Source: Public Orthodoxy
There are very few occasions in our lives—critical, pivotal events—that are truly life-shattering. We Orthodox describe them as kairos moments. World War II was one of these. In my lifetime, there was 9/11. Institutions and individuals are defined by such moments. We might recall how the Roman Catholic Church failed to stand up to Mussolini and Hitler; thankfully there was the selflessness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his staunch resistance to Nazi dictatorship. Or we might remember the hostility and conspiracy spawned by the attack on the Twin Towers; thankfully there was the selflessness of first responders and sacrifice of those whose lives are memorialized at Ground Zero.
Among these moments, I would include the invasion of Russia in Ukraine—arguably a life-changing moment for the autocephalous churches that comprise global Orthodox Christianity. The recent meeting between Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church and Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church—where the latter was thanked for supporting victims of a war blessed by the former—was exasperatingly hypocritical and shameful. More than anything else, the episode is representative of the present decline of the Orthodox Church as an institution.
And just as I thought that Orthodox bishops could stoop no lower, Patriarch Kirill dug his primatial staff deeper and exacerbated his ideological immorality, looking every inch the “Putin altar boy” that Pope Francis warned him about. How embarrassing for us all that Patriarch Kirill is now being considered for EU and US sanctions as a Putin oligarch. It doesn’t quite help his cause that his loudest supporter is Hungary’s Prime Minister Orban. For Patriarch Kirill, Russia is the perpetual victim; everyone else is to blame: the West and Ukraine, the Phanar and Vatican, the US and UN, NATO and LGBTQ. It’s not always easy to understand how to connect the dots of this “martyrdom,” but somehow President Putin and Patriarch Kirill do so quite seamlessly. I would expect this of a political bully; but should we not expect more of an Orthodox patriarch?
How do we interpret the fact that so many of our bishops continue with life inside and outside the church as though nothing is happening in Ukraine? For instance, how does a senior prelate like Patriarch Kirill serve and raise the chalice with the blood of Christ at the altar of a church conceived by a military general and dedicated to the armed forces, boasting frescoes with heavenly and earthly warriors as well as medieval and modern battles? Or how does an ordained bishop like Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev attend a meeting in Cyprus for an Orthodox pre-assembly meeting of the World Council of Churches to discuss “dialogue” and “reconciliation” with blood on his hands? In fact, how does any Orthodox hierarch passively tolerate the bloodshed in Ukraine? An overwhelming majority of bishops remain silent about more carnage than those they savagely point fingers at for abortions. How many dioceses, monasteries, and seminaries look the other way, even as they revel in blood money from “the potter’s field”?
How have Orthodox leaders responded in the more than two months since Russia’s brutal and unprovoked assault on Ukraine?
- Four of the fifteen autocephalous primates (Patriarchs John of Antioch and Theophilos of Jerusalem, as well as Porfirije of Serbia and Neophyte of Bulgaria) have yet to condemn the war; Patriarch Kirill, of course, unforgivably supports it.
- A number of churches, for fear of incurring the wrath of Kirill but under pressure from their own faithful, have denounced war and encouraged peace with platitudes more pertinent in times of serenity than times of suffering. For me, the most disappointing among these have been the statements of an exceptional hierarch—a personal hero, teacher, and mentor—Archbishop Anastasios of Albania, who was happy simply to quote the Beatitudes and “condemn all forms of violence, appealing for peace and reconciliation in Ukraine.”
Perhaps some of our bishops throughout the world can take a lesson from their courageous and scrupulous congregations. Perhaps some of our bishops in the United States should take a step back from their single-issue partisan thrones. Perhaps our hierarchs can derive inspiration and admiration from the hundreds of priests who defiantly risked arrest by addressing a protest letter to Patriarch Kirill; from the over a thousand theologians who publicly decried the religious ideology of russkii mir; or from the global demonstration organized by laypeople and spearheaded by women. I am also mindful of first responders around the world who have selflessly contributed to humanitarian organizations or taken in millions of Ukrainian refugees, whose churches have condemned the invasion, or whose governments have imposed sanctions on Russia, often at tremendous economic sacrifice at home. These are the authentic silent heroes and titanic selfless actions of this kairos moment.
