Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Ch 1: Scripture and Tradition

IN the preface of volume II, Doctrine and Teaching of the Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion teaches the traditional and apostolic distinction between public and private teaching. What the apostles preached openly to all religions and philosophies and peoples was called the kerygma. On the one side, it was a basic form and outline of the gospel that could be accommodated or accompanied by commentary on similarities between pre-Christian ideas and Christian ideas. Preachers could draw from the commonly held ground in human wisdom or music and poetry. The canon of the holy Scriptures, the written letters of the Church could be included later in kerygmatic teaching once it was made known outside the intended communities they were written for by the apostles. On the other side, the Church also has unwritten, oral or textual interpretations, teachings, doctrines that are only really understood by those who are members of the Church, who are baptized, chrismated, participating in the mysteries. These are called dogmata. Any faith community of whatever denomination cannot write down everything that they hold to be true. Every denomination has certain structures or rules, whether spoken or unspoken. Not everything that we believe can be expressed in the Bible or in written words, St. Basil the Great teaches. But nowadays dogma has been associated exclusively with a kind of text of the Church, with litigious written and public statements, with what kerygma was once considered to be. It’s an important distinction to make when considering one’s own Orthodox faith and when interacting with non-Orthodox beliefs. What the archangel Gabriel heralded is a kerygma. What the Most Holy Theotokos and Virgin Mary kept hidden in her heart is like the dogmata of the Church.

Christ Jesus opened up and interpreted the scriptures for the apostles. The apostles followed Christ Jesus and He entrusted, as the Rock, to the apostles the work of building on this foundation the Church which has all the right interpretations and needs and wise ways of living. The apostles were further enlightened and blessed to set up churches to give us the mysteries through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. So, the rules, canons, development of hierarchical organization, the right ordering of territories, catechesis, teachings, the whole New Testament canon itself, and the content and forms of musical worship in written texts come from the Church. Essentially, the Tradition of the Church has primacy to decide and discern the doctrines and teachings to be followed just as the apostles did. The Reformers effectively turned the scriptures into an absolute authority like Islam has with the Quran. Some protestants in the 16th c. kept the Bible, the kerygma, without the teachers and interpreters of the household dogmas. In 1546, in reaction to the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent was convened to proclaim authoritatively that there are two sources of dogma or doctrine in Roman Catholicism: the Scriptures and Tradition. That council unintentionally pits one against another with the primacy of the Pope as sole arbiter of interpreting or accepting interpretations on scriptural texts, canons, and tradition. So, there are very large differences between Christian denominations in its relationship to their own individual practices and the written word. For Holy Orthodoxy, as Philaret of Moscow and Metropolitan Hilarion teach, Tradition is the Church, and from it proceeds teachings, dogmas, theological decrees, canons, laws, and rules, structure, and ecclesial practices. People pass on a tradition. And people who are living in the Spirit of Truth will pass on right tradition. In the Orthodox Church, Scripture and Tradition then are naturally and always correlated.

The kerygma could be explored in much more detail. But some basic themes can be mentioned. Death is destroyed. Hades is vanquished. Healing is offered. Christ died on the cross and rose on the third day – His death, resurrection, and ascension that points to all of humanity’s resurrection. Sins can be forgiven through Christ Jesus. Freedom from passions and the Devil – our only enemy. The dogmata are interpretations of specific teachings, scriptures, and practices.

Furthermore, divine revelation precedes and leads to Tradition and Scripture, which is experience of wisdom and the Word of God and the Spirit acting in the people of God, and in the Church as witnesses. Wisdom belongs to the whole Church, not kept exclusively to a single bishop or individual above the Church. John Chrysostom teaches that there are no bad doctrines, just bad interpretations based on whether or not a person’s mind or nous is purified or not. V.N. Lossky teaches that “the natural world of human reason is enlightened by divine revelation, divine wisdom, divine truth that gives insight into nature and limits of reasoning.” In The Religion of Israel, the Hebrew biblical scholar, Yehezkel Kaufman, criticized the common opinion of biblical scholarship that hypothesized that Judaism as well as Christianity evolved out of paganism in a similar way that the model of Darwinian evolution theorized that all living things evolved out of one simple form of life. Kaufman, in contrast, argued that the religion of ancient Israel took a radical stand against the surrounding pagan cultures and religions, and rather than a biological evolution, it was rooted in divine revelation that relied on a God who is not just a Being like other beings but a God who is utterly beyond the gods and above creation itself. He interprets Judaism’s tradition of one God as wholly unrelated to any polytheistic or monotheistic (one god over other gods). In essence, the Hebrews had the idea of a meta-Being, a Being that is not comparable and above all categories of creation, human reasoning, divine creatures, above human and animal language, the laws of the universe, and time itself.

The revealed God is of the pre-existent realm; God creates out of nothing. God is revealed through the experience of the righteous and wise over the ages. Experience, unfortunately, is associated with subjective feelings, the powers of the soul, the unreliable, ever moving emotions. Orthodox Christianity also has a category that is above human reasoning called the nous (the heart, the mind). It’s our spiritual center of being unrelated to sensations of the body or soul; it’s where we encounter God and receive faith – the highest form of knowledge. Plato and Aristotle, in the Hellenistic tradition, interpreted reason as the most certain guide for truth in one’s soul because it didn’t change as did the feelings and opinions of peoples and cultures. Likewise, noetic prayer and directing our nous in divine services is higher than science, philosophy, intellectual capacity, and the feelings of the body and the powers of the soul. The experience of God is the divine being revealed to our noetic spirit or mind. The source of the scriptures is divine revelation, as recounted in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and from the Tradition of the Church. Holy Orthodoxy is completely distinct from other non-Christian religions and also from other Christian denominations. But the gods and natural divinities still reign today. In our devotion to nature, scientism is the prevailing doctrine of the world and how to live a good life. Theogony has turned into evolutionary biology. The Sibyl into psychologizing. The laws of the gods into the laws of the universe. Apotheosis into politicians, yogi spirituality, self-improvement gurus and celebrity culture. A pantheon of human ideas has been deified: buddhism, hinduism, nihilism, logical positivism, skepticism, virtue ethics, and hedonism just to name a handful of poly-philosophical traditions we have inherited in our global dialogue.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 14: Schisms

This chapter is only two pages long. It describes the situation when people start their own churches or governing bodies, and by doing that are splitting themselves apart from the Church. Factors that are common in escalating schisms are political support from secular authorities and movements, zealous overreactions to changes in a local Church, such as the ecclesial calendar, and disagreements about obtaining status as an autocephalous (self-governing) church, which would describe something like a local Church emerging out of another local Church that once had some rights and privileges over the other. For this reason, among others, politics is a grave matter to bring into the Church or temples. Metropolitan Hilarion provides a several brief examples from the Balkans and Eastern Europe to illustrate how politics can interfere with and perpetuate schisms. Governments may help to heal schisms as well. But only as a proxy, and not the direct mechanism for settling church affairs.

