How long must women, LGBTs, and minorities, including now Turkish dissidents who have run for their lives to Ukraine, be quid pro quos for men ascending one Holy Mountain or another? From time to time, here and there, small pockets of organized Christianity, including within Orthodoxy, a rich tradition to which I am increasingly grateful, tentatively stand in for a supposedly loving, impoverished Jesus and not for the fear-driven, conservative-funded bottom line. (I aspire to be part of one of them.)
When this happens they still remain mindful of the need to seek a broader community, that is, to seek to remain “in communion” with others with whom they disagree. They would never, no never start a Pussy Riot. They leave that work, good though it may be, to the non-religious. Plus, there is so much wholesome work to do, how could they ever prioritize confrontational activism?
Will it ever, for instance, be a good time to peacefully Occupy Mt. Athos? Who knows?, but they’ll leave that to the heathen Pussy Rioter-types. It wouldn’t be all that difficult—but again, presumably always too distasteful for even the most left Christians. They will leave that to the agnostics and atheists.
The police post was just visible through the branches, a hundred yards up the hill. The blue-and-white Greek flag hung limply from the pole. A jeep blocked the rough track. I tightened the belt of my rucksack, took a deep breath and began sprinting down the beach towards the border. My heart pounded as I anticipated the first bark, the first angry shout . . .
I reached a grove of olive trees and slid to a halt in the shadows. I listened, panting. Nothing. Just the gentle lapping of waves on the shore. I threw my bag over the fence, climbed over the single barbed-wire strand, dropped on to the sand and made my way into the forest.
I had smuggled myself into the theocratic republic of Mount Athos, a 40-mile peninsula protruding into the Greek Aegean, and I was now an illegal alien.
(www.independent.co.uk/...)
Putin and his kind make sure that a good time will never come.
If it is ever the right time, I hope that at least a few Christians, with love in their hearts but eyes wide open to oppression and injustice, are among the Occupiers. Maybe you or I will be one of them after all. It is a shame when the front lines of liberation and justice are the place for only those who do not go to church.
Of course, even if one despises religion one might want to consider how important it is to contemporary geopolitics that it is quite hard on religious careers the world over to rock the conservative boat. Jesus seemed to be aware of this but to say that we as individuals must move forward in sacrificial love nonetheless. Surely religious organizations too, with hierarchies, mortgages, and staffs, are not supposed to try to “serve God and wealth,” (Matthew 6:24 Gk mammon). But rocking that boat will be financially perilous. And, as Dr. Martin Luther King knew and demonstrated, when religious boat-rocking is endorsed, financial peril can be accompanied by imprisonment and even death.
Surely any moral accounting that does not see mammon as a primary corrupting and blasphemous influence over the Church (“the body of Christ,” 1 Corinthians 12:27) is grossly naive. But where and when to start the moral accounting without chasing away nearly all potential religious allies with whom we are constantly seeking to be in communion, even as many of them constantly reject us as unclean, Sodomites, etc.?
Are we to continue to sacrifice on the conservative altar “only” women, as most of Christianity, including Orthodoxy (stnicholasportland.org/...), has done for millennia? Are we also to continue to throw in LGBTs? How about desperate Turkish dissidents who fled for their lives?
Did you know that probably the largest place on Earth that will not allow women (www.bbc.com/...) is not Islamic but Christian, despite also being “the Garden of Virgin Mary” (en.m.wikipedia.org/...)? I know I did not.
Then again, why should even the non-religious left care about such “trivia”? Because religiously hegemonic Constantinianism is alive and well—the soft power that keeps many of the world’s autocrats and would be autocrats in power as much as economic and military forces. In fact, it’s probably never been stronger, thanks to resurgent nationalist triumphalism.
The same day then Republican primary candidate Trump rallied before red-hatted Evangelicals and Catholics at the Baton Rouge River Center (en.m.wikipedia.org/...) Foreign Affairs was busy critiquing “Putin’s Patriarch” (www.foreignaffairs.com/...). Clearly, Franklin Graham and other pro-Trump U.S. religious leaders were and are not the only religious leaders slobbering over Putin and his extremely mentally and physically fit American friend.
Nearly four years later, increasingly transnational conservative religious crusaders (whom Kos took loads of grief, even from many liberals [www.theatlantic.com/...] for domestically labeling as the American Taliban) against secular liberalism undergird both Chosen One Trump’s predicament and his “defense” to impeachment and removal from office every bit as much as his own corruption.