But the focus of my article is the state of the Orthodox Church, which desperately needs addressing. Perhaps the Orthodox Church needs to hit—or we need to admit it has already hit—rock bottom. Perhaps we should confess that our church consistently rejects freedom and democracy. Perhaps we should appreciate what we know in our hearts but rarely confess with our lips: that once again we are hopelessly and shamelessly on the wrong side of history. Then, and only then, will we be able to take the first—initially clumsy and cautious—steps toward reconciliation with our church and with our world.
Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis is a deacon of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in this essay are solely the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.
11 Comments
Dn. John,
Your Truth is courageous and inspiring.
I am completely on board with the condemnation of the war and the bishops, but I ask you why your and others singular concern about this war? The US has been aggressively executing violence around the world for decades and there has been no loud outcry for condemnation. Today the US illegally occupies one third of Syria, helps Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen, runs cover for the crimes of the Israeli state against the people of Palestine. Yes, these bishops are hypocrites but so are we for not speaking out for equal and greater crimes by our state. Where is the outrage and the prayers for these people? Silence by the Bishops to this is as great of an offence.
Hi Vladimir, In my humble opinion, it all boils down to the cowardice of our elected officials especially, Congress, and the US President. As we all know, Congress is bought and paid for by the various lobbies.
Hi Peter, yes complete cowardice is evident in our elected officials but how about the Church? While it is good that we are praying for peace and the people of Ukraine and calling out the hypocrisy of the Russian church leadership, we are silent regarding the victims of US aggression? Why is Church leadership in America and the world not calling out the crimes against humanity that US perpetrates? We are we not praying for these victims specifically? In my years since graduating college in ’91 the Us has been at perpetual state of war killing and maiming hundreds of thousands and displacing millions and I don’t remember our bishops calling out these crimes or calling for special petitions inserted into the liturgy for these victims.
Hi Vladimir,
I could not agree with you more!! You really hit the nail on the head. Well said, my friend!!
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. When corruption becomes systemic that is when the system goes dictatorial. Centralized power and control that is a religious and secular political dictatorship is IRAN. In Russia, might makes right and might that is right is Putin and Kirill in unity and agreement. Are Russia and Iran allies in the Middle East? How is the relationship between Israel and Russia today? Who is the author of division, war and murder? Who is control when those things are in control of a church? Do you know the name or the author of evil? There has been little mention of him from what I gather.
Courageous, in that he acknowledges that there is a problem within Orthodoxy, but even if all the hierarchs expressed opposition to the war, significant problems remain. I am reminded of the words of our Lord in the book of Revelation when He stated: “you have lost your first love.”
What freedom and democracy are you talking about exactly? Somehow those words in the context of the entire opinion do not “smell” good to me. The whole peice is not a very pointed rethoric.
I am especially curious as to where the Church, in your opinion, should be heading once it reached that rock bottom you are talking about. Hopefully, not into the “world”, with its “freedoms and democracies”. A disturbing over all opinion from this author.
I think we need to bring Orthodox principles to the heterodox out of hope they may produce a new Peter Gillquist to save us. Look at the second to last post “universal audience” on https://ehyde.wordpress.com/2024/01/08/evangelicals-want-to-identify-with-the-early-church-time-to-break-out-the-icons/.
Here it is:
Universal Audience of Ultimate Truth for Salvation
Ultimately all ethics depends on individual consideration, mandated in Leviticus 19:18 “Love your neighbor as yourself,” also found in Confucius Analects 12:2, Buddhist Udana Vagna 5:1 and Matthew 7:1. Consistency is the hobgoblin of limited minds as God and Truth are incomprehensible (Isaiah 40: 25) and dogma and ideology are idolatry which detracts
from evidence based realism. This is why the only answer can be a question. All creativity and science is divine (1 Cor 3:5-9). History destroys future (Titus 3:9). The only way to unite creation is love from the heart, not selfish wisdom from the mind. The mind, the Apple of Eden, deceives because is made for survival via self-adoring casuistry, lazy
ritual and destructive passions. Reason and feelings are parochial, selfish blinders that ignore the vast unknowability of the uncreated divinity. Linear eschatlology promotes human progress against the unity of nature by circular eschatology. Jesus opposed traditionalist Sadducees and fundamentalist Pharisees but embraced syncretic Samaritans.