A complication involved in jurisdictional disputes is that governments do not distinguish between “canonical and uncanonical.” Like a person’s own body, it needs to be regulated with food, temperature, intimacy and work. The growth and independence of churches also need to follow some regularity governed by canons (rules) that are applied by those in apostolic succession: the bishops over a Church. Another simple metaphor is one’s regulation of personal and social relationships. We navigate them, hopefully, with some ways of regulating ourselves and interact based on conscious or unconscious rules of behavior. It’s realistically a messy and imperfect way of living in this dimly lit world of this age. Nevertheless, we strive for perfection of love that banishes fear and deification in Christ Jesus. Patriarch John X spoke publicly in 2015 during an interview about peace and schism in Eastern Europe. He likened schisms and the people who promote them as family members who are sick and in need of healing. Just as when all the leaders (primates) of the Church met at Jerusalem to agree on what happened and what ought to be decided about gentile Christians, so too John X was expressing the principle of love that is conciliar, collegial, not according to the world of coercion and self-will, or absolute autonomy. When someone in our family falls deathly ill, we should dialogue with each person involved in care taking, since stress, emotions, intense disagreements are inevitably going to rise up.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 13: The Practical Application of the Principle of Canonical Territory

In practice up until World War I there were no jurisdictions overlapping each other. Because of mass migrations, political upheaval, and massive wars, jurisdictions weren’t applied ideally. That doesn’t mean, though, that catholicity or unity or the integrity of the Church was severely compromised. The chaos did have negative effects in complicating church governance and confusing Christians who are living in a foreign land. Another result was that Russian Orthodox Christians in western Europe began creating their own church outside of the Moscow Patriarchate, which was often viewed as complicit in the atheistic government of the Soviet Union. World War II created more communities abroad. The so-called “ethnic” churches, for both Roman Catholics and Orthodox, during the world war periods of immigration, have been largely dissolved in terms of young people continuing the faith, language, and culture of their European ancestry or the Middle Eastern lifestyle. Hispanic immigrants to this country are maybe an exception to the rule of losing one’s language and persisting in having a foot in two cultures in the USA. But overall, the principle of monarchic bishops or respecting canonical territory is still observed. There isn’t one Church called the “the Church of North America” yet. Despite that, the ecclesiastical governance practiced by hierarchs now in Orthodoxy is still probably more cohesive than the principles that rely on free social contracts and pursuits of self-interest that have sacrificed religious identity, mores, and social expectations or rules for such a high degree of personal liberty and choice that has been unheard of until our modern age. As a result, everything is up for debate. We grow up with the burden of defining our own identity to such an excruciating point that even our gender becomes a topic for identity. Everything becomes about conversation instead of given values and the common good as a foundation for dialogue. Discovering what people expect rather than following standards of behavior is the new norm. These ultimately have an effect on church jurisdictions and personalities. But they are not brought up in the chapter. In the Church we have a much clearer identity, and much more freedom to find ourselves through relationships that are both stable and energized by our longings. St. Euphrosyne of Alexandria, for instance, was a young woman who wished not to marry, but the world wanted to impose its standards on her. So, she disguised herself as a man and lived in a monastery for 38 years in ascetic discipline until her father discovered her. Then he himself too became a monk and gave up his wealth. The Church fosters freedom. It nurtures stability.

Borders of nations aren’t always perfectly matched to canonical territory is another interesting aspect of Orthodoxy. Borders were probably more fluid in relationship to people in previous times, even relatively recently in American history of homesteading and colonizing the western half of the United States. Even then travel and transportation wasn’t always so quick and easy to do as it is today. That must have an effect on the perception and experience of Orthodox Christians who tend to move a lot more than earlier generations. Values that are present in American culture are: interdependence vs. independence, travel/free movement vs. stability, community vs. autonomy. The enterprising Rurik dynasty of Russia too had values that weren’t entirely helpful in preserving along side of Orthodox Christianity. Polygamy, sorcery, nature worship just to name a few. Of course, all of these values listed are on a spectrum that operate within interrelationships, not strict categories, that also live in different degrees of expression in each individual and place. Metropolitan Hilarion briefly brings up the cultural aspect of Orthodoxy in Russia. It’s a country where historically the majority of the population identify as Orthodox Christians. Those important elements would influence certain decisions that could be made for local councils and practices in the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate. What does it matter? Christ told the apostles and the Holy Apostle Peter, after his astonishment of the miracle, that he would be “catching men” instead of fish. To capture people’s hearts and minds is more powerful than simply taking territory by manipulation and violence, and it's the best way to govern where people live in a certain region and culture. Where the Romans built baths and plumbing, Christians built baptistries and hospitals. Where the Romans built colosseums for entertainment, Christians built altars for the Eucharist. Where the Greeks had built gymasiums and academies, Christians built monasteries and catechetical schools. Where the Romans built statues, basilicas, and mosaics, Christians turned these buildings into temples, icons of the most truly transfigured reality, and beautified the walls for heavenly worship. Today Russia isn’t a territory where missionary activity is really permitted as it is now in North America. The boats of Orthodoxy flow over the waters of the world in chaos. But we worship peacefully and in unity between regions and the ever-changing borders in the middle of this global glamor because we have been given the Eucharist.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 12: The Contemporary Canonical Strucutre of the Orthodox Church

A diocese is the term later applied to an independent Church region that was run by rules or canons (kanon in Greek) that were applied and practiced through the “principle of the monarchic episcopate.” Monarchic meant that one bishop led one city, region, or maybe a country. Beyond that level, councils were held with other bishops, elders, deacons, people. It seems that councils where issues needed to be resolved were held at the locations where it originated. For example, the council of Jerusalem convened to settle disputes about whether gentile Christians had to observe certain Jewish rituals to be a member of the Church. It wasn’t held at Rome or Antioch, nor was it settled by Alexandria or the regions of Asia Minor. Diocese used to be an older administrative unit of the Roman empire that included provinces or a governor’s jurisdictional territory (dioikesis - across the house, housekeeping in Greek). But it would be a mistake to think that the way that the Roman empire was run is identical to that of the Church just because a term was borrowed from that time and cultural experience. While there may be some comparison between a provincial governor’s responsibilities over a region like that of a bishop, there is not an emperor bishop or imperial bishopric role identified in the canons of the Church or by apostolic tradition, or in any writings of the holy fathers.

