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THE THEOLOGY of POLITICAL POWER an Historical Approach to the Relationship Between Religion and Politics

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THE THEOLOGY of POLITICAL POWER an Historical Approach to the Relationship Between Religion and Politics THE THEOLOGY OF POLITICAL POWER An Historical Approach to the Relationship between Religion and Politics PART 1: ISRAEL, ROME AND BYZANTIUM (to 1453) Vladimir Moss © Copyright: Vladimir Moss, 2011. All Rights Reserved. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................4 I. THE ORIGINS, END AND MAIN KINDS OF POLITICS.............................7 The Two Kingdoms................................................................................................7 The Family and the State .......................................................................................9 Pagan Absolutism................................................................................................12 From Theocracy to Autocracy..............................................................................15 King David...........................................................................................................21 The Decline of the Israelite Autocracy.................................................................25 Athenian Democracy ...........................................................................................29 Plato on the State.................................................................................................35 Aristotle on the State ...........................................................................................41 Alexander, the Stoics and the Demise of Democracy ..........................................44 From Zerubbabel to the Maccabees......................................................................48 Herod the Great....................................................................................................53 The King of the Jews ............................................................................................55 The End of the State.............................................................................................58 II. THE BYZANTINE AUTOCRACY.................................................................60 The Duty of Obedience ........................................................................................60 The Hierarchical Principle...................................................................................63 Monarchy and Tyranny (1) Before Constantine .................................................65 St. Constantine the Great ....................................................................................70 Monarchy and Tyranny: (2) After Constantine..................................................79 Monarchy and Heresy .........................................................................................86 The Question of Religious Freedom.....................................................................91 The Rise of the Popes..........................................................................................101 The Symphony of Powers...................................................................................105 The Symphony of Nations .................................................................................111 To Obey or Not to Obey?...................................................................................114 The Dissonance of Nations ................................................................................121 The Monothelite and Iconoclast Challenge ........................................................125 St. Photius the Great..........................................................................................129 Church Canons vs. Imperial Laws.....................................................................136 The Question of Legitimacy...............................................................................139 The First Bulgarian Empire...............................................................................143 St. Vladimir the Great .......................................................................................145 The Rights of the Orthodox Autocrat................................................................149 The Slide towards Absolutism ...........................................................................153 The Nicaean Empire and the Sacrament of Royal Anointing ...........................163 The Serbian Symphony......................................................................................172 Тhe Crisis of Byzantine Statehood.....................................................................175 Тhe Sultan’s Turban and the Pope’s Tiara........................................................178 The Council of Florence .....................................................................................181 The Fall into Absolutism ...................................................................................185 2 The Fall of Constantinople.................................................................................189 III. THE WESTERN REVOLUTION: PAPIST ABSOLUTISM......................192 Charlemagne and the Papacy.............................................................................192 The Rise of the Heretical Papacy .......................................................................202 The Growth of Feudalism...................................................................................207 The German Monarchy......................................................................................212 The Germans and the Filioque...........................................................................217 The Reform Movement ......................................................................................220 The Schism of 1054............................................................................................223 The Fall of the English Autocracy .....................................................................228 The Gregorian Revolution .................................................................................236 The Crusades......................................................................................................246 The Apotheosis of Papism: Innocent III.............................................................249 The Unia ............................................................................................................253 Natural Law.......................................................................................................261 The Crisis of Medieval Authority: Boniface VIII ..............................................267 Proto-Protestantism: Marsilius and Wycliff .....................................................269 Two Proto-Democratic Revolutions ..................................................................273 The Conciliar Movement ...................................................................................277 CONCLUSION: AUTOCRACY, ABSOLUTISM AND DEMOCRACY......284 3 INTRODUCTION I was established as king by Him, upon Sion His holy mountain, Proclaiming the commandment of the Lord. Psalm 2.6. Politics is a phenomenon that is difficult to “place” within the traditional spheres of theological thought. On the one hand, it can be argued that politics has nothing at all to do with theology, except as being perhaps the foremost tool of Satan’s persecution of Christians and the Church; for it is the essence of “the world that lies in evil” and forms no part of the traditional subjects of theological knowledge: God, Christ, the Church, spirituality, the life of the age to come… On the other hand, it can equally be argued that nothing specifically human is alien to theology insofar as the aim of the Christian life is to bring all spheres of human activity into obedience to the Grace-filled life in Christ; and politics, being an inescapable and extremely important part of all organized social life, is no exception to this rule. In any case, was not Christ a King as well as a Priest and a Prophet, “the King of kings and Lord of lords”? And while He said that His Kingdom was “not of this world”, is it not significant that He spoke these words – almost His last on earth – in the context of a discussion of the origin and limits of political power with Caesar’s representative, Pontius Pilate? And did not the Prophets and Apostles speak frequently about the duties of kings and subjects, and the destinies of peoples and kingdoms – not least, of the kingdom of the Antichrist that will threaten to wipe out the last vestiges of Christianity at the end of the world? The truth is that the manifestations of political power range from genocide and the imposition of mass apostasy to the most selfless and beneficial service to mankind and the Church. Thus in opposition to Nero and Diocletian and Stalin we see the Prophet-King David, St. Constantine the Great and Tsar- Martyr Nicholas II… Moreover, just as fallen eros is transfigured and sanctified through the sacrament of crowning in marriage, so the fallen lust for power is transfigured and sanctified through the sacrament of anointing and crowning to the kingdom. There is another extremely important reason why politics should be studied as a part of theology in the broader sense: in modern times, especially since the French revolution, various political teachings have come to be believed in more than any of the traditional religions, so that the real faiths of many millions of people have been: democratism, human rights, nationalism, socialism, communism, etc. Indeed, as Paul Johnson writes, “perhaps the most significant
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