Second Terrace

the achievements of Mr Putin

Mr Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has been in charge of Russia since, arguably, 1999.

His march to restore his vision of Russkiy Mir, the "Russian Nation" of the former Soviet Union, is inexorable. He has demonstrated his willingness to inflict pain and suffering on not only Georgia, Chechnya, and Donbas, but also his own people.

It can be argued that Putin is just the most recent Russian Strong Man who has led Russia to achieve its strategic aims, at the cost of making the Russian people absorb horrific levels of pain and suffering.

It should be remembered that 20 million people lost their lives in World War II.

It is a Russian tradition for its Strong Man -- whether Tsar, or General Secretary, or Chairman, or Prime Minister -- to squander the lives and livelihood of not thousands, but millions of Russian men, women, and children.

Some would look at this pattern and call it noble. I think it is horrific, and certainly not anything to brag or sing about. To suggest that the suffering of Russia is somehow necessary to the Russian genius, the real achievements of its culture, is to propose the necessity of pain and evil for the existence of beauty in life.

I know that many hold to this idea. I do not. Beauty does not need evil to be beauty. Light does not need darkness to be light.

Evil has no essential reality, as it is only a privation of the good

But it does have its achievements in existence.

Here is a list, then, of the achievements  of Vladimir Putin in his latest march to greatness, in the latest chapter of the wastrel sacrifice of Russian young men (and older generals and colonels), and the Ukrainian people:

1. Putin has destroyed the credibility of the Moscow Patriarchate. Patriarch Kirill's partnership with Putin in extending the "Russian World" -- an ideology that he has advanced since 2000 -- has already disaffected not only the metropolis of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine but elsewhere in Europe. The Moscow Patriarchate, for it to survive at all as a real Patriarchate, will have to have a succession. And the next Patriarch will have to renounce -- clearly and firmly -- the mere mention of Russkiy Mir. The next Patriarch will have to fully and definitively embrace democracy and turn away from the ancient Russian tradition of the Strong Man.
   
   
2. Putin has unified Ukraine, and has clarified Ukraine as a nation completely distinct from Russia. He has shined a light on the bleak contrast between his Russia and Zelensky's Ukraine. The latter has shown itself to be resilient, tenacious, noble in the face of monstrous destruction and offense. Old women have berated armed Russian soldiers. Old men have stood on the road against Russian tanks. The people, unarmed, have marched in Kherson streets against columns of Russian troops. Meanwhile, over 20,000 Russian people have been detained by Putin's police for having the courage to protest the war. Thousands of Russians have left Russia because of Putin's dictatorship, and his captive State will suffer a real and irreversible "brain drain." Putin has throttled any semblance of a free press.
   
   
3. Putin has highlighted the superiority of Western democracy. Western democracy is not merely one governmental alternative among others. It is ontologically superior to authoritarian structures. Putin's invasion of Ukraine has double-underlined the irrationality of any suggestion that an authoritarian state is appropriate for one group of people, while democracy is appropriate for another. Without the proposition that military adventurism should be waged for the sake of regime change (i.e., a la American neo-conservatism), it remains true that the suggestion that democracy is not appropriate for some cultures is the height of condescension. Western democracy values the rights of the person, the free press (that is always going to tend toward the Left, and that must needs be), and opposes any sort of authoritarianism. People want to go to democracies: they want to flee autocracies. This is rational -- to suggest otherwise is irrational.
   
   
4. Putin has managed to discredit authoritarian movements in the West, particularly in America. If Putin falls, he will take Donald Trump (and the Trump movement) down with him. The American Orthodox romanticizing of Strong Men has been shown to be a sycophantic attraction toward Church-State collusion that has long been the perennial and heretical temptation of Orthodoxy. Within American Orthodoxy, certain romances are being discredited: like the Benedict Option and its constant complaints about the sexual transgression of the liberal West. Like the anti-modernist ideology of some communities in West Virginia (and elsewhere), as documented by Sarah Riccardi-Swartz in her upcoming publication, Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia. Like the constant anti-Western drumbeat of not a few American Orthodox clergy, who openly wish for the replacement of democracy with other more "Christianizing" governmental forms. Like the Neo-Integralism of Adrian Vermeule (and others). Like the dominionism of the New Apostolic Reformation's "Seven Mountains of Influence." 
   