Metropolitan Hilarion doesn’t give much detail on what canons are, how they are used, their source, writings. He mentions the Apostolic Institutions, a very early document of the faith. Canon is a church rule or even a “law” so to speak. The principle of Church unity is holy orders through love, not Judaic observance of laws. The mystical heart matters in the application of rules. Canon could mean a rod for measuring. The Greek word is borrowed from the Hebrew kaneh. It’s a straight a reed stick used as a standard. Canons imply wisdom that is found only in the experience of the glowing glory of God. Christ is the true reed that shoots out of dead dirt and grows up out of the ground — the resurrection manifested in every local land or canonical territory. We recognize that Christ is the power of growth and the glue that holds dioceses, archdioceses, patriarchates together over the ages. His Body is the reality revealed through the unity of bishops who shepherd flocks of peoples, shoals of fish overflowing, and homelands toward the altar of the Eucharist. That is the miraculous reed of rules we follow. The subtle, poetic heart of Hebrew and Aramaic gives us another ancient image that was recounted by the Holy Apostle John the Theologian’s vision and by the Holy Prophet Ezekial. They describe who held the measuring reed and how the temple and altar was to be measured and approached. Ezekial prophesies: And he brought me thither, and behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate. We also know that the gospels recount Christ being given and holding a reed in his hand (also seen as a rood or cross in our icon of Christ) after his flogging. The reed or cross is what we use to measure all things in life and in death, in church governance and right order, in sherpherding and in duties, and in personal relationships.

Today “local Church” means that there is a larger organizational structure that includes dioceses that are led by patriarchates, metropolias, and archdioceses and primates and hierarches (first rulers and holy rulers) with corresponding ranks: patriarch, metropolitan, archbishop, archpriest. In this layer of the Church, collegiality is the operating principle of governance and order. Direct intervention of one bishop over another is not a canonical way to express order or unity in the history of the Church. In other words, there doesn’t exist any principle of episcopus episcoporum (a bishop of bishops) in a monarchic sense that would give one bishop the right to intervene into the business of another bishop’s church. The Antiochian Orthodox Church or the Patriarchate of Antioch, for instance, has the highest dogmatic authority at that local level, like the Patriarchate of Moscow or the Russian Orthodox Church, through councils of bishops or synods (meetings). Some local Churches have “national councils,” like in Russian territory, and some don’t. Here at St. John the Forerunner, we are in the Patriarchate of Antioch and in the Archdiocese of North America and in the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America. As we have read about the example of Russia and Baptism of the lands of the Rus’, patriarchates often have a local history of Christianization in either a city or a country of loosely related peoples and cultures. The expectation that every Church should speak the same language and have a strict kind of uniformity is probably a unique modern perspective among western Christians. There is always tension between rigidity and freedom. It shouldn’t be surprising that God works in each place and in his own way with the people that are currently in a country or cultural pocket of a territory. It wouldn’t be out of character with the Holy Trinity that the Church works differently with people in Texas than in California, as well as all of the Americas: the U.S., Mexico, South America, Alaska, and Canada. Another unsurprising fact is that a large portion of Europe is historically Orthodox, not Roman Catholic or Protestant: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Cyprus, Macedonia, Georgia as well as minorities in Czechia and Slovakia (Rusyns or Carpathian Rus’), and Calabria, Italy. That makes up about 95% of contemporary Orthodoxy. It’s worth noting that Patriarchates or local Churches are often based out of major cities, not based strictly on ethnicity or patriotism as a foundation: *Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Moscow. And the Orthodox Church in America includes the canonical territory of the USA, Mexico and Canada – the North American continent, as it’s listed in this chapter by Metropolitan Hilarion. Many Spanish speakers are aware that we in the USA as well as in Mexico are all North Americans. We share a similar history and culture, especially in Texas, in the same broad sense of saying European or Asian. Spanish is a very American language as well as French and English and other Native American languages. Some native Alaskans have been practicing Orthodoxy much earlier than us in Texas. Like newer Orthodox Churches in Finland and Japan, the North American Orthodox Church may some day have its own independent structure or autocephaly (self-rule). As of now, because of so much immigration and missionary activity here, an autocephalous North American Orthodox Church has not solidified. A pan-Orthodox council, according to Metropolitan Hilarion, isn’t necessary to ensure catholicity and unity in Holy Orthodoxy. It isn’t clear if that is also the view of other patriarchates. Metropolitan Hilarion explains that there is no “mechanism” at the global level for direct control over catholicity or unity or even autocephaly and dissolving pressing problems. He may be hinting at the absolute authority that the Roman pontiff holds. But other patriarchs have expressed the view in interviews that a meeting of all the primates would be beneficial to settling problems that would affect the unity of world Orthodoxy. The heavenly Jerusalem is the kingdom of heaven. Wherever all bishops meet, whenever they all meet to agree, the heavenly city is present. Unity isn’t something to be imposed by fear or force, but by abiding in love, in Christ Jesus who is the head of all Churches in heaven and on earth.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 11: The Formation of the Canonical Structure of the Orthodox Church

Metropolitan Hilarion begins by describing how the apostles set up bishops and elders who oversaw cities and its regions: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Carthage. It’s noteworthy that the missionary activity and the first examples of churches and territories that bishops oversaw were not primarily “home churches” nor was the papal supremacy principle operating in Rome yet. Many other cities of the Roman empire too were incorporated into ecclesial order of the Church by hierarchy: bishops and deacons. It’s an obvious New Testament fact that priests and ecclesial rules are set out for future Christian generations. The earliest witnesses of Orthodoxy viewed the bishop and presbyter as almost the same in function. There was not much of a difference between them. St. Ignatius taught the guiding idea of the “monarchic episcopate.” The Church would be governed by one bishop as head of a local area or church with priests or presbyters standing in as representatives of the bishop who couldn’t attend all local churches at once.

