranged and explained, see E.
Mersch, S.J., Le Corps Mystique du Christ, Etudes de Théologie Historique,
t. 1-2, Louvain, 1933). In contemporary Russian theology the Metropolitan
Antony has said very adequately, "The existence of the Church can be
compared to nothing else upon earth, for on earth there is no unity, but only
separation. Only in heaven is there anything like it. The Church is a perfect,
a new, a peculiar, a unique existence upon earth, a unicum, which cannot
be closely defined by any conception taken from the life of the world. The
Church is the likeness of the existence of the Holy Trinity, a likeness in
which many become one. Why is it that this existence, just as the existence of
the Holy Trinity, is new for the old man and unfathomable for him? Because
personality in its carnal consciousness is a self-imprisoned existence,
radically contrasted with every other personality (Archbishop Anthony
Khapovitsky, The Moral Idea of the Dogma of the Church, Works, vol. 2,
pp. 17-18. St. Petersburg,
1911). "Thus the Christian must in the measure of his spiritual
development set himself free, making a direct contrast between the ‘ego’
and the ‘non-ego’ he must radically modify the fundamental qualities of
human self-consciousness" (Ibid., The Moral Idea of the Dogma
of the Holy Trinity, p. 65). It is just in this change that the catholic
regeneration of the mind consists.
There
are two types of self-consciousness and self-assertion: separate
individualism and catholicity. Catholicity is no denial of personality and
catholic consciousness is neither generic nor racial. It is not a common
consciousness, neither is it the joint consciousness of the many or the Bewusstsein
ueberhaupt of German philosophers. Catholicity is achieved not by
eliminating the living personality, nor by passing over into the plane of an
abstract Logos. Catholicity is a concrete oneness in thought and feeling.
Catholicity is the style or the order or the setting of personal
consciousness, which rises to the "level of catholicity." It is the
"telos" of personal consciousness, which is realized in creative
development, not in the annihilation of personality.
In
catholic transfiguration personality receives strength and power to express the
life and consciousness of the whole. And this not as an impersonal medium, but
in creative and heroic action. We must not say: "Every one in the Church attains
the level of catholicity," but "every one can, and must, and is
called to attain it." Not always and not by every one is it attained.
In the Church we call those who have attained it Doctors and Fathers, because
from them we hear not only their personal profession, but also the testimony of
the Church; they speak to us from its catholic completeness, from the
completeness of a life full of grace.
. . .
Source: On the
Church, ‘The Catholicity of the Church’, http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/theology_church_florovsky_e.htm,
accessed 29 Oct. 2014
Considering
all this, what should be the marks of politics in a Christian country?
Equality
together with distinction and hierarchy.
Oneness
and manyness.
Democracy
and monarchy.
Not
‘either-or’, but ‘both-and’. Just as the
All-Holy Trinity is both One Person and Three Persons. It is a mystery written into the very nature
of man, who is made in the image and likeness of God, which we reject at our
peril.
And
we are not without historical manifestations of these marks. In Russia there were both the
autonomous local villages and the autocratic Tsars. In England
before the Norman Conquest and in Serbia before the Turkish invasion
things were likewise. And so on in other
Orthodox Christian countries, east and west, before the fall away into the
errors of the Roman Catholics (who overemphasized the oneness of the divine
essence and thus gave us the suffocating conformity of socialism) and
Protestants (who overemphasized the separateness of the Three Persons and thus
gave us the individualistic chaos of democracy).
The
Old South, through the kindness of the Lord, was able to maintain something
like an Orthodox society, with both democratic and aristocratic institutions. But none were as fully developed as they were
in other Christian countries, and both suffered nearly fatal wounds in the War
with the North, to whose political culture they remain in thrall to this day. The work of recovery and rebuilding thus continues
on for the Southern people.
So
then, for Christian kings; strong, united, extended families; and other needful
institutions, and for independent Southern States, let us pray: Lord,
have mercy!
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