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Essays on True Orthodox Christianity

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Essays on True Orthodox Christianity ESSAYS ON TRUE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY Volume 2 (2010-2014) Vladimir Moss © Copyright: Vladimir Moss, 2015. All Rights Reserved. 1 INTRODUCTION 5 1. ORTHODOXY AND FREEDOM OF RELIGION 6 The Origin of the Idea 6 The Idea in Early Byzantium 8 The Position of St. Augustine 12 Roman Catholic Intolerance 17 The Revival of Tolerance 19 English Liberalism 22 The American Idea 26 The Russian Idea 29 Conclusions 33 2. THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION OF ROMANS 5.12 36 3. ROMANIDES, THE CYPRIANITES, HEAVEN AND HELL 45 4. ORTHODOXY AND ROMANTICISM 50 The Romantic Hero (1) Napoleon 50 The Romantic Hero (2) Byron 56 5. PREDESTINATION, ST. AUGUSTINE AND FR. PANTELEIMON 61 6. ON FAITH AND THE ROOTS OF UNBELIEF 74 The Naturalness of Faith 74 The Preconditions of Faith 79 Faith, Ignorance and the Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit 82 Conclusion 87 7. ROMANIDES AND ORIGINAL SIN 88 Can Sin be Inherited? 88 What is Sin? 92 Sin and Death 93 Romans 5.12 99 Adam and Christ 101 8. ROMANIDES, HOLY SCRIPTURE AND SCIENCE 103 9. ROMANIDES ON THE HOLY TRINITY 115 10. PEDAGOGICAL AND RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE 119 11. ST. PHILARET OF NEW YORK AND THE HERESY OF ECUMENISM 135 The Sorrowful Epistles 136 The Fall of the Serbian Church 140 The Third All-Diaspora Council 143 The Fall of the Dissidents 152 The Anathema against Ecumenism 157 12. TRUE ORTHODOXY AND THE VENERATION OF SAINTS 163 13. WHAT IS A TRUE MARRIAGE? 168 The Permanence of Marriage 169 Troitsky’s Thesis 170 The Role of the Church 173 Remarriage and Divorce 179 2 Mixed Marriages 183 Polygamy, Fornication and Adultery 187 The Two Mysteries 191 The Purposes of Marriage 199 14. THE DOGMA OF EGALITARIANISM 204 Introduction 204 The First Sceptics 204 The Origins of Inequality 209 Inequality and Socialism 211 Inequality, Slavery and Monarchy 212 Inequality and Gender 217 Conclusion 219 15. THE DAY TRUE ORTHODOXY SAVED THE WORLD 221 16. FAITH, SCIENCE AND DOUBTING THOMAS 223 17. GOD, SPACE-TIME, THE CHURCH, THE CROSS AND LIGHT 227 18. THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 230 19. ORTHODOXY AND THE DEATH PENALTY 238 20. ECUMENISM AND NATIONALISM 242 21. THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN HOLOCAUST 247 22. SCIENCE, ART AND THE TURIN SHROUD 259 23. THE LIVING TEMPLE OF GOD 274 24. EVOLUTION AND THE GENEALOGY OF CHRIST 276 25. ON FAITH AND WORKS 283 26. HOMOSEXUALITY, EVOLUTION AND THE NATURAL ORDER 289 27. A UNIVERSAL FAITH FOR A GLOBALIZED WORLD 299 28. HOW TO BE A CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY 304 29. THE TWO KINGDOMS OF CHRIST 308 30. TOWARDS THE “MAJOR SYNOD” OF THE TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH 312 1. The Question of Grace 312 2. The Question of the Authority of Local Councils 313 3. The Question of Repentance 316 Conclusion 318 31. THE DORMITION AND WOMEN PRIESTS 320 32. WHY ORTHODOXY AND EVOLUTIONISM ARE INCOMPATIBLE 328 33. WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? 340 34. DAVID BERLINSKI AND THE DELUSIONS OF SCIENCE 343 3 4 INTRODUCTION This book is a continuation of my earlier Essays in True Orthodox Christianity. Volume 1. It includes essays I have written on various subjects related to True Orthodoxy between the years 2010 and 2014. January 22 / February 4, 2014/2015. East House, Beech Hill, Mayford, Woking. GU22 0SB. United Kingdom. 5 1. ORTHODOXY AND FREEDOM OF RELIGION It is generally assumed by Orthodox Christians that Orthodoxy is a liberal religion in the sense that it favours freedom of religion in general. It is pointed out with some pride that Orthodoxy has never had an institution to compare with the Catholic Inquisition, and that Orthodoxy has been the persecuted, rather than the persecutor, throughout her history. Orthodox persecutors such as Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great have been rare exceptions to the rule – and condemned ones at that. I believe that this is basically true. However, it is always dangerous to identify Orthodoxy with any popular dogma of the modern age. Even when Orthodoxy appears to coincide with popular sentiment, there are almost always subtle but important differences to be noted and qualifications to be made. And the motivation for the position in question is almost invariably different. It may therefore be useful to examine the Orthodox position on freedom of religion in the context of a brief historical survey. The Origin of the Idea The modern world prides itself on its religious toleration as if this were a mark of its superiority over all previous civilizations, which, supposedly, were constantly persecuting dissidents. However, no society has ever practised complete toleration of all opinions. Rather, societies differ amongst themselves in those opinions which they tolerate, and those they do not tolerate, and in the manner and severity with which they persecute dissidents. Thus if earlier