“All the best that Russia has created is the result of the inward reconciliation of “Eastern” and “Western,” of all that was true and immortal that sprouted from Byzantine seed, but could grow only by identifying itself once more with the general history of Christian humanity.” ~ Fr. Alexander Schmemann Note: For a disclaimer about historical terms in light of current events, see my previous essay on Pre-Petrine Russia. In an episode of the Simpsons titled, “The Seemingly Never-Ending Story,” Moe, owner of the local bar, tries to lose his friends and sometime bar denizens…
One cannot overstress the social aspect of Russian religious ethics…. [O]ne must keep in mind that through all the centuries of medieval and Muscovite Russia her religion was predominantly social…. An enforced individualism enters the Russian Church life only since the reform or revolution of Peter I. ~ G. P. Fedotov On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Low estimates count roughly 10,000 killed, nearly 4,000 of those civilians. The reality is likely much higher, and the fighting continues. Fleeing for their lives, 5.8 million have become refugees. I have views about this tragic bloodshed between…
Inasmuch as the present rests on the shoulders of the past, we can generally claim that our contemporary economic life is built upon the foundations set by the ascetic monastic labor of medieval Europe. ~ Fr. Sergei Bulgakov In the early twentieth-century, Adolf von Harnack observed in his historical study that “in Western monasticism we have to recognise a factor of the first importance in Church and civilisation.” The sociologist Max Weber, Harnack’s contemporary, also acknowledged this, for the West, in his major work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. By contrast, both figures…
[W]ithin three centuries of Christianity’s appearance in the world, Christians took over the seat of power and set out on a long journey to effect change in society, creating a Christian civilization in the process. ~ Fr. John McGuckin In the powerful ending of Schindler’s List, Oskar Schindler, after sacrificing so much of his own wealth and risking his own life to save the lives of some 1,200 Jews in Nazi Germany, says, weeping, “I could have got more out.” He looks around at the possessions he could have sold: “This car … why did I…
If the centurion Cornelius, having fully become a Christian, remained a warrior … then it is clear that he became a Christian warrior. A collection of such warriors forms a Christian army…. Consequently, if there can be a Christian army, then by the same token and even all the more there can be a Christian state. ~ Vladimir Soloviev In the seventh Harry Potter book and the first part of its film adaptation, there is a scene where Harry, the young wizard protagonist, attends a wedding. In the previous book and film (spoiler alert!), his mentor…
More than by words, Christianity was served by the actual renewal of life which appeared in the Christian community and was in the final analysis alone capable of proving the life-giving force of the Gospel. ~ Fr. Alexander Schmemann In 1941, the liberal biblical scholar Rudolf Bultmann asserted, “We cannot use electric lights and radios and, in the event of illness, avail ourselves of modern medical and clinical means and at the same time believe in the spirit and wonder world of the New Testament.” To Bultmann, one must get beyond this primitive worldview to its…