It was never allowed that a church could celebrate the eucharist without the knowledge of the bishop. This close relationship of holy orders is important because it ensures that the people will be served and the eucharist as well as other mysteries will be offered. The locality was eventually labeled a diocese after the Latin term used for organizing imperial regions. By this historical fact we discern that there is no other higher authority other than one locality’s bishop who oversees his local, ecclesial community, who is also in communion with other bishops. The apostles worked in different cities, regions, among different cultures. But they worked with one mind and with knowledge of one another. There was a council held in Jerusalem, again without all the elements required for a modern understanding of the papacy: no Rome, no throne, the leader of the apostles, Peter, working with all the apostles and elders – an amazing example of church governance laid out in the New Testament. The “collegium” of bishops and deacons made decisions, which the apostles were keen to show by example, since they understood that their own end would be soon. So, the church is run by apostolic bishops who are “monarchic” in their own locality but also take council among his delegates. It’s also important to remember that the mysteries are given specially by the permission of the bishop. The universal relationship between churches are maintained by the bishops.

Canonical territory comes from the idea that a bishop orders the affairs, concerns, problems, growth of his own church’s locality, region or community. A common assumption among western Christians is that churches just sprang up like from the principles of evolutionary biology. But the church is made up of human beings, and that entails an order of interrelationships, which explains much more than scientific stories. At the heart of dioceses and churches are personal relationships, not simply the continuation of a brand of culture or institutional name. Orthodoxy balances the distance of bishops and people with priests and deacons, the distance of regions with other local bishops, and all distances return to a focal point in the catholicity of Orthodoxy: the otherworldly Eucharist. So, the canons or rules of remaining in one’s own territory are meant to keep the balance of communion as every interpersonal relationship tries to capture. The Apostolic Canons ca. 4th c. , an ancient writing and witness of Orthodox ecclesiology, gives us these rules for liturgical life. The local church represents one body among many other bodies which all are in Christ’s Holy Body because of the eucharist and the incarnation.

Autocephaly seems to be a very fluid concept and process. The modern canons of territory have been greatly affected by losing communion with Rome among the order of local churches, the Muslim conquests of the Middle East, and the atheistic regimes of our own times that have caused mass migrations.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 10: The Orthodox Church on the Threshold of the Third Millennium

The anonymous 8th c. Anglo Saxon poem called The Ruin describes the Roman structures left in the city of Bath. It goes:

This masonry is wondrous; fates broke it, courtyard pavements were smashed, the work of giants is decaying. Roofs are fallen, ruinous towers, the frosty gate with frost on cement is ravaged, chipped roofs are torn, fallen, undermined by old age.The grasp of the earth possesses the mighty builders, perished and fallen, the hard grasp of earth, until a hundred generations of people have departed.Often this wall, lichen-grey and stained with red, experienced one reign after another, remained standing under storms; the high wide gate has collapsed. Still the masonry endures.

Like this poetic description of these structural walls weathering hardships and finally giving out, the Church continues building literal temples, without lament for past ruins of Byzantium. We are continually being trampled and yet we continue in faithfulness by the power of the Cross of Christ. The masonry of Holy Trinity’s faithfulness, so to speak, will always endure even when it seems the world has torn it all down.The whole of the Church’s history, structure, and canons that have survived are revolving around the divine services. Many people nowadays in the third millennium like many before us hold to a philosophy that presupposes that meaning is created from ourselves, from our own choices, from our own will. No need to find it inside a church. The Church is a place where we discover that self-denial is a life-giving philosophy, not a life negating one. Persecution, insults, mockery, misfortunes, false accusations, rejections are what Christ warned us that we will confront. Extreme humility experienced in these circumstances has the miraculous potential to solidify the faith in a person and community, and it could wall up our hearts for protection. But to reject religion and the Church sounds like a courageous commitment to finding truth for yourself and one’s self development. It’s unpopular and against the common opinion to believe that meaning and life come from the Church where inside of a building, at an altar, we are given unique access to the mysteries of life and death. After centuries of persecution by a variety of religious and atheistic groups from the east to the west, Orthodoxy worldwide is rebounding in terms of churches being restored, built, and believers entering the Church. Orthodoxy in western cultures could be described as a missionary effort on the scale of converting large portions of the pagan Roman empire and widespread Hellenism comparable to today’s atheism.

A common ground and ethos that is broken between western Christians and Orthodoxy is the reading of eastern patristics, or its interpretation. It isn’t due to a lack of resources or technology that we are often ignorant of them. But because we haven’t become interested in what the eastern fathers have to say to us, we don’t make space and time for a silence to hear them and their wisdom, which is Orthodox. Their examples and icons are the antidotes to our public mental health crisis, as our own iconographers and writers have observed. They are largely absent in feast days, structural features, pastoral applications, icons, books, homilies, catechetical materials and education in non-Orthodox western places of worship. The mysteries in the divine services, the patristic writings, saints’ lives, icons, monks and nuns, ordinary parish life have never stopped inspiring new generations of Orthodox Christians. Is there a noticeable difference between the health of western Christianity and Orthodoxy? Metropolitan Hilarion argues that there is as it is evident in the Church’s historical and miraculous survival and recent growth like a reed shooting up out of the mud. Scholarship and theological books as well as iconography and temple structures have been ways that Orthodoxy has clearly witnessed to the world the good news, and not only to non-religious individuals but also importantly to other Christian denominations. Bishop Kallistos from England and Jean-Claude Larchet from France, for instance, have been doing this kind of witnessing work of renewal. The next chapter discusses how world Orthodoxy is organized canonically.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 9: Orthodoxy in the Twentieth Century

Immediately after the Russian Revolution, many people didn’t just stop being Orthodox, although the trend in hostility toward it magnified around the time of 1917. Many were martyred with their lands confiscated. This period also manifested an intense political hatred of the royal family who stood in the way of more radical ideas, probably because of their association with Christianity. Leo Tolstoy, as we read earlier, did not promote Orthodoxy but a kind of patriotic and intellectual ethnocentrism. Dostoevsky warned Russia of the revolution in his writings like a prophet. St. John of Kronstadt also had predictions about the coming disaster and he preached a return to the Orthodox faith. With the intelligentsia’s new ideological movements and the monarch’s failure in governing Russia was led to the February and then the October Revolution of 1917.