   All of these ideological romances are naive sentimentalizations at best, and cynical exercises in realpolitik at a more likely worst. They all use the cardboard image of "traditional values" as a rallying cry against the so-called 'liberal West." But these "traditional values" do not include the Biblical and Patristic witness for social and economic justice and stewardship of the environment. 
   
   
5. Putin has revivified and unified -- and vindicated -- NATO as no Western leader ever could have. It used to be that American conservatives supported the mission of NATO in its post-World War II work to contain the expansionist aims of the Soviet Union. But since the early 1990's, some American Orthodox have begun to loudly denounce NATO for its bombing of Serbia, while relatively ignoring the outrages of Milošević. Then they complained about the US and NATO in its campaign against Assad -- and again, relatively ignoring Putin's destruction of Aleppo. 
   
   The present invasion of Ukraine has shown that NATO's mission of containing autocratic expansion -- whether communist or fascist -- has been vindicated. I'm sure there are those who suggest otherwise. And I agree with some measure of skepticism about Western militarism: I, too, agree with Eisenhower's critique of the military-industrial complex. I, too, disagreed with the Iraq war, and with the neo-conservative campaign for the protection of oil-production. 
   
   But I draw a distinction between neo-conservative imperialism (and colonialism), and the necessity of deterring and preventing totalitarian expansion. And I denounce the sham of complaining about the so-called "soft totalitarianism" of the West while shutting one's eyes to the real totalitarianism of Strong Men, whose Christian shibboleths are taken as sufficient bona fides for sophisticated cheers and adulation, and invitations to conferences and book-signings.
   
   In any case, where would Europe be without NATO? Locked up in a totalitarian State that is very real and very hard.
   
   
6. Putin has divided American Orthodoxy. Because of Patriarch Kirill's outrageous support of Putin, about 100 of the 340 clergy from ROCOR, which usually honors and commemorates the Moscow Patriarch, have moved to Orthodox jurisdictions not affiliated with Kirill. A further 145 U.S. Church Abroad parishes have so far followed suit.
   
   Still, there are many American Orthodox who remain committed to this deformed, nationalist and autocratic version of Orthodoxy. Many continue in their support of the Moscow Patriarch's refusal to commune with the Ecumenical Patriarch. Many clergy and laity openly condemn the Ecumenical Patriarch and the GOARCH Archepiscopal See of New York as "liberal," simply because of their courageous and consistent witness for social and economic justice and environmental stewardship. 
   
   I will continue to pray "For peace throughout the whole world, for the welfare of the holy churches of God and for the union of them all."
   
   But I have to acknowledge the reality of the destruction of this peace, and the schism of the Churches of God -- the destruction and schism of which Vladimir Putin has been the primary agent, who has been aided and abetted by Moscow Patriarch Kirill (and Metropolitan Hilarion and others in the Patriarchate). 
   
   And thus I grieve. But still I pray in hope. Perhaps American Orthodoxy can survive this travail and rise afterward stronger, and more faithful to real Orthodoxy, instead of its many toxic deformations.

prayer in a new key

I would rather pray for human need. I'd rather pray for those who are sick or in pain or in need. I'd rather pray "for healthful seasons, for an abundance of the fruits of the earth."

I'm far more competent in my prayers framed within all the litanies of Divine Liturgy. especially St Basil's very long pastoral prayers.

And I could participate in Grace for those needs. I could give charity in alms or work to do the Samaritan thing.

But in the face of increasing brutality of Russia toward Ukraine? I pray and pray, but feel utterly powerless: what participation is there in mitigating this evil?

A Russian tank drove up to a nursing home and fired point-blank into the building. An art school sheltering hundreds was bombed. Another Russian tank turned its turret upon a car upon which was clearly painted the word "Children" and fired, instantly killing both parents and a child. Deliberately. Consciously.

