ESSAYS ON TRUE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY Volume 3 (2015) Vladimir Moss © Copyright: Vladimir Moss, 2015. All Rights Reserved. 1 INTRODUCTION 4 1. “LEVIATHAN” AND MODERN RUSSIA 5 2. SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN 8 3. THE TRIUMPH OF PASCHA 12 4. R III P 15 5. PRAYER AND THE WILL OF GOD 24 6. THE PARADOXES OF LITURGICAL LANGUAGE 31 7. THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RIGHTS 34 1. The Medieval Theory of Natural Law 34 2. From Natural Law to Human Rights 36 3. Human Rights and the French Revolution 38 4. Human Rights in the Twentieth Century 39 5. Human Rights and Cultural Marxism 43 6. An Analysis of the Philosophy 47 Conclusion: The Orthodox Response 54 8. PELAGIANISM AND THE COUNCIL OF LLANDEWI BREFI 56 9. FROM LENIN TO PUTIN: THE CONTINUITY OF SOVIET POWER 59 10. THE ORIGINS OF SEXUAL PERVERSION 70 11. THE MULTIVERSE THEORY 85 12. THE BREAD OF THE EUCHARIST 91 13. BISHOP AUXENTIOS – GTOC’S TROJAN HORSE 99 14. THE CONSTANTINIAN REVOLUTION 102 1. The Triumph of the Cross 103 2. The Hierarchical Principle 107 3. Autocracy and Tyranny 110 4. Empire and Priesthood 117 5. Religious Freedom 126 6. Rome and the Non-Roman World 137 Conclusion 141 15. THE ORIGENISM OF METROPOLITAN KALLISTOS 142 16. ISLAMIC TERRORISM AND WESTERN ECUMENISM 150 17. THE FATHER ALMIGHTY 159 18. A DIALOGUE ON DARWINISM 161 19. ORTHODOXY AND THE THEORY OF THE JUST WAR 170 Introduction 170 Old Testament Morality? 171 The First Five Centuries 172 The Middle Ages 175 The Rise of Nationalism 181 2 The Twentieth Century 184 Conclusion: The True Revanche 185 Appendix: Orthodox Prayer for Protection of Soldiers during War 186 20. 1922: THE ASIA MINOR CATASTROPHE 186 21. THE MILLENIUM 199 22. KING ALFRED THE GREAT, THE ENGLISH DAVID 222 The Roman Consul 222 The Wild Boar 223 The Guerilla King 224 The All-English Kingdom 226 The Lover of Wisdom 228 Alfred the Man 229 Conclusion 231 23. THE CALENDAR QUESTION IN BRITISH HISTORY 232 24. THE LESSONS OF ROCOR’S FALL 237 25. GENETICS, UFOS AND THE BIRTH OF THE ANTICHRIST 247 Introduction 247 1. Man, not demon 248 2. Can demons unite with men? 250 3. Demons, Women and UFOs 255 Conclusion 257 26. CREATION OUT OF NOTHING 259 27. MOSCOW’S HOLY WARS 266 1. Uniates and Schismatics 266 2. Muslims and Terrorists 269 3. Beating the Drums of War 270 28. BRITAIN, EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER 272 29. DOES ANCESTRY MATTER? 277 30. THE STATE OF ISRAEL 279 31. THE RISORGIMENTO, VATICAN ONE AND THE FALL OF THE PAPAL STATE 294 32. TWO ABDICATIONS 304 33. THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE 307 3 INTRODUCTION This collection of essays is the third in a series, and includes articles I have written on various subjects related to True Orthodoxy in the course of 2015. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us! January 7/20, 2016. Afterfeast of the Holy Theophany. Synaxis of St. John the Baptist. 4 1. “LEVIATHAN” AND MODERN RUSSIA The great power and justification of art is that in the hands of a master it can tell the truth about God and life in a way that penetrates the minds and hearts of unbelievers and semi-believers in a way that even the best sermon often cannot. This is not to say that it can take the place of the sermon; but it can prepare the way for the better reception of the sermon at a later date. In this lies the significance of the recently released Russian film “Leviathan”.1 The title of the film is well-chosen and gives a preliminary indication of its content and meaning. The film, as the director Andrei Zvyagintsev himself has indicated, is a modern parable based on the Book of Job; Leviathan refers to the sea-monster in the 41st chapter of Job – just before Job’s vindication and the resurrection of his fortunes in chapter 42. A passage from this chapter is quoted by a local priest to the unfortunate hero. The leviathan is both the greatest of all sea-monsters and a symbol (as in the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ famous work, Leviathan) of absolutist political power: “Upon the earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over the children of pride…” (Job 41.33-34). It would be easy, therefore, to see in the Leviathan of the film the state power of the present-day Russian Federation in all its absolutist, pitiless might. And this is certainly part of the meaning. But the film is deeper and more complex than that; it is much more than a work of political protest. The film, as Monk Diodor (Larionov) has written