The poet, Mikhail Lermontov, foreboded in 1830:

The year will come, that black year for Russia,

When the crown of the tsars will fall;

The masses will forget their erstwhile love for him,

And death and blood will be the food of many;

When children and innocent women

Will no longer be protected by the law, trampled upon and rejected;

Metropolitan Hilarion doesn’t view this event as an “accident of history.” Consequences follow ideas isn’t a popular frame of mind today. Orthodoxy teaches that the real “godless enemies” are the demonic creatures, not human beings, even if they are vicious, ignorant, and sinful. This explains why the clergy and people were brutally murdered in Russia for their faith in God. In America, President Woodrow Wilson advocated for democracy, peace, open borders for free trade, free maritime navigation that set the stage for later American cultural development. For us Orthodox Americans, 20th c. Russian Orthodoxy has a huge potential to teach us how to preserve our identity in the Orthodox Church, and not to invest our whole life in the world of change, the tribal media, and revolutionary sentiments. From our previous chapters on Russian literature, the intelligentsia basically created another culture within the country. The American landscape might be creating a similar situation where we have different cultures, not based on ethnicity or language, but on values and philosophies. Those ideas either destroy or create beauty as we’ve seen with the flowering of literature, iconography, and sainthood in Russia as well as with the reign of Peter the Great and the Bolshevik revolution.

But more importantly and more beautifully, we can become transfigured during times of peace and flourishing renaissances, as we’ve read previously. We can also become transfigured through persecutions and rejection from our culture and government. There is some value in studying history. But the only stable philosophy is Orthodoxy and the path of deification (salvation) we take starting here in this life, as the holy fathers have instructed us in wisdom. The Bolshevik government established “pathological” programs to wipe out religion. Like the Roman empire, the revolutionaries sought to remake the country’s people into themselves. But in reality Bolshevism and atheism, like secular institutions we’re familiar with, become a form of religion with ritual behaviors, hierarchical authority, dogmas, sacrifices, and altars of worship. Like in Babylon, statues of men and their ideology were built to be worshipped. This chapter can give us a wiser and stronger perspective as American Orthodox Christians.

This chapter also covers the Russian diaspora and the renewal of Orthodoxy. The last two smaller sections deal with the ancient Eastern Patriarchates, Orthodoxy in Europe, and Orthodoxy in America, Australia, and Asia – the ends of the earth. These sections could be filled out in much more detail for oursleves in the western hemisphere. When Orthodoxy started to arrive in these parts of the world, we discern thst the promise has been being fulfilled that all nations will be his inheritance. It’s a promise that was given to our father, Abahram with whom we eat, drink, and worship at the altar of the divine liturgy every Sunday. He too is part of our geneology, inheritance and identity.

In Russia, three major church jurisdictions were created, or separated from each other, and these formed the diaspora. The first was the synod led by Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) had the most people in numbers. They separated themselves from communion with the Moscow patriarchate during Patriarch Tikhon’s time. They called themselves the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia or the Church Abroad. Some refer to this as the “Karlovtsy schism” because of the synod that decided to separate met in Karlovtsy, Serbia. The second was led by Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgievsky). They separated from the Karlovsty group. The third, least popular, and smallest were led by clergy and bishops who remained loyal to the Moscow patriarchate. It grew in number after WWII and they were viewed as tainted by their associations with the revolutionary government. Despite all those antagonistic relationships, the diaspora began to renew itself in the second and third quarters of the 20th c. For example, many of the intellectual and artistic groups of Russian Orthodox congregated at St. Sergius Institute in Paris. Tech companies like the monarchical Meta, the royally popular Steve Jobs, the New York Times and the “cathedrals” such as Yale University function exactly like religions in American culture, and all of these groups somehow sound so “synoptic” and preach their own good news. Similarly, the Russian intelligentsia were the educated and powerful who swayed society one way or another like waves on the ocean. The Russian scholars, artists, iconographers, theologians, philosophers were as brilliant as they were courageous. They are some of the best examples of how to flourish in the middle of chaos.

The fact that many educated Russians were acquainted with the French language, western European culture and philosophy, up-to-date on political movements helped them adapt and find renewal within Russian Orthodoxy. Much of previous Russian theology influenced by Latin began at the Kiev Theological Academy. Diaspora writers such as Archpriest Georges Florovsky, Vladimir Lossky, Protopresbyter John Meyendorff, Protopresbyter Nicholas Afanasiev, Archpriest Sergei Chetverikov, Nicholas Berdyaev and Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov returned to studying the fathers of the eastern Church.

The Paris School and its Orthodox revival guided many Orthodox to study St. Symeon the New Theologian, St. Gregory Palamas and other eastern patristic writings. During the 1950s, Russians from the Paris School immigrated to the United States. For example, Georges Florovsky, Alexander Schmemann, and John Meyendorff – almost common names among American Orthodox converts. St. Sophrony of Essex moved from France to England. He was also connected to the school in Paris, and he was close to St. Silouan of Mt. Athos. He has a spiritual and scholarly understanding of the Orthodox idea of personalism. He taught that God’s love and revelation of Jesus Christ is lived through personal communion with the Holy Trinity. That God is personal in relationship to us and also exists, He is Existence, as hypostasis (Greek word for substance or person). Love and hypostasis, or personhood, are one and the same. God never destroys his creation forever, as the demonic creatures would wish to happen.

For this reason, nihilism is best described as the anarchical philosophy of demons. It’s the same lie whispered and the same doubts put into the minds of men. That there is no morality. There is no meaning. There is no God. Except for what we will to create. But God doesn’t annihilate his creation; annihilationism is a heresy some Christians have believed. The wisdom books of scripture teach that human nature is like gold, silver or iron that might need to be beaten and placed in the fire for the metals to be formed and shine in the sun, and that may come as misfortune on the righteous and wise. Human nature is good; vices and ignorance darken and clog our minds, the holy apostles and fathers have always taught. St. Sophrony teaches that “God is Light, in which there is no darkness, and we are called on to become light in the divine eternity” (We Shall See Him As He is, Essex, 1985, 204). If men love darkness, they think that they love and do the good. They actually do the opposite. They lack wisdom, as the scriptures instruct us and St. Sophrony of Essex describes, and his teaching is in tradition with St. Symeon the New Theologian and the hesychasts of the 14th c. that we read in previous chapters of this volume.