And because the resistance of Ukraine has become so costly to Russia, it is becoming more and more possible that Putin will order the detonation of tactical nuclear bombs. Or the release of chemical and biological weapons.

Russia is inflicting horror upon Mariupol, where the water has become toxified because of dead bodies.

And Putin has stepped into the despotism of Stalin (and Beria) upon his own citizens, now calling Russian opposition as "scum" and "traitors." Over 20,000 brave Russian citizens are now in detention -- the Gulag is alive and well in Putin's dictatorship.

He is doing this with the blessing, or nodding approval, from Moscow Patriarch Kyrill, who, along with Metropolitan Hilarion and others in his administration, advocate the doctrine of Russky Mir, the ideology of "the Russian world." (It is hard for me to believe that this same Metropolitan is the one who authored Christ the Conqueror of Hell and endorses murderous invasion at the same time).

If Putin wins Ukraine, Russian Orthodoxy will suffer profound damage, as this ideology will have subverted the entire structure of the Moscow Patriarchate profoundly.

It is possible that the Moscow Patriarchate has already fallen as a real spiritual structure, precisely because of Russky Mir and Putin's bloodthirsty march to Kyiv.

I've gone beyond the business of arguing against any Christian defense of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Such a thing is impossible, and if it is still argued, then there is no longer any rationality or Christianity in such a defense.

But prayer remains, even if there are no physical means that remain for me (or anyone else as individuals) to meet this evil. It is likely that my country and its allies will find it necessary to engage this evil directly.

Prayer remains, though the character of that prayer has changed. It is not the prayer for reconciliation (it never was). This is not a fratricidal conflict, nor is it nationalistic expansionism. It is ideology at its most toxic and death-dealing.

Putin has moved beyond the human pale of outrage. Human nature by itself is limited in its participation with evil. When population murder and destruction and forced deportation occur, it is no longer just depravity of human nature.

It is a bodiless nature at work that wields structural power.

And thus the prayer is exorcistic.

no more time for the strong man

A friend told me, recently, that our democracy and Russia's dictatorship are "equally worthless," that God's presence is what is needed.

 

Of course God's presence, the Kingdom of God, is infinitely higher and transcendent. But, against my friend's opinion, it is not incongruous.

 

Christians can no longer believe that all the governmental forms of the world are of equal value or worthlessness. Most are worse, and horribly so. Some are better.

 

Time and the aggregate of history have made things clearer. Democracy in its various forms -- like the federal republic that is the United States -- is not only better, but it is something that Christianity should recognize as being more consistent with the theology of the Incarnation than any authoritarian form.

 

Orthodoxy, especially, should know this best of all.

 

Orthodoxy is all too familiar with authoritarianism, because it has had to endure various forms of it for centuries -- they were all bad, some less so, some more so. Despite the fact that Orthodoxy has seen fit to anoint Caesars and Tsars and Kings with holy oil, it remains true that the Church has never correctly or essentially wedded itself to earthly power.

 

It is a grievous error to long for the good old days of the monarchy -- worse, to long for such in religious haughty language draped with the glutinous veils of sentimentality is to fall from the witness of Orthodox Christology, of Christ as Friend saying "My Life for yours -- and vice versa." Perhaps our vestments from the old Byzantine imperium make us forget that fact. 

 

Earthly powers, ie the State, have only been divinely-ordained with the "short sword" (Romans 13.4), the power to wield death to restrain evil. The State now can never be used (if it ever should have been used) to advance the Kingdom of God. Its agency is only negative (ie, a restraint and corrective), never positive. The State is expected to do the minimum -- restrain evil, and evil includes starvation, homelessness, poverty, unaided sickness and disability, racial injustice,  and environmental spoliation.

 

The State cannot be used, as some want it to be, as a bulwark against the rising tide of secularization, or the transgressiveness of post-modernity. The Church responds to contemporary temptations and perils for her people in pastoral care, in catechesis, in ascesis, in humility and meekness. But to transfer this pastoral concern into partisan politics is to adopt ideology at the expense of theology and fidelity to the Orthodox witness as salt and light -- the witness of an itinerant Preacher Who was crucified as a rebellious slave.