in a fine review, is not about the corrupt state, nor about the alcoholics, adulteresses, murderers and phoney priests that use it or are abused by it. It is about God. 2 The opening sequence displays the savage but strangely beautiful setting of the action - a small town on the Murmansk peninsula, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The carcasses of whales and abandoned fishing boats litter the landscape, which is formed by massive granite boulders and the unceasing crash of the waves. It reminds us that this scenery – and God Who created it – was there long before any human leviathans existed, and will continue after the present one has become another corpse. After this peaceful, somber opening, the action is slow to pick up speed, but quickly develops until its tragic climax, when the life of the hero appears to have been completely destroyed. One is reminded of Dostoyevsky’s The Devils, which begins with similar slowness but speeds up until the final catastrophe. The main contest is between the hero and a corrupt mayor who wants to destroy his house in order to redevelop the land. The contest is an 1 The whole film (with English subtitles) can be seen on youtube: http://parkino.net/2014- 09-leviafan.php. 2 Larionov, “O Fil’me ‘Leviafane’, http://www.kiev-orthodox.org/site/faithculture/5602. 5 unequal one, and the hero loses – and not only his house. But who is to blame? The answer is obvious, and yet not obvious. The main villain is undoubtedly the mayor, who represents the corrupt State, Leviathan, most directly (he has a portrait of Putin in his office). And yet when presented with firm evidence of his past evil-doing by the hero’s lawyer, he begins to have twinges of conscience, and goes to consult the local bishop – but without telling him what is really on his mind. The bishop gives sound text-book advice, such as “All authority is from God”, but his words are strangely lifeless and do not help the mayor; we feel that he must know the truth about the mayor, and it becomes clear that he, too, is part of Leviathan. So he, and the Church he represents, is also to blame… Nor is the hero himself blameless. He drinks too much, is uncontrolled in his speech, has not brought up his son well, and has stopped going to church. Like most of the characters in the story, - with the exception of the lawyer, who, as he says, prefers “facts”, - he has some belief in God, but it is not firm, not clear. And ultimately we come to the conclusion that while the hero is a victim of Leviathan, he has also grown up in it and with it and has therefore shared in its original sin. So he, too, is to blame, even if to a lesser degree… However, this is not a tale of crime and punishment. And not simply because those whom we feel are least guilty get punished the most severely, while the most guilty get away with murder while speaking pompously and hypocritically about “truth”. Nor are we given any assurance, as in the Book of Job, that good will triumph over evil and the righteous will receive their reward from God. After all, this is a work of art, not a sermon, and its author is not trying to teach us anything, he is not a theologian. And yet we can learn something from it – something very important. * In trying to express what this “something” is, we should first take note of the unprecedented reaction to the film in Russia. Although it has received huge critical acclaim outside Russia, winning numerous prizes and being nominated for an Oscar (the first such nomination for a Russian film since 1964), the Russian authorities, both political and ecclesiastical, have turned their backs on it, as if the film had betrayed both the nation and the Church. This only goes to show that the film has hit its mark; the truth it portrays so accurately has hurt. While the salt of the official church has so tragically lost its savour, the film has supplied the vinegar necessary to expose the wound. This is encouraging; it shows that the pen (or at any rate, the film-script) is still stronger than the sword in contemporary Russia, and the traditional function of Russian literature since Gogol – to be the moral conscience of the semi-apostate educated classes – has not ceased… But while we might have expected the authorities to have reacted in this way, it is perhaps more surprising that so many ordinary people have reacted with similar disgust. 6 These are the “patriots” who support Putin and the neo-Soviet state, whose politics and aesthetic and moral tastes are evidently closely linked.