Jesus was nothing if not anticlerical. “Do as they say, not as they do” (Mt 23:1). Isn’t it odd the fundamentalists quote scripture by number as if lawyers? Meek means tranquil, not humble. Meekness is devoid of the passion of just war which divides and obfuscates. (Jer 17:9, Eph 2:3). God expected his prophets to question his wrath and tormented them
when they didn’t so he expects us to interrogate his scriptures (John 5:39, Matthew 6:34), valuing difficult questions.
Hades (Sheol) was a holding place from which Jesus freed us, not a banishment. “gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn”. (Matthew 3:12 ) There is no purgatory, burning us into oblivion. “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43 ) Today! Saints intecede! If Jesus told us to be like the children (Matt 18:3) how could he believe them to have Original Sin? Mary CHOSE, by Free Will, to be sinless and surrendered herself to the service of God, as God long awaited (Luke 1:30). Luther said “Mary is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God” (24:107) and “There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know.” (10:268 ). God lived in the Temple (Exodus 36:8 ) so as Mary bore God she replaced the Temple which was destroyed when she rose exactly on Tisha B’Av, the original lent of eating only fish because fish survived Noah’s flood.
God is beyond time and reason, not being limited by the dimensions that govern our world (Isaiah 57:15). God’s perspective on time is far different from man (Psalm 102:12, 24-27). God sees all of eternity’s past and eternity’s future, hence free will and predestination do not contradict. Since He is the Alpha AND the Omega, there can be no
historical progression which is satanic anthropolatry. Study of history perpetuates evil with corrupted visions of the past that deny the divine reality of our sences. Parable of Talents (Matt 25:14-30) confirms the glory of capitalism over slothful envy of socialism. Parable of Warehouse is about being obsessed with what we have so we stop living.
Superachievers aren’t concerned with accumulation but with constant achievement, seeking to ever use their gifts to the fullest (Calvin Institutes 3.7.5). James 2:14-18,26 shows that while faith is the essential prerequisite, you cannot escape the need for works as well. Half the planet worships to the Psalms of David so stop renaming them as your own
hymnals. A Republic of Judges was preferred by God over the Reign of Kings. (1 Sam 8:6-18 ) The clothing and responsibilities of the Cohens (chief priests) resembles the early bishops (overseers) and of rabbis with the pastors (presbyters, elders). Paul’s word for fornication meant prostitution instead. Paul’s word for masturbation meant malady. Paul’s word for sycophant meant slander. Magog meant Mongol. Jesus came to fulfill not repeal the Law (Matt 5:17) as Pharisees were condemned because they syncretized vindictive Roman natural law over Jubilee redemptory Deuteronomy law. Moneychangers were racist about Roman coins. Proverb 3:5 required the midrash of patristic tradition. Since it is less than two dimensional, an icon is a mezuza. Medieval engagement rings had to be worth an annual wage in case she got pregnant. Repenting improves us while foregiveness allows us to move on. Only love perseveres, sustains and forgives, seeking righteousness by eradicating passions. Redemptory confession is from 2 Chron 7:14 and Resurrection from Dan 12:2, Ezek 37:12-17, and Isaiah 26:19. Forgiveness is found in Isaiah 33:24, Isaiah 55:7, Jeremiah 3:22, Numbers 14,15, Leviticus 6,19,2 Samuel 14:14. Repentance and forgiveness is the undoing of time. Eye for eye was max not min. None of the three major and twelve minor prophets of the Old Testament died an unnatural death. Jesus used the lunar calendar, so
why do you use the calendar of those that slew Jesus and His Prophets and stole His religion.
This is a wondrous idea. Instead of getting their horns up by telling them we are Orthodox and trying to convert them, bear witness to the Orthodox truth without naming it. Make all the Heterodox denominations MORE Orthodox!