To rise in anger and anxiety at the changing present, and lobby for a change from democracy to Church collusion with the State in coercive morality, is not only a betrayal of the American legacy, but it is apostasy from the evangel.

 

Thus Orthodoxy in the twenty-first century can only endorse democracy and condemn authoritarianism.

 

To embrace an authoritarian power is to reveal a deficiency in Christological doctrine.

 

Indeed. Christ said "I have come to serve and not to be served." Christ's power is a kenotic power, a power of self-renunciation and sacrifice.

 

Christlikeness is incongruous with state power, domination, and violence.

 

In other words, authoritarianism -- including monarchy, dominionism, neo-integralism -- is ontologically opposed to Christology.

 

It should be self-evident that Christianity—especially Orthodox Christianity—can and must only militantly denounce white nationalism and all extremist ideologies. An Orthodoxy that is concerned about changing demographics is simply no longer Orthodoxy.

 

And it is a crying shame that some American jurisdictions have prohibited their clergy from denouncing the moral failure of the Moscow Patriarchate in its craven approval of the invasion of Ukraine. Such approval is a clear failure in Christology.

 

Things have changed at the Incarnation. The Old Testament can only be interpreted allegorically* now.

 

Enemies must be loved. Nations can no longer be invaded for the sake of culture wars. Partisan politics cannot and must not be imported into the church.

 

Authoritarianism must be rejected. Times have changed.

 

There can no longer be a Christian Tsar. Or a President elected as a culture warrior. Strong Man adherents like Putin, Xi Jinping, or even putatively Christian ones like Orban, must be rejected -- theologically and prophetically. The Antichrist is not the "liberal West." The spirit of antichrist lies in exactly what we've always been told: in violence, domination, oppression and cruelty. Not in vacuous concepts like "soft totalitarianism," but in the realities of hard totalitarianism, dictatorship.

Exactly in the ways of "dear leaders" who ever attempt to make their short swords long. At the cost of the death of children, grandmothers, and of their own people.

 

* NB: I take allegory in its widest meaning, admitting poetic and even teleological interpretations. Someone suggested I was being Marcionite with this line: no, one should know that I live my life in the Psalms. Perhaps I could have used "symbolic" instead. Or just stopped with "non-literal." Or simply said, "We can no longer use Joshua or the imprecatory Psalms as license for committing violence." But that's too wordy. I'll stick with allegorical, for the necessary Christological reinterpretation of the Old Testament. And no, that re-interpretation is not anti-Semitic.

little triumph this sunday of orthodoxy

-- a canonically inappropriate icon

 

Today is the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

 

But this year, it is hard to call it a triumph. We are witnessing the ravages of imperialistic aggression from one putatively Orthodox nation upon another.

 

For some, this day is a day when iconic depictions are brought out and paraded in church and on the internet.

 

These are images (like the above) that depict the Church as a boat with Jesus and the Apostles and the Fathers.

And underneath are depictions of various enemies. The better depictions constrain themselves to list Hades, the Antichrist, and the heresies listed in the classical anathemas.

 

But some are given to include their own contemporary complaints: like the Pope, Luther, the New Age, Ecumenicists, Lenin, socialists and leftists. I'm sure there are some out there that depict Orthodox hierarchs that are deemed too liberal for their liking.

 

I have a suggestion for those who want to put their conceptual enemies on icons (which, I think, is a perilous business to begin with):

 

No, it's not Putin and Patriarch Kirill. Although their inclusion would be logically consistent with the thought behind this sort of dreary iconography. And, I must confess, it is personally tempting to make this inclusion.

 

Seriously -- where is the depiction of authoritarianism? Where is the very powerful and heretical temptation in Orthodoxy to embrace and endorse autocracy? Where are the heretical ideologies of monarchism, nationalism, and racism?