St. Sophrony teaches about the divine light, “Sometimes one does not feel matter: neither one’s own, nor the reality surrounding us, and one sees oneself as if one were light … This holy light, which manifests its power, brings with it humble love, banishes all doubt and fear, and leave all earthily cares far behind … it gives our spirit knowledge of another Existence that defies description; the mind stands still, having transcended thought by entering into a new form of life … our spirit triumphs: this Light is God …”

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 8: The Russian Church during the Synodal Period, Part 2

In Chapter 8 (pp.210-255), Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev surveys some of the most important literary figures of Russian history during the synodal period, and well-known to world literature. Writers such as Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Leskov, and Chekhov. Sometimes the poets reflect the deep religious heritage of Orthodoxy, while at other times these poets express a chasm of cynical influence that departed from the life of the Church.

Unlike the history in the chapter on Orthodoxy in Rus’, secular literary culture develops with inspiration from literary and social movements in western Europe. While Francis of Assisi and St. Mikhail the Holy Fool for Christ in Novgorod could criticize the worldliness and terrible examples of the monarchs during their times, the idea of secularism didn’t exist until the monarchy or a strong executive leader, like a CEO or Elon Musk, was overthrown as a governing body. This institution, like a modern, monarchic company, was abolished along with Christianity from the public sphere. The Russian intelligentsia are like the Enlightenment thinkers, scholastics, monastics who were the intellectual rivers of power in a culture. The reforms of emperor Peter I made secular culture possible. Russian monarchy accepted secularism along with a sort of conciliar ecclesial body called the Synod who was oversaw by the oberprocurator – “the eye of the emperor.” There were lot of questionable elections and political maneuvering that involved how the Orthodox hierarchy would function within the Synod. In 1723, the abolishment of the Moscow patriarchate was acknowledged by the patriarchates of Constantinople and Antioch who called the Russian Synod the “sister in Christ.” Synod simply means gathering, and instead of a more solid authority coming from the patriarch, the synod would become more liquid and collegial in nature. This was Tsar Peter’s vision for the Russian Church to avoid a confusion between two highly concentrated centers of power. Metropolitan Hilarion identifies this idea of Peter’s as a Protestant influence. Ancient Rome and Byzantium had the concept of dual consuls or dual emperors for a long time. Our own political system seems to monopolize on the idea that competing and “parallel” governing bodies, the three branches, will safeguard any one person or corporation form rising to the top. But maybe Peter the Great foresaw that competition would eventually lead to a sole victor, and one of those would either be the monarch or patriarch as the supreme ruler of the country. The old Byzantine ideal of symphony was abandoned in Russia with the loss of the patriarchate and the adoption of the synod.

History has shown that many empires and monarchies supported within its structures a multi-ethnic and multi-religious, mostly minority status, society with vibrant economic exchange. At other times not so much. All ideologies, as it seems from this zoom in view of history in Russia and France, that come after this movement could be said to be post-monarchical from an historical perspective: secularism, communism, democracy, capitalism, fascism, nationalism. Many of these philosophies the Russian intellectuals reacted and synthesized from neighboring Europeans. This chapter offers a survey of Russian literature, and many of the writers interact with these concepts or their influences and associated ideas. The Church, the heavenly Jerusalem, is above these considerations and eternal, not limited like what has been instituted by mankind and our worldly wisdom.

Before Russians lived mostly within Orthodoxy and monarchy as well as strong noble families called boyars who seemed to have been absorbed either into the monarchy of Muscovy or into the later intelligentsia. Other cultural pursuits did not exist on the horizon yet, as Metropolitan Hilarion would like us to remember. Peter I favored a French attitude toward art, music, education, philosophy, and religion. That isn’t necessarily a negative development as long as it respected Orthodoxy’s importance, and there are many saints and martyrs from the lands of the Anglo-Normans, the Franks, the Gauls and the Merovingians who are Orthodox. Peter the Great borrowed many social styles and ideas from the greatest European minds and powers of his time. An oversight that resulted from these western reforms were that they contributed to revolutionary ideas as a consequence. It’s not clear if Metropolitan Hilarion sees western influence in itself as the cause of later societal decay and decline in Orthodoxy or if it’s simply the result of political strife between the intelligentsia and the royal family.

From the chapter itself, it sounds as if western European culture was imposed unwillingly onto Russian society from the top down. Rather than view the situation as a foreign cultural movement infecting Russian society, it might be better to analyze it from the view that Orthodoxy could’ve converted French intellectual traditions and political developments through literary works, philosophical texts, and poetry. That’s what many Russian writers have done. This transformation and common ground that they’ve created between Orthodoxy and western Europe is something to appreciate and study. Many Russian intellectuals weren’t as open as others to Europe. Some Russians saw a clash where others saw a closeness between the French, or Franco-Latins as A. Trubetskoi pejoratively called them. Russia has become a real civilization that straddles both the Silk Route and the European continent, which is exactly what many European explorers had achieved by navigation rather than by land. So, in many respects, Russians are much akin to Europeans and Asians, and for this reason a tradition arose that began to refer to Russia as one of the Eurasian civilizations. Several topics within this chapter bring out this tension or unison, however we may want to interpret, during 19th c. Russian culture. First, some writers sought to unite Orthodoxy under the Pope of Rome to create a super-state religion of the world. Second, some writers advanced the idea that Sophia or Wisdom was a personification of the female side of God, and they introduced a fourth person into the Holy Trinity similarly to the filioque controversy. Third, there were arguments between so-called cultural Westerners and Slavophiles. The former embraced a more western European culture and the latter generally favored a more Russian nativist perspective regarding the identity of Russians that was rooted in Orthodoxy and peasant farming as well as other pan-Slavic philosophies. These ideas are two sides of the same nationalist coin. Nationalism is again another by product of the Enlightenment. This chapter can show us that Orthodoxy develops in diverse environments and cultures; there is no deus ex machina that one or another form of government can save the Orthodox Church. There also isn’t any determinism for us in American culture. Many of us such as the Silicon Valley elite, Harvard intellectuals, the media ministers, the caesar-like CEOs, big corporations, the legal powerhouses, the myriad of cultural movements aiming at what is thought to be good could all some day convert. We could use our powers, strength and unity in Orthodoxy. Our culture could convert, not like the forced baptisms or imperial decrees. But just as the most powerful empire we’ve studied, ancient Rome, was taken by the love of Christians. That’s the value of studying Metropolitan Hilarion’s volumes. We don’t have to limit ourselves to an obsession with recent tweets or events. Christian history doesn’t have to end at the 18th c., 17th c. or even the 15th c. We can choose not to ignore what has happened in the 7th c. during Iconoclasm, Late Byzantium, the Crusades, Hesychasm, and Peter’s Russian Empire. History isn’t a weapon, which is how it can be used recklessly. But it can be a wealth of wisdom if used rightly. All of these events somehow shape Orthodoxy in the 20th c. and the persecutions of the faith in Russia. But it also marks the renewal of Russian Orthodoxy in many ways. Orthodoxy also started to spread to western and eastern cultures around the globe, as we will read in the next chapter. Orthodoxy is the Kingdom of God. It’s not of this world but of the age to come. Many kingdoms and empires over the ages have attempted to extend power and rule by incorporating and changing the conquered to become like the victors. This was the general procedure for the Roman empire — to make the whole inhabited world Roman. In the same way, in the end of time, just as the Son is subject to the Father, so too all of humanity, both the sinners and righteous as the scriptures teach, will be subject to God the Father.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 8: The Russian Church during the Synodal Period, Part 1

