Not for the first time, Mr Pat Buchanan has some words worth musing over:
At the same time, a war of all against all in America seems to raise the question, to which recitation of the cliché—"Our diversity is our greatest strength”—no longer seems an adequate response: Is there no limit to the racial, religious, ideological, political, cultural, and ethnic diversity the nation can accommodate before it splinters into its component parts? In professions of religious belief, atheists, agnostics, and secularists have become our largest "congregation," followed by Catholics and Protestants, both of which are in numerical decline. Diversity of faiths leads to irreconcilable, clashing opinions about morality on the most divisive social issues of our era: abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, etc. Racial diversity, too, is bringing back problems unseen since the 1960s. America was almost 90 percent white in 1960, but that figure is down to 60 percent and falling. In 25 years, we will all belong to racial minorities.
--https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/blog/does-our-diversity-portend-disintegration-/
Of course he is right that diversity for its own sake is destructive, and that diversity of faiths breeds disunity in everything downstream from religion. We would like to point out a few ways that the Orthodox Church can help in these areas.
First, as regards race, the Orthodox Faith transcends it. One great, very recent, ensample is the succour that St Paisios of Mt Athos (+1994), a ‘white man’ from Greece, has given to the ‘black people’ of the Congo:
St. Paisios of Mt. Athos, “the saint of love, sacrifice and spiritual instruction, as the whole Orthodox world now knows him, is a spiritual beacon and guide for the faithful throughout the universe.”
Love and veneration of the great saint extends far beyond his Greek homeland, including to the Congo, where the Orthodox faithful of the war-torn Gazi area are greatly comforted by the presence of the saint in two churches built in his honor in the city of Kananga, reports Romfea.
. . .
--https://orthochristian.com/139597.html
Second, on cultural health, the Orthodox Church remembers her heroes and still has the vitality and courage to honor them publicly:
There are several strong reasons for the possible canonization of Michael the Brave, the 16th-century Prince of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania, His Eminence Metroplitan Nifon of Târgovişte of the Romanian Orthodox Church believes.
The ruler is known as a unifier of the Romanian people and showed piety, support for Romanian Orthodoxy, and heroism in protecting European Christianity against the threat of the Ottoman Empire, the hierarch said on Thursday at a service commemorating the 420th anniversary of his martyric death, reports the Archdiocese of Târgovişte.
The service was held at Dealu Monastery, where the head of the great unifier is treasured. Michael the Brave was officially honored as a martyr and hero of the Romanian nation for the first time this year, according to a presidential promulgation last July.
Michael the Brave managed to stave off the power of the Ottoman Empire and offer hope to all Christians in the East, His Eminence emphasized. In 1595, Michael was victorious in the Battle of Călugăreni against the Ottoman forces, three times the size of his own army.
“The first great unifier of Romanians, Voivode Michael the Brave is one of the most important personalities of our history, a symbol of national unity, a supporter of the ancestral Church, and defender of the Romanian nation in times of restrictions,” he continued.
“His spiritual life, intense and endearing, full of piety, the heroism of his deeds of arms, his great contribution to supporting the pastoral mission of our Church, as well as to the defense of Christianity and Europe in dark times, justify the process of canonization for Voivode Michael the Brave,” Met. Nifon said.
As the Metropolitan explained, the Romanian ruler offered substantial support to the missionary work of Romanian Orthodoxy, including restoring old dioceses, bringing priests to vacant parishes, and founding numerous churches and monasteries.
During the celebration, Met. Nifon presented recent volumes dedicated to the ruler and donated them to a local school named in his honor.
--https://orthochristian.com/139596.html
Yet as with race, Orthodox culture is able to transcend national boundaries, holding unity and diversity together without one destroying the other:
A new monument to Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the Teachers and Enlighteners of the Slavs, was unveiled in a town in southeastern Serbia on Sunday by the presidents of two Slavic countries.
The opening ceremony was attended by President Aleksandar Vučić of Serbia and President Rumen Radev of Bulgaria and a number of local residents from Dimitrovgrad. The national anthems of both Serbia and Bulgari were performed by the orchestra of the Serbian Army Guard, reports Pravoslavie.ru.
The monument stands in the yard of the Sts. Cyril and Methodius School in the town on the border with Bulgaria, where the majority of the population is ethnic Bulgarians. The foundation stone for the monument was also laid by both presidents on June 22, 2018.
The Bulgarian president noted the importance of the new statue. “The monument will spiritually connect the nations, this monument to the holy brothers thanks to whom we share today the same spiritual space and write in the same alphabet. That is symbolic, it is important, for it shows not just our historic closeness, but outlines the shared path of our ambitions,” President Radev said.
May 24 is the feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius on the Old Calendar, internationally celebrated as the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture, in honor of the saintly missionary brothers.
In turn, the Serbian president stressed that the Serbs consider the Bulgarians a fraternal people.
After the monument as unveiled, the presidents toured the renovated school buildings and then visited the Poganovo Monastery.
--https://orthochristian.com/139474.html
One can imagine how these virtues would help immensely here in the States to ease racial, regional, etc., tensions as well as to keep memorials standing. Regrettably, the Orthodox Church is still small compared to the Roman Catholics and Protestants, but neither of these latter two can help in the way the Orthodox can. For the Roman Catholics have indeed historically been able to attain cultural unity through the forced imposition of Latin culture on all their converts, yet this destroys the variety of the local cultures that are part of this institution. Protestantism has no unity, only a multiplicity of millions of different believers each with their own opinions on various matters.
And all this is the result of the flawed, one-sided beliefs about the Holy Trinity of the Roman Catholics (over-emphasizing the impersonal essence, i.e., unity) and of the Protestants (over-emphasizing one of the Three Persons (usually the Son, sometimes the Holy Ghost), i.e., the diversity). Only in the Orthodox Church will one find the true, balanced teaching of the One and the Many in the Holy Trinity.
All the regions of the current (unnecessary) union of States would benefit from the gifts of the Orthodox Church, but particularly the South, which has a form of post-Schism Christianity that is similar in some significant ways to the Orthodox Way, which has many memorials worth preserving, a multitude of races and ethnic groups in need of a common bond, a strong sense of memory, and so on.
To that end, may God bless the Ludwell Orthodox Fellowship:
See more at http://www.dissidentmama.net/the-ludwell-orthodox-fellowship-our-mission/ .
Religion is everything. If a people follow the True Faith, there will be orderliness and life; if they follow some other faith, there will be chaos and death. The true statesman will recognize this and make the spiritual health of his people central to his work. In doing so he would be following in the footsteps of many great rulers (many of the following are numbered among the Saints): Constantine the Great, Theodosius the Great, Justinian the Great, Great Prince Vladimir of Kiev, King Alfred the Great, King Childebert I of Paris, King Sigebert II of Austrasia, St Stefan-Symeon of Serbia, Tsar Boris-Michael of Bulgaria, Queen Tamar of Georgia, and so on. Knowledge of the arts of politics and economics are helpful, but ultimately of secondary importance to soulcraft. The symphony between, the fellow-working of, Church and government needs to return, and any thought of the disestablishment of religion banished. The anti-Christian Millennials make this a difficult goal, but it must be the goal nevertheless. It is one they might find appealing in the end:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/04/bionic-mosquito/christian-morality/
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
No comments:
Post a Comment