 

Most people who want to replace democracy with a more “moral” government don’t want the Biblical and true Traditional sense of a more moral and righteous society. Such a society is without domination, it is peaceful and completely just, where no one is left hungry or homeless.

 

It would be a culture where the passion of not only lust is resisted, but all the destructive passions: anger, despair, gluttony, greediness, usury (i.e., the charging of interest, the making of money just out of money).

 

And the very worst destructive passion of all is pride. Can you imagine a society where pride is legislated against, as much as there are the popular prohibitions against sexual sin, drunkenness, drug abuse, and criminal behavior?

 

But that is indeed the righteous society called for by the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Saints of the Church for four thousand years.

 

The enthusiasts who clamor for an authoritarian government that imposes “traditional values” are not interested in the Tradition of the Kingdom of God, the true righteous society of the New Jerusalem.

 

Authoritarianism has been ever the worst sea monster that's attacked our little boat. We've always been open to the Siren seduction of sidling up to the State for getting our desires transmuted into the legal sword of domination and death.

 

So if anyone is enthusiastic about adding to the list of anathemas today, or painting pictures of bad guys in Triumph icons, then they'd better put in the real devils -- the ones that are doing the real harm today:

 

Wrath. Pride. Avarice. Power and Violence.

 

The same stuff that's always brought us down and sunk our ship.

this is not a religious war

This war is not a religious war. It is an invasion that is an attempt to restore the USSR, just as Putin has said so repeatedly before.

 

The fact that the Moscow Patriarch Kirill fails to condemn it, and that his own metropolis in Ukraine no longer commemorates him, does not make it a religious war.

 

To say so is to give weight to the usual secular argument against religion in general — i.e., that the world would be better off without any religion at all.

 

Saying so also puts Orthodoxy in a bad light, particularly Slavic Orthodoxy. Especially since most people presume that all Slavic Orthodoxy is Russian, which is certainly not true of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, and is also not true of Rumanian, Georgian, Bulgarian, and Carpatho-Russian Orthodoxy (the latter of which I am part, and which is under the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople).

 

Patriarch Kirill has indeed only added to the argument that this is a religious war against the transgressiveness of the liberal West. In doing so, he is not religious so much as he is being ideological. His politically partisan commitment to Putin’s imperialist and autocratic politics has supplanted his theology -- because ideology always drives out theology.

 

He has thus failed his responsibilities as an Orthodox hierarch. He has brought ill repute to the faith. For the sake of his own soul and for his Russian faithful, he should retire to a monastery. Or simply live out his life as a simple layman, doing simple work, which can always be a better thing.

 

This is not a religious war. It is an imperialist onslaught against liberal democracy. America and Europe are the latter.

 

Real Orthodoxy (and Christianity in general) has no essential argument against democracy, no matter how transgressive liberal and secular democracy might seem to be.

 

It does, however, have an essential argument against an invasion that has destroyed innocent homes and has killed fathers and mothers and children ... an invasion that has its own mob-slogans and dark swastika-like merchandising (i.e., Putin's "Z").

 

Orthodox Christianity does not and cannot tolerate this invasion. It is not a conflict between two sides. It is sheer aggression and abuse.

 

Every Orthodoxy must courageously and prophetically denounce it. Without equivocation.

 

Indeed, one should pray for Ukraine and take up offerings for her relief. But one must also pray against the demonized power that impels such a death-wielding onslaught of terror and destruction.

 

It is a moral failure to cower away from clearly denouncing this horrific invasion. Without equivocation. Without complaining about NATO and the liberal West. Without complaining about transgenderism and gay parades and CRT and socialism and "woke-ism."

It's high time that American Orthodox websites make a clean breast of it and condemn this war clearly, and for once leave off the equivocation of the culture wars, else our Gospel will fall into utter disrepute. 

Look at the bodies in the streets of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv and Mariupol, and tell me that the culture wars were worth just one of these.

 

amor conquista todo

Somewhere in the desert far from the beaten path, is the ruins of an old 17th-century mission. There is a decrepit gateway arch. You can barely pick out the letters that whisper “Amor Conquista Todo.”