In Chapter 8 (pp.171-210), Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev recounts how the Russian patriarchate was lost and replaced by the synodal structure under the emperor Peter I who introduced many reforms into Russian culture and religion that had far-reaching effects into the titanic events of the 20th c. The relationship between church and state took on more of the style of competitors than collaborators. Much of the so-called western influence came from exchanges between French monarchy and Russian ruling class. This interesting mix would later manifest in Russian literature and cultural movements. But it can be argued that French-Russian relations began much earlier when Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise married off his daughter, Anna of Kiev, to king Henry I of France whose lineage survives through the earls of England, many of whom fought with William the Conqueror in 1066. Anna became Queen of France around 1051.

On the one hand, the Russian Orthodox Church grew in numbers, education and schools were set up by the emperor for churches and monasteries, industry and technology developed, and successful missionary was conducted in Siberia, the Far East in China and Japan and the Alaskan territory of North America. The noetic tradition of prayer was revived, and many spiritual fathers rose up in leadership, when the Church needed it. Great, heroic saints such as Seraphim of Sarov, Innocent of Irkutsk, John of Kronstadt, Paisy Vleichkovsky, and Philaret of Moscow should be remembered.

On the other hand, the great sainthood of Russia coincides with reforms that foreshadowed the country’s revolutionary chaos of 1917. It was also a terrible time for all monarchies around the world, especially in Europe.

Some Russian Christians termed this synodal period “the Babylonian Captivity.” Leaders chosen by Peter I ran the synod with not so pious motives. The “intelligentsia” or educated elite forgot the faith and left in droves, and the western styled education created an unfortunate “clerical caste” in society, but more importantly clergy and people distanced themselves from genuine Orthodox tradition.

But the Orthodox Church never loses sight of what is ultimately important in the middle of political or cultural changes. Evidence of that is seen in the revitalization of Russian elderhood and noetic prayer. For example, in a story about St Seraphim of Sarov and Motovilov, on conversing in the Spirit, Seraphim says to Motovilov:

As good as prayer, fasting, vigils and all other Christian deeds are in themselves, the aim of our Christian life consists not only in doing them, although they are necessary means to attainting it. The true aim of our Christian life lies in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God.

These examples show us that wisdom flourishes everywhere; it’s universal to mankind. The Old Testament and New Testament testify to this knowledge and truth – that Christ Jesus is Wisdom. The Wisdom of Solomon 1:7 (who was a king and the wisest person) speaks of “the loving spirit” that fills the righteous who strive for moral heights and the glory of virtues that shine and are sharpened by trials and tresting, in study and struggle, in faithfulness and true friendships. That’s fulfilled in Christ the King of Glory who will always have the victory and the last word. This chapter has far-reaching significance for Christians everywhere, especially for us in the United States, for anyone under many different forms of government and cultures.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 7: Orthodoxy in Rus'

The title of this chapter gives us a starting point for understanding the development of the Russian Orthodox Church. Its homeland covers several different countries today that was called the lands of the Rus’. The political and social organization were formed by the Norse from Scandinavia. From Rurik to St. Vladimir the Great, they ruled over the Slavic and some Finnic peoples of Northern Russia and Ukraine. That would make the Normans, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians cousins with the modern Russian peoples as well as through royal intermarriage much later in European history. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans and a separated Roman Catholic Church in Italy and in the rest of Europe created the space for Russia to control more of its own interests and spiritual development. Russian history in this chapter is divided into Kievan and then Muscovite Orthodoxy. It indicates a change in the political and religious center of the Rus’ territory.

We’ve also learned before about the importance of the ancient cities of the lands of the Rus’ and Prince Vladimir’s Baptism of the Slavs with Kiev as an important political and spiritual center. The first section of this chapter outlines the political and spiritual background of the metropolia of Kiev. Metropolia means etymologically the mother city. The first metropolitan of Kiev was Michael in the 10th c. We know that Prince Vladimir married into the Byzantine monarchy through Anna. There were parish schools, growing cities, and about 400 churches built by the end of St. Vladimir’s rule with episcopal seats in the cities of Novgorod and Polotsk. The Cathedral of Holy Wisdom was built in Novgorod as well as in Kiev. The process and details of how the Rus’ became Christian is covered in the famous literary works of the Tale of Bygone Years and Metropolitan Hilarion’s Sermon on Law and Grace. Just as many nations before had done, the rulers of the Rus’ reinterpreted past history to show how God’s providence ruled and ordered events in favor of one’s kingdom, people, and Christianization. In a time when freedom of religion, democratic elections, and human rights didn’t exist as a concept, “mass baptisms” in ancient Russia is recorded as a success and gift from God. It is the near total replacement of Slavic paganism with Orthodoxy. Even in the 12th c. most of the metropolitans “of Kiev and all the Rus’” were Greeks. Over time, Greek hierarchy were replaced by native Russians.