I unintentionally bumped into this critique myself recently on my own idiosyncratic religious journey down here in Trump country. I was forced to open my eyes to the increasingly bumpy path before me and the dwindling numbers of other open-minded Christians the world over. We cannot know which side we should be on if we are unwilling to understand the religious dimensions of power in much of the 21st century world. We may need to learn about some complex and uncomfortable quasi-state religious tendencies if we too are to be good citizens of the world.
Such as:
RUSSKIY MIR
In 2007, the Kremlin established the Russkiy Mir (Russian World) Foundation, embarking on a concerted soft-power campaign to promote Russian language and culture beyond the country’s borders. The project initially focused on fostering closer political and economic ties with Russian speakers in the former Soviet republics, but it soon came to encompass a worldview constructed in conscious opposition to the West. The evolving emphasis of the project became especially noticeable around the time of the first large-scale anti-regime protests in late 2011, when allegations of fraud in the wake of Russia’s legislative election brought people out onto the streets. Followed in short order by the Pussy Riot scandal in February 2012 and the uproar over the so-called 2013 LGBT propaganda law, these events cast a pall over the Sochi Olympics and tarnished Russia’s reputation on the world stage.
The Russian Orthodox Church has always viewed society as a communal organism; it is skeptical of the kind of individualism promoted by liberal thought.
The Kremlin’s response was twofold. On the legislative side, parliament passed three bills (the 2012 Foreign Agents Law, the 2013 Law Protecting Religious Feelings, and the 2015 Undesirable Organizations Law) that were officially designed to curtail the activities of foreign organizations on Russian soil and protect the sensibilities of believers but which, in truth, curbed freedom of speech and hobbled civil society. On the ideological side, the regime placed new urgency on portraying oppositionists as a treacherous fifth column corrupted by their embrace of permissive Western attitudes and money from foreign donors. In other words, the Kremlin’s rhetoric shifted from opposing the negative effects of Western actions around the globe to opposing the West in principle, portraying it as an excessively individualistic civilization fundamentally incompatible with Russian values. The conflation of Russia’s economic, political, and military interests with a moral opposition to the West was sharply evinced in Putin’s 2013 speech at the Valdai Discussion Club, where he insisted: “We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilization. . . . They are implementing policies that equate large families with same-sex partnerships, belief in God with the belief in Satan.”
(www.foreignaffairs.com/...)
Later in 2016, as he was managing election interference for the Trump campaign, Putin was given the highest honor at the males only center of Orthodox Christianity:
He praised the spiritual uplift and moral guidance provided by the austere monastic community in a sacred place. Putin said the Orthodox tradition is particularly important at this moment in history.
“Today, as we resurrect the values of patriotism, historical memory and traditional culture, we hope for … a strengthening of relations” with Mount Athos, he said.
…
“Here in Mount Athos, there is great and important work done on moral values,” Putin said after a Mass in his honor, where he was seated in the bishop’s throne.
(cruxnow.com/...)
Two years later, the last living English translator of the Philokalia, the Most Reverend Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia (b. 1934, also known by his lay name, Timothy Ware), citing my favorite author, had the audacity to rather cautiously write in favor of gay marriage:
“The heart of another is a dark forest,” writes Ivan Turgenev in A Month in the Country. This is true, indeed, not only of the heart of another, but equally of my own heart: that too is “a dark forest.” In the words of the Psalmist, “The heart is deep” (Ps. 64:6). There are profundities within each one of us which we have yet to plumb. Personhood cannot be exactly defined; we can provide an ostensive definition, pointing to what is meant and indicated by “being a person,” but we cannot offer a systematic and exhaustive description. We do not fully understand what are the limits of our human nature, what are the possibilities as yet latent within it. It has been rightly said, “The mystery of the fact of being a person cannot be reduced to the facts of the appropriate sciences.”1[David Jenkins, The Glory of Man (London: S.C.M. Press, 1967), 10.]
…
Nowadays Orthodox writers would normally prefer to make a distinction between orientation and action. Homosexual orienta- tion, we would say, is indeed contrary to God’s plan for humankind, being one of the consequences of the fall (incidentally, I am surprised that more is not said about the fall in the course of
this issue of The Wheel). But homosex- ual men and women are not personally guilty of their orientation, because this is not something they have chosen; they only become guilty if by deliberate choice they decide to live out this orientation in their actions. They can choose to be celibate.
