On Orthodoxy and Nationalism
theo...@medlib.georgetown.edu
Roman Empire was ecumenical. Whether Latin of Greek predominated
in Constantinople, ours was a multiethnic empire, with the church
willing to use the local language to convey the world of God. Thus were
the Slavs and others converted to Orthodoxy and brought into the orbit
of our Roman civilization.
...
Entire libraries have been written about nationalism. But a curious
element of most nationalisms is the way they combine distant memories
with new ideas. In art, this combination of old and new is called
"post-modernism", and state-builders are certainly "artists" in the most
literal sense of the world. The genesis of nationalism involves selective
memory, and in the case of the Orthodox countries, nationalism has
favoured past periods of ethnic glory over the combined splendour of
Orthodox civilization.
We lament this imbalance. Without the church, we of the Orthodox
tradition can never have more than a lop-sided, skewed, and incomplete
view of who we are.
The emphasis on national or ethnic heritage has had the effect of
fragmenting the family of our ecumenical civilizations - from Russians
and Georgians to Albanians and Romanians. This is particularly
disturbing because nationalism is a phenomenon, with disastrous
consequences.
The holy Orthodox Church searched long for a language with which to
address nationalism, amid the strife and havoc this new idiology created
in the Orthodox lands of Eastern Europe and for much of the 19th
century. In 1972, the Holy Synod issued a definitive condemnation of
the sin of phyletism, saying, "We renounce, censure and condemn
racism, that is, racial discrimination, ethnic feuds, hatreds, and
dissensions within the Church of Christ..."
Today, more than a century later, nationalism remains the bane of our
ecumenical church. It is time for us to begin to reconcile nationalism and
ecumenism. They are not mutually exclusive...'
from a speech by His Holiness Pat. +BARTHOLEMEW, Archbishop of Constantinople
and Ecumenical Patriarch
source: http://www.patriarchate.org/SPEECHES/1993/Mnymosene-Nov12.html
In XC,
Nick Theodorakis
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GS
I was about to say that this post was the absolute best that I had ever seen you
write but then I got to the bottom and notice that it is by Patriarch
Bartolomeo. How great of you to have found this and posted it.
Galina
bjoh...@forpresident.com
> 'We must also decry the simplification of Byzantium as "Greek".
>
Indeed, as H.G. Kallistos said in a 1995 interview available at
http://www.goarch.com (under videos), "The Byzantines did not call themselves
Byzantines, they did not call themselves Greeks. They called themselves
Latins." Or Romans, and:
> The
> Roman Empire was ecumenical. Whether Latin of Greek predominated
> in Constantinople, ours was a multiethnic empire, with the church
> willing to use the local language to convey the world of God.
> This is particularly
> disturbing because nationalism is a phenomenon, with disastrous
> consequences.
>
.... like WWI and Nazism.
Best,
Ben
Troyen
the Byzantines were ecumenical? Maybe I just don't understand.
sinner, troyen
Catherine Hampton
: So now it is Ecumenical to translate Orthodoxy to other people
: groups therefore the Byzantines were ecumenical? Maybe I just
: don't understand.
Nothing new about that.... <BIG wicked grin>
Seriously, I think you're just reacting to the word "ecumenical" as
if it always means the same thing -- the World Council of Churches
and its agenda. That is a recent, new definition of the word.
Originally it just meant "all Christians". The Ecumenical Councils
are Councils of the whole Church. The Ecumenical Patriarch is,
at least by title and honor, the "first among equals". Although
he does not have authority over the whole Church, as does the
Roman Pope, he is supposed to "lead by example" and we are supposed
to give him a respectful hearing.
IMHO this statement was excellent. I couldn't agree with what he
said more, although I suspect he had a few agendas in saying it that
I might not approve of.
This does =NOT= mean I approve of the World Council of Churches or
that some Orthodox Christian jurisdictions are members of it. I'm
not going to condemn them as heretics on this basis, though. We're
too fast to use that word sometimes, and too eager to judge the
hearts of other people, as only God (not man) can do.
--
Catherine Hampton <ar...@tempest.boxmail.com>
Home Page * <http://www.hrweb.org/ariel/>
Orthodox Christian Resources * <http://www.hrweb.org/orthodox/>
(Please use this address for replies -- the address in my header is a
spam trap.)
Troyen
all-christian part gets overblown.
sinner, troyen
theo...@medlib.georgetown.edu
GS <sp...@erols.com> wrote:
> Nick,
>
> I was about to say that this post was the absolute best that I had ever seen you
> write but then I got to the bottom and notice that it is by Patriarch
> Bartolomeo. How great of you to have found this and posted it.
>
> Galina
>
They are my sentiments, but he did say it much better than I could have.
Also, for those who need to read it the most, it will carry much more weight
coming from the EP (hmmm... wonder if I should have cross-posted it to scg?
In here, it's almost preaching to the converted.)
In XC,
Nick Theodorakis
GS
theo...@medlib.georgetown.edu wrote:
> I (hmmm... wonder if I should have cross-posted it to scg?
> In here, it's almost preaching to the converted.)
INDIVIDUAL post it to scg. safer that way