In the 13th c. Batu Khan and the Golden Horde moved west into Russian lands and cities sacking towns and ushering in the period called the Mongol-Tatar Yoke. The steppe lands of Eastern Europe and Central Asia have seen this pattern over millennia, and it’s in fact from the very same source that the Indo-Europeans of ancient times entered Europe and changed the indigenous cultures already there. In the west, the Catholic Teutonic knights, being an extension of the Pope’s hand, posed another threat to Russia, a physical and spiritual danger of converting to Rome’s faith and forgetting Orthodoxy .The reason Russia has always needed a strong ruler is that it’s always poised to handle threats from either its western or eastern flank. So, Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod decided not to prolong a war with the Tatars but to maintain a diplomatic relationship with them. There was a crusade ordered by Pope Gregory IX against the Russians and Finns carried out by the Swedish monarchy. Alexander defeated the Swedes and the Livonian order at Lake Peipus. He also rejected offers to conversion from Pope Innocent IV through letters and cardinals sent in person to persuade his kingdom to become incorporated under the Pope and western powers. It seems from this chapter that Metropolitan Hilarion describes the rule of the Mongol-Tatars as devastating but overall less intrusive into the religious life of Russian Christians than would be the direct control of Roman Catholicism and other European monarchs who constantly had an interest in converting Russians just as they had in the councils of Ferrrara-Florence and Lyons. The Golden Horde seemed to have more interest in collecting taxes than reforming Russian churches or converting them like the Ottomans or the Teutonic orders. But both princes and metropolitans were required to obtain a yarlyk (permission) through the Mongol bureaucracy before acting in ecclesiastical or governmental offices.

In the 14th c., Metropolitan Peter and his successors moved to Moscow, and it became “de facto” center of metropolia. The shift from Kiev to Moscow was largely due to the city’s growth and importance when Grand Prince (a Tatar title) Ivan I Kalita ruled. It was also a strong city to begin the fight against Mongol-Tatar rule. Also, spiritual figures such as holy Prince Dimitry Donskoy, St. Alexei and St. Sergius of Radonezh lived during the Muscovite period. They represent in Russian fashion the holy ruler of the state, the rudder of the Church, and the ascetic visionary of the deep forests of Moscow. But Constantinople in the 14th c. still exerted much influence on the Russian Church in its patriarchs and metropolia. Moscow really attained its independence when Constantinople fell in the 15th c. But the Greeks still held control over Kievan metropolia. They set up Patriarch Gregory Mamas in 1458, for example. Moscow became independent from Constantinople while Kiev remained in the hands of the Greeks as distinct metropolia until 1685 when Kiev was incorporated into the Moscow patriarchate. There seems to be both a good precedent for both the right of the Greeks in Kiev to keep it separate as well as the cultural connection Moscow has with the metropolia of the Kievan Rus’. The rest of the chapter deals with very specific cultural and religious controversies in Russia in the 16th -17th c. One of them is particularly bloody that involved the debate about whether monastics or the monarch should own lands. Also important to note is that when Fedor replaced Ivan the Terrible in the 16th c., the patriarchate was established according to the canons of the Church whereas the earlier autocephalous actions were done without the approval of Constantinople. This idea of Church independence may seem odd to western Christians. But it isn’t much different than the interactions and desires of Christian kings and princes in Europe who had to politick with the Pope to gain the influence they sought over their lands and people, and that pattern culminates in violence and schisms in the 16th , 17th and 18th c. Europe, which we call the Enlightenment — a movement so anti-thetical and hostile to monarchy as a legitmate and stable form of government and focal point of religious exemplitude. The expectation in previous centuries was that a ruler lived upto the moral standards of the majoritiy religion. In our time, however, it’s entirely the opposite. We can keep our religious convinctions and faith private in our jobs and offices. That’s not anyone’s fault except the very structure of the government that has been established. One revolutionary basis of this foundation is the separation of church and state, public and private life. As long as that religion wasn’t Roman Catholic, that separation was favorable to most Americans. Clovis and Charlemagne set the example of kings ruling more by individual charisma and military leadership. Byzantium had a long imperial lifespan not only because it inherited what Rome conquered before but because people were loyal to an idea, a philosophy, and the Orthodox faith, not charismatic individuals or military might alone. It didn’t matter if a king was heretical or not because the people weren’t loyal to individuals but to the ideas themselves. To appreciate how many Christians used to think up until recently, we should consider that the kingdom was part of the fabric of one’s identity, a completely strange concept to us. Not because it was about politics, since the royal families were above politics, though not above immorality, intrigue and violence. But no one bought the throne, but they were born into it; wise rulers have huge potential that other systems just cannot produce. The Enlightenment, which deserves to be beaten like a dead horse, started the process of dechristianization, actually persecuting many Christians with mockery, at the same time as it was on its path of demonarchizing European cultures with its ultimate bloody victory over Christian monarchs in the world wars and revolutions. It’s worth noting too that Orthodox history may seem capricious like we tend to think of medieval history since it’s largely a monarchical or imperial world, and often a very religious environment. But it isn’t really more or less chaotic than the democratization of the globe in our own times or the never-ending upheavals that political referenda and elections can have on civil and religous life. This blog and Metropolitan Hilarion’s volumes are not meant to be an easy apology for monarchy - it’s often quite a ridiculous idea to most people in modern societies anyway. But monarchical government is a large part of Orthodox history, although there isn’t any necessity that it should be in the future. Its influence shouldn’t be overlooked, and it shouldn’t be so quickly dismissed as a backward and unimportant factor in the creation of many Orthodox countries and an enduring identity always awaiting a renewal.

The last section of this chapter deals with what Metropolitan Hilarion refers to as “Orthodoxy in Western Rus’” by which he means primarily the country of Ukraine and the Ukrainian ethnos. The Union of Brest was basically an attempt again by influences and parties from the Pope in Rome to convert Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe. The idea is called Uniatism. It’s a pejorative term that entails Orthodox Christians keeping their outward Byzantine rite while submitting all jurisdictional and doctrinal authority to the Pope. It goes far back to 1458 when civil unrest exploded in Russia at the consecration of metropolitan Gregory in Rome. In the 1460s the Russian Orthodox in the Great Principality of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland refused to recognize the Union of Ferrara-Florence. The Kievan metropolia were consolidated back into the Moscow patriarchate in 1685, and the Patriarch Dionysios IV of Constantinople consented to this union of Kiev and Moscow.