Bruce Clark on Eastern Orthodoxy and Political Governance

I've been asked to talk about the relationship between the orthodox christian church and in the broadest sense earthly powers in other words governments rulers political systems that's a tropical question because there is at least one geopolitically important country Russia where orthodox Christianity is the historically dominant faith and where the church enjoys a close if informal relationship with the nation's earthly governors indeed it might now be said that upholding and promoting religious orthodoxy is part of Russia's foreign policy just as it was in the 19th century so it's pertinent to ask whether there is anything about orthodox Christianity as such which lends itself to close relationships with earthly powers. Perhaps the first thing to say is that no political system no regime no ideology forms part of the core beliefs of orthodox Christianity. Of course orthodox Christianity does have plenty of core beliefs about the creation of the world about Jesus Christ about the Holy Trinity about the destiny of the human race in a world where god has become incarnate .Those beliefs are laid out in the Nicene creed and they were elaborated in the seven councils of the church held between 325 and 787

Now in relation to those stated beliefs it's important to stress that they express profound truths only as far as human language will allow there is a level at which all great truths about god are inexpressible and words and concepts will only take us so far but it is believed that words can at least guide us in the right direction and steer us away from certain wrong ways of thinking and these spiritually important words do not have anything directly to say about politics they don't tell us which political systems or leaders we should admire or what political program we should follow and it's noticeable that among orthodox Christians you will find an extraordinary range of political views from the far left to the far right or sometimes a bizarre mixture of the two

ing the Russo-japanese war of: 1905

orthodoxy takes seriously the radical distinction between earthly and spiritual power that was made by Jesus Christ when he was challenged to say whether it was right to pay taxes to the emperor

you may remember the story he took a coin bearing an image of Caesar and quoting here from Matthew's gospel he said to them whose is this image in superscription and they said to him Caesars and he said to them render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto god the things that are god's

at the same time as they contemplate their own history orthodox Christians must acknowledge that doctrines and definitions which they consider important were formulated in a particular historical and political context the east roman or byzantine empire was a world in which the emperor as defender and champion of the faith was expected to work closely with the patriarch with the other bishops and ultimately with ordinary believers to maintain a christian polity all played their part in upholding that christian realm it was the emperor who convened those great councils of the church even if it was the bishops who made the theological determinations the roles of the emperor and the patriarch were complementary not identical the emperor was in a sense spiritual he received the Eucharist the consecrated holy gifts of bread and wine in a style befitting a priest and not a layperson

so in that sense the emperor's role was to some degree a religious one but he generally delegated doctrinal and liturgical matters to the church unless he had some overwhelming reason to believe that the church's leaders had lapsed into heresy

d had a name symphonia and in: 2009

in adapting to earthly regimes of every kind including Islamic and even atheist forms of governance

under the ottoman empire the church was circumscribed and hemmed in but in some ways also shored up by earthly power in worldly terms it could be said that the ottoman sultan contracted out the governance of his orthodox subjects to the church

even under soviet communism a regime which was availably atheist and practiced terrible persecution of religious believers the church managed to some degree to preserve its outward existence by entering some deep compromises with the Marxist state

part of the church anyway there were some bishops some congregations some believers which responded to the bolsheviks by going underground

communist authorities around: 1927

of Russia's star Nicholas in: 1918

that view certainly exists but i think it's fair to say it's a minority view let me tell you here an anecdote while visiting the united states i once overheard a bantering conversation between a very traditional priest of the Russian diaspora an American nun whose brother happened to hold a senior position in the administration so the priest said look i know your brother's a democrat but surely you must be a monarchist like we are to which the nun very properly replied i i much prefer to concentrate on the kingdom of god and i think we can say that the nun's answer was very well grounded theologically

ted by the Nazis in Munich in: 1943