This argument, however, places us in difficulty. Persons of heterosexual orientation have the option of getting married, and so in a positive way they can fulfil their erotic desire with the Church’s blessing through the God-given sacrament of holy matrimony. But homosexuals have no such option. In the words of Vasileios Thermos, “A homosexual subject is called to lead a celibate life without feeling a vocation for it.” Are we right to impose this heavy burden on the homosexual?
(The Wheel 13/14 Spring/Summer 2018; static1.squarespace.com/...)
This ignited a fast and furious response from the Orthodox right wing (www.orthodoxytoday.org/...). Left, as opposed to right, “moral shaming” was verboten:
... No comments that engage in left-leaning moral shaming or that rise no higher than the precepts of identity politics will be allowed. ...
In Christ there is neither male nor female, as the Apostle Paul wrote. But there is still preservation too, in a mysterious sense, of the spiritual beauty of the embodied iconography of male and female from Genesis, ultimately exemplified in our Lord Jesus Christ and the Most Holy Theotokos, and the Lamb and His Bride, the Church.
In contrast, Metropolitan Kallistos is following a road that some academics claiming to be Orthodox have already traveled farther, mimicking liberal Episcopalian and Catholic intellectuals before them, lured by will o’ the wisps of sexual revolution, that ultimately serve demonic forces in objectifying human beings to their destruction.
(www.aoiusa.org/...)
Nice. Who ever thought one’s innocent search for inner peace could or should be completely isolated from oppression of “the other” that is hardly innocent and peaceful? Christians are supposed to be in active solidarity with the oppressed, not sitting or kneeling aloof.
Americans may not typically know much about deep historical and religious ties to places like Ukraine, Turkey, and Syria, but you can be sure Putin and his brothers in international crime do. There are Russian-related quid pro quos being exchanged for favors and indulgences far beyond the vista of the next U.S. election, as important as that is.
Much of the insidious insertion of Putin, Trump, and other despicable nationalist characters such as Erdoğan into religious affairs flies largely below the radar. Like this (courtesy of the deep state) from January 17, 2019, months before the now well known quid pro quos of the U.S. president to the newly-elected Ukrainian president:
Erdogan's Wrath Stretches To Ukraine, Leaving Turks In Fear Of Kyiv-Assisted 'Kidnapping'
…
Quid Pro Quo?
Days later in Ankara, Erdogan's spokesman, Kalin, hailed the extraditions as an example of strong security cooperation between Turkey and Ukraine.
…
Another area in which Erdogan appeared to have been helpful was in Ukraine's successful bid for ecclesiastical independence from the Moscow Patriarchate for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church -- a decision that lies with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, today better known as Istanbul.
(www.rferl.org/...)
The month before, The Guardian observed, “Orthodox church’s decision to make Ukrainian branch independent of Russia causes schism and predictions of violence.”
For centuries, Orthodox men have come to Mount Athos, a closed peninsula in northern Greece, to sequester themselves away from the everyday concerns of the outside world. The only entrance is by boat, and women are strictly forbidden to set foot on the territory. Male pilgrims, after receiving a special permit, can visit to confess and seek counsel from the 2,000 monks at the 20 monasteries and smaller “cells” dotted along the hilly shoreline. It is one of the holiest sites of Orthodoxy, the eastern form of Christianity that split with Catholicism in the 11th century.
All is not well in Orthodoxy currently, with a split linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine causing a schism and dark talk of violence among the various Orthodox churches. Bartholomew of Constantinople, known as the ecumenical patriarch and the “first among equals” of the Orthodox patriarchs, agreed in October to give autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox church, essentially making it an independent church. Patriarch Kirill of the Russian church, which regards Ukraine as its domain, responded furiously and announced a split from the ecumenical patriarch.
With a meeting in Kiev on Saturday set to formally proclaim the church’s independence, some are predicting violence if Kiev tries to seize church property from the Moscow patriarchy. The ripples from the decision are being felt far away on Athos, which is under the control of the ecumenical patriarch, whose name is blessed during services.
(www.theguardian.com/...)
Yes, Putin is keeping score and expects his religious allies to do the same. Where they don’t, he will exact a high price, just as will Trump when he does not get utter fealty from religious and non-religious alike.
Through dogmatic rigidity, not to mention property and other economic relationships, Christian organizations typically set themselves up for prophetic failure. Moses wasn’t the only one to come down from a mountain with words of religious inspiration written on a version of stone.