It is a perfect picture of the gate to Paradise, a bright dream in the nightmare of war.

Here is Adam praying these words after he and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden:

“O Paradise, share in the sorrow of your master who is brought to poverty, and with the sighing of your leaves pray to the Creator that He may not keep your gate closed forever.” (verse from Orthodox Matins for Forgiveness Sunday).

We’ve all heard the sighing of the leaves, and we’ve all been affected by the distant homesick echo of the surf, not too far away, in the magenta, almost violet-tinged twilight of the sun setting into Pamlico Sound.

It’s like the memory of an inborn yearning, a déjà vu homesickness, for a better place that one has never been to yet, a setting that must remain, else you’d never know that there was something wrong, something missing. Like you’d never know about sickness if you didn’t already have some tacit knowledge of health. Like you’d never know that there was something tragically awry about death were it not for your dream of life – a dream that comes unbidden, that you didn’t invent because you couldn’t have.

We all dream of Eden Again, in the deepest strata of the psyche. But Eden – Paradise – is more than a dream.

It is the Millennium itself, the descending New Jerusalem of the book of Revelation. It hovers over time and space, constantly calling, constantly drawing our best work and prayer, our best service together. 

At least in this fallen age, it is never fully attainable but it is always possible. Sometimes, there are real successes in history. Sometimes, there really are happy endings.

Eden is a place where there is justice and peace. It is a place where all needs are met, where no one goes hungry or thirsty or rejected or set outside. A place of beauty, goodness, and peace, where all violence and domination are no more. Where all eat at the same abundant table. It is the beloved community of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, where all are invited – from the highways and the hedges, “the lame, the halt, and the blind,” and the ones who were always left uninvited in the dark world.

Eden is the place where “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Where Christ is the never-setting sun in the glory of the Holy Spirit, where is always heard the vast echoing voice of the Father.

We all dream of Eden Again. We all wish for the Millennium and the New Jerusalem, “where the lamb lies down with the lion, and a little child shall lead them.”

Eden is the Father’s House of many mansions, where – when he finally came to his senses – the Prodigal Son remembered this very dream of where there was bread and enough to spare. Where the Father stood waiting for His wrongheaded child – the entire human race – to come home.

Where He’s still waiting.

We hear the sighing of the leaves yearning for Eden. We hear them whispering even in the face of the winds of war. Even in the news of mindless destruction a whole world away. 

Even when we say with Theoden, at the hopeless Battle of Helms Deep: “So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?”

Forgiveness is the way of every Prodigal’s return, of going back home to Eden. The map is written in our hearts.

“Lord have mercy” is the oldest prayer in human history. Tradition has it that Adam and Eve started to pray it immediately after their expulsion.

And mercy is given whenever that prayer is prayed. God waits upon every Amen.

But there is another forgiveness that is just as necessary. It is the forgiveness of others. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

You can’t have one forgiveness without the other. If we want God to be free with us, then we need to be free with Him, and with all others. “Freely ye have received, freely give.”

There are no qualifiers in the forgiveness that Jesus called for. No exceptions. Even after someone has offended you seventy times seven. Even in at the extremities of war: Ukrainians will have to be forgiving Russians for a hundred years, and it will be hard going.

To be sure, forgiveness doesn’t mean going back to status quo ante. Forgiveness is one thing. Keeping everyone safe is another. An abused woman might forgive, but the abuser might never be able to come back to his old home. Ukrainians might forgive, but they will have to, for a hundred years, as Ronald Reagan once said, “Trust, but verify.”

None of this makes forgiveness easy. Forgiveness is the hardest ascetical work. Why is it so hard? It is a tragedy of the human condition that we’ve become so used to withholding forgiveness and harboring old memories of offense, how almost addicted we are to “unforgiveness.”

We shouldn’t be surprised at this. Unforgiveness, the harboring of grudges, is the cornerstone of the fallen world. Of all the noetic creatures that nurse their grudges, Satan himself has the most of them.