societies persecuted what they considered to be religious heresies, our contemporary society persecutes such attitudes as racism, “homophobia” and holocaust-denial. Just as there is no society which does not punish crime in general, and does not send murderers to prison, so there is no society which does not have a certain consensus of ideas that it acts in various ways to preserve and enforce, using the stick as well as the carrot. In fact, if we were to define the main difference between ancient and modern societies, it would not be that ancient societies were intolerant while modern societies are tolerant, but that ancient societies in general practised tolerance without elevating it into a supreme value, whereas modern societies, in accordance with its cult of freedom in all its forms, has elevated religious tolerance into an absolute value, a human “right”, in and for itself. The main motive of religious toleration in the ancient world was simply political expediency – a multi-ethnic and multi-faith population is more easily controlled if all its faiths are respected and legalized. Another motive was superstition. After all, calculated the ruler (who was almost always religious), the god of this people is more likely to help me if I do not persecute his people… 6 Consider, for example, Imperial Rome before Constantine. Contrary to what is generally thought, periods of persecution were intermittent and generally short- lived, and directed exclusively at Christians. (The Soviet persecution of the twentieth century was, by contrast, far more intense and persistent, and directed at all religions.) As Perez Zagorin writes, Rome “was tolerant in practice in permitting the existence of many diverse religious cults, provided their votaries also complied with the worship of the divine emperor as part of the state religion. Unlike Christianity and Judaism, Roman religion had no sacred scriptures and did not depend on any creed, dogmas, or ethical principles. It consisted very largely of participation in cult acts connected with the worship of various deities and spirits that protected the Roman state and were associated with public, family, and domestic life. At nearly all stages of their history the Romans were willing to accept foreign cults and practices; this de facto religious pluralism is entirely attributable to the polytheistic character of Roman religion and had nothing to do with principles of values sanctioning religious toleration, a concept unknown to Roman society or law and never debated by Roman philosophers or political writers.”1 Christianity introduced a new depth and a new complexity to the question of religious toleration. On the one hand, the Christians, like the Jews, rejected the idea of a multiplicity of gods, and insisted that there was only one name by which men could be saved – that of the One True God, Jesus Christ. This position did not logically imply that Christians wanted to persecute people of other faiths. But the “exclusivism” of Christianity, then as now, was perceived by the pagan-ecumenist majority, whether sincerely or insincerely, as a threat to themselves. On the other hand, the Christians set no value on the forcible conversion of people to the Faith: man, being in the image of God, was free, and could come to God only by his own free will. As the Christian lawyer Tertullian put it: “It does not belong to religion to force people to religion, since it must be accepted voluntarily.”2 In his Barring of Heretics (ca. 200) Tertullian insisted on the truth of Christianity and declared that heretics could not be called Christians. Nevertheless, he was he was “opposed to compulsion in religion and stated in other works that ‘to do away with freedom of religion [libertas religionis]’ was wrong. While Christians, he said, worship the one God and pagans worship demons, both ‘human and natural law’ ordain that ‘each person may worship whatever he wishes’.”3 However, Tertullian was writing at a time when the Church, as a persecuted minority, clearly benefited from religious toleration. What if the Church herself were to gain political power? 1 Zagorin, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West, Princeton University Press, 2004, p. 4. 2 Tertullian, Ad Scapulam, 2. 3 Zagorin, op. cit., p. 21. 7 The Idea in Early Byzantium If Christian rulers were to take the Old Testament Kings David and Solomon, Hezekiah and Josiah as their models, then they would recognize that rulers were required by God to defend the faith of the people as their first duty. The prophets constantly reminded them that they would be judged by God in accordance with their fulfilment or non-fulfilment of this duty. This same duty was taken very seriously by the greatest of the New Testament kings, Constantine I, Theodosius I and Justinian I. Constantine is often unjustly blamed by Protestants for introducing religious intolerance into the State. However, what he did - deliver the Church from the Diocletian persecution, and introduce certain laws which facilitated Christian worship – can hardly be called intolerance.
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