Even if originally intended for liberation and justice, sooner or later all religions seem to feel compelled to etch themselves in tablets. Over centuries more and more tablets of stone are piled up by a priestly class aligned with nationalist power until a fortress is constructed that also is a prison.
This, as Jesus noted, is shameful. Any faith that really wants to be “living,” that would do more than enslave, must help rather than hinder speaking truth to power.
To do so it must allow and even encourage deeply democratic questioning. Certainly there is a dialectic one on the left who also is a “believer” cannot avoid.
Some religious organizations may be willing to be more honest than others. Too many are willing to ignore the injustices created and perpetuated by their own religion until Revolution, or at least a Pussy Riot, leaves them no choice.
Solidarity with Pussy Riot.
In case we forgot:
Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest punk rock group based in Moscow. Founded in August 2011, it has had a variable membership of approximately 11 women [1]ranging in age from about 20 to 33 (as of 2012).[2] The group staged unauthorized provocative guerrilla performances in public places, performances that were filmed as music videos and posted on the Internet.[3] The collective's lyrical themes included feminism, LGBT rights, and opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom the group considered to be a dictator, and his policies.[2] These themes also encompassed Putin's links to the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.[4]
(en.m.wikipedia.org/...)
(Please continue below the break if you’re interested in my personal religious journey into a deep appreciation for much about Orthodoxy, even as I feel obligated to critique parts of it.)
I like to think I’m an equal part lover and critic of religion. I certainly do not in this piece mean to pick on some aspects of Orthodoxy without just cause. All Christian denominations have their blind spots. In communion we can lovingly help each other regardless of denomination.
I remember sitting on a Sunday morning in Thomas Merton’s Catholic (Trappist) Abbey of Gethsemane (www.monks.org/...; www.onlyinyourstate.com/...). The then very young Abbot bravely was calling out “the sin of excommunication” for authentically following Jesus. I did not fully understand the necessity and significance of this at the time. More and more I realize the necessity and significance of questioning in my own religious life. Far from perfect (www.usatoday.com/...), at least this monastery I love purposely allows for questioning, interfaith dialogue, and women guests.
Catholicism is hardly a bastion of women’s equality to be sure! (That’s partly why I’m Episcopalian, after all.) However, it would seem that women may have sometimes had an even more difficult time finding their voice in Orthodoxy.
Mother Thekla, serving in a patriarchal religion, “the last surviving nun to have occupied the enclosed Orthodox Monastery of the Assumption in North Yorkshire,” did her best to help others while also managing to express herself with authenticity:
“It is the monotony of our lives which frees the spirit; all the imminent things drop away,” Mother Thekla told a visiting journalist in 2002. “It’s quite painful being faced with your real self without the trimmings. There’s time here to pray for the world. That’s our work: it’s not something we do on our Sunday off.”
…
In 2003 reports of a “frightful bust-up” suggested that Mother Thekla and Tavener had fallen out, apparently over the composer’s growing interest in Eastern religions. Mother Hilda declared that if asked to explain what had happened, Thekla “would probably say, and pardon my French: 'Go to Hell’”. A reconciliation followed.
Mother Thekla was the dedicatee of John Tavener’s memoir The Music Of Silence: A Composer’s Testament (1999). Not only had she helped him spiritually, Tavener said, she had also “helped me put my music and my life together”.
(www.telegraph.co.uk/...)
I especially like some of Mother Thekla’s letter to a new convert:
Dear “John”,
I understand that you are on the way to becoming Orthodox. I know nothing about you, beyond the fact that you are English.
Before we go any further, there is one point I should make clear. I have not been told why you are about to convert, but I assure you there is no point whatsoever if it is for negative reasons. You will find as much “wrong” (if not more) in Orthodoxy as in the Anglican or Roman Churches.
So – the first point is, are you prepared to face lies, hypocrisy, evil and all the rest, just as much in Orthodoxy as in any other religion or denomination?
Are you expecting a kind of earthly paradise with plenty of incense and the right kind of music?
Do you expect to go straight to heaven if you cross yourself slowly, pompously and in the correct form from the right side?
Have you a cookery book with all the authentic Russian recipes for Easter festivities?
Are you an expert in kissing three times on every possible or improper occasion?
Can you prostrate elegantly without dropping a variety of stationery out of your pockets?