But unforgiveness is an excruciating burden of spite, a heavy burden that we carry in a forlorn march of rehearsed grievances … every single grudge is just one more brick on a beast of burden.

Eden calls to all who are weary and heavy-laden, who need rest.

The price of admission to the Millennium, the New Jerusalem, “the blessed meadow, the trees and flowers planted by God in the sweetness of Paradise” (another lovely verse from Matins).

The price of admission is this:

Let it go. Drop the burden. Drop all charges. Be radical. Be forgiving. Be free. “And ye shall know the truth, and Truth shall set you free.”

Come on in. There’s a Cross over the entrance to the Father’s house.

And written on the stone arch is this:

Amor conquista todo.

Love conquers all. Of course it does.

orthodoxy at the crossroads

I believe that Orthodox Christianity is at a crossroads.

 

There is a poignant question that demands an answer, a decision. It's been brought to the fore in exquisite clarity by Russia's corrupt and demonic invasion of Ukraine.

 

It is an unavoidable question, and it is regrettably divisive. There will be many who will answer with the darkness.

 

The crossroads question is this:

 

Will Orthodoxy, once and for all, renounce and denounce authoritarianism? Will it turn away from collusion with the State? Will it take the straight and narrow away from State advantage? Will it refuse the benefits (and greater liabilities) afforded by State-sponsored religious coercion?

 

Will Orthodoxy reject caesaro-papism? Will it turn its back on the ghost of Constantine?

 

In turn, will Orthodoxy accept and embrace democracy? Even in its inevitable secularizing culture? Will Orthodoxy grasp and exercise its essential apostolic witness?

 

Are we brave enough to be salt and light, without relying on a Strong Man? Without groveling for attention from an earthy king, despite it's already having One King at the right hand of the Father?

 

Brave enough to go into the highways and the byways, to give up the silver and gold and to say, with abundant life, "but such as I have give I thee"? Brave enough to emerge from hermetically sealed and cultic flights from secularity ... brave enough to leave the tawdry confidences of the culture wars and to face the real powers and principalities, face to face, and "to stand therefore with the armor of God"? 

 

Faithful enough to take the apocalyptic tradition and the sacrament, to recognize the creaturely Sophia in all of humanity and creation, from flower to star, and apprehend the countenance of Christ the Shepherd Who divides the sheep from the goats in every heart?

Are we wise enough and innocent enough to carry the true Cross into the public square, without sycophanting ourselves before a despot like Putin, who gives pretty baubles to his pets?

 

Will we finally step up to the present ordained moment, when the Lord is sending us "into all the world, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you"?

Because the status quo, my friend, will not survive. The old familiar contours of institutional identity are falling away. The foundations are being shaken.

When the question comes, posed by the ghost of Constantine, who offers mastery of more than a blues guitar at the crossroads, which way will we go?

a request for moscow

This is Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, and I have a request of him.

 

I cannot ask him directly, as I am not under his patriarchate. I am, rather, under Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch and Archbishop of Constantinople.

 

But this request ought to be made.

 

For the sake of his people, and for the sake of innocent Ukrainians, including babies and children, grandmothers and grandfathers, and for the sake of Orthodox Christianity around the world:

 

Patriarch Kirill needs to immediately denounce Vladimir Putin and the rest of his thieving, criminal, oligarchic gang.

 

Immediately denounce Putin and the rest of them: excommunicate them all.

 

Because Putin has blasphemed the Name of Jesus Christ by persecuting and torturing His Body.

 

That alone should be enough for a Patriarch to stand up courageously and do the Will of God. It should be enough that Putin and Lavrov are now threatening nuclear war. This is insane, and this is demonic -- whenever the threat of total destruction, even oneself, then the demonic is clearly at work. This is the usual way for dictators.

 

Even dictators who have been unbelievably blessed by Patriarch Kirill.

 

I will not pretend and call this a humble request. There is no bowing and scraping here.

 

This is, rather, a voice from the precipice, and a moment of inflection. When a monstrous, demonic tyrant might be able to come to his senses if pushed by someone who has held an icon of the Mother of God for him to kiss.