…
Poor, old, sick, to our last breath, we can love. Not sentimental nonsense so often confused with love, but the love of sacrifice – inner crucifixion of greed, envy, pride.
(journeytoorthodoxy.com/...)
Recently in my own life, desperate times called for desperate measures. The 60-year old son of a Southern Baptist preacher, I never thought I would want or need to read any Orthodox religious text. Hand it to Amazon for getting to the point, just in time for my recent acute bout of apathy.
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
The Philokalia is a collection of spiritual texts compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth. The writings are by various monks on how to progress in the Christian virtues through such methods as prayer, watchfulness and ascetic struggles.
REVIEW
“The Philokalia is a collection of texts written in Greek between the fourth and fifteenth centuries by spiritual masters of the Orthodox tradition. Compiled in the 18th century and first published in Venice in 1782, it has had a profound influence on the spiritual life of the Eastern churches.” ―Theology Digest
LANGUAGE NOTES
Text: English, Greek (translation)
FROM THE BACK COVER
The Philokalia is a collection of texts written between the fourth and fifteenth centuries by spiritual master [sic] of the Orthodox Christian tradition. First published in Greek in 1782, translated into Salvonic and later into Russian, The Philokalia has exercised an influence far greater than that of any book other than the Bible in the recent history of the Orthodox Church.
(www.amazon.com/...)
In these dark political times, it can be tempting sometimes to give in to apathy. The daily doses of yuck turn into now years of yuck, with no secure and safe end in sight.
I found myself one day not too long ago relaxedly slipping into a state of apathy almost as one slides down into warm bubbly bath after a tough day. Late that night, I reflected on this state. I realized that it was nothing to want to become accustomed to, and, from my religious perspective, “sinful.”
“Sin” is not something I typically research, but that night was different. My apathetic condition was so pronounced I wanted to make sure I understood it not only as a matter of psychology but also of religion. That soon led me to the word “sloth” and the following:
Orthodoxy
In the Philokalia, the word dejection is used instead of sloth, for the person who falls into dejection will lose interest in life.
(en.m.wikipedia.org/...)
As chance would have it, I immediately thought I recognized that book and thought I might even have a copy. Looking through my bookshelves and other boxes of books I hold on to, I could not find the book after all. Fortunately, a day or two later I found the free Kindle version pictured above (which for some reason is now showing as for $0.99 at www.amazon.com/...; perhaps try this too: archive.org/...).
As a democratic socialist contemplative Christian living in the Deep South I don’t have a lot of local political-spiritual soul mates. In fact, I have none really. The contemplative priest mentor most influential to my leftist religious journey is dead. Even my closest friends at my Episcopal parish neither identify as democratic socialists nor as contemplatives. My closest local political friend is an atheist. Although he is greatly supportive of me, he does not share my spiritual path.
I keep hoping for at least one, but in the meantime, for spiritual sustenance and growth I desperately felt I needed to check out this mysterious Philokalia. After a few weeks of study, I can say that I have found no religious source other than the Psalms more authentically enriching than the Philokalia.
Like the Psalms it is highly imperfect. There is something to sorting the wheat from the chaff. Perhaps it is this very imperfection that makes authentic the parts that speak to me.
Yet one must also take careful note of all of the chaff, especially that which often does not get written down, the silent quid pro quos of nationalist ruler-church relations.
And so I humbly present this piece and ask for forgiveness by any sincere persons whom I may offend. Putin, Trump, et al. can, as Mother Thekla might say, go to hell.
Publishing Note: This piece is being republished the morning of December 1, 2019. It was inadvertently auto-published 6:00 p.m. yesterday instead of 6:00 a.m. today. It did receive one comment, from CharlesII, and because it was an exceptional and helpful albeit critical one, I am also republishing it as a fitting end of this piece:
I have written about the Philokalia as described in The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way. You might find those works of help.
Last I heard, Mt. Athos is holding out against Putin, but that Russians are busy buying influence in Greece. I think it would be a mistake for anti-Putin forces like Pussy Riot to pressure the Greek Orthodox church, at least as long as it stays independent of Russian politics. As the linked article says, Mt.Athos has helped Ukraine separate religiously from Russia.
I don’t think one can pressure conservatives into changing. One has to show that there is a better way. It would help if there were much of a religious left to mediate, but that is in steep decline. That leaves people who wish to practice religion the dilemma of whether to join a conservative church or to give up on church.