ECCLESIOLOGY AND NATIONALISM
Religious nationalism seems to be the most serious problem that the Orthodox Church—and Orthodox ecclesiology especially—have faced since the fall of Byzantium (1453), a decisive historical event which began a period of introversion. Specific but very significant aspects of this problem are the identification between Church and nation, Church and ethno-cultural identity, Church and national ideology, Church and state, and, consequently, the concept —but also the real- ity— of national Churches, i.e. the inability to conceive of the Ortho- dox Church and its mission and witness in the world independently from the national vision and particular national idea or story. As a result of this replacement of the ecclesial criterion with the national, the Orthodox Church has been facing for many decades now a pro- found division between the different national Churches as well as the acceptance of the problematic ecclesiological idea that sees the Orthodox Church as a “confederation of national Churches.”
This identification and this “national” role constitute a novelty for the Orthodox Church, which had been, for many centuries, the Church of the multinational Byzantine Empire. Generally speaking, till the era of the Turkish occupation (15th-19th centuries) during which we can observe the first signs of this national role, the Ortho- dox Church, despite, or maybe because of its bonds with the imperial power, ignored any kind of “national logic” both in its ecclesiological structure and in its theological self-consciousness. By assuming this innovation, and by being involved in the formation of particular eth- no-cultural identities, the Orthodox Church not only seems to face serious difficulties in confirming its sense of catholicity, ecumenicity and Church unity, but also appears to have abandoned the basis and the criterion of its ecclesiology, which was always determined by the principle of a local and not a national Church.
After a long and complex historical process, mainly after the cre- ation of the modern “Orthodox” states and the more recent political developments in Central and Eastern Europe, the Orthodox Church now seems to have forgotten its supranational mission and its fun- damental ecclesiological principles. More importantly, at the time and in the context of a multinational pluralistic postmodern soci- ety, Orthodoxy exhausts its theological and spiritual resources of the patristic and Eucharistic tradition in the rhetoric of “identities” and in a dated religious tribalism that stands in contrast to the Gospel’s call for supraracial and even supranational societies. Many Eastern countries’ insistence on seeing Orthodoxy as a part of their national identity and culture, related to their customs and traditional folk- lore, undermines every serious attempt to face the challenges that the contemporary world poses to Orthodoxy, and condemns the lat- ter to continue being trapped in traditionalism, fundamentalism, so- cial anachronism (or even reactionism), pre-modernity and the authoritarian structures of patriarchal society.
The question now is whether it is time for Orthodoxy to close the “parenthesis” opened in 1453 with the fall of Byzantium, and return to its main and crucial mission, which is the evangelization and transfiguration of the world, the preaching of the coming Kingdom of God for the salvation and restoration of the whole creation. A renewed and fresh theological reflection must remember that the Church is en route to the Eschaton and not a return to the glori- ous and painful story of Byzantium, the Turkish Occupation or a “Christian Empire.” If the Church wants to speak to the modern world and people in order to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom- and not to the bygone world of yesterday- it is urgent for it to go be- yond the ethnocentric discourse, to abandon any dream of a return to Byzantine theocracy, or any other anti-modern romantic version of “Christian society.” Theocracy and neo-nationalism, which are presumably nothing other than secularized forms of eschatology, constitute the permanent historical temptation of Orthodoxy and they can not, for any reason, continue to be the Orthodox Church’s political idea. To the modern person’s thirst for life, the Orthodox Church can and ought to respond with its own proposal, with its “words of eternal life” (cf. Jn 6:68), and not with the continuous invocation of the past and its own achievements in the struggles and fights of the nation. For that reason, the adoption of an ecu- menical ecclesiastical discourse, free from the continuous refer ences to the nation and to the forms of the Constantinian era, is not just a demand for genuineness, authenticity and faithfulness to the Ortho- dox Tradition; it is also for the Church an absolutely indispensable and urgent prerequisite, an inviolate condi- tion, in order to enter the century in which we live and to avoid finding easy and safe shelter in the past. Without this element, there is neither a true nor lasting revelation of God in creation and history, nor does the Church pray, dialogue and struggle “for the life of the world.” Without it, a message of reconciliation, repentance, and re- evangelism cannot be formulated.
All these substantial questions and topics could be addressed and honestly discussed in the framework of an Inter-Orthodox Consulta- tion on “Ecclesiology and Nationalism in a Postmodern Era,” which will be held in May 24-27, 2012 in Volos (Greece). This consultation will be organized by the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, in cooperation with: the Chair of Orthodox Theology, University of Munster (Germany); the Orthodox Christian Studies Program, Ford- ham University (New York, USA); the Romanian Institute for Inter- Orthodox, Inter-Confessional and Inter-Religious Studies (INTER, Cluj-Napoca, Romania); the Christian Cultural Center of Belgrade (Serbia); the St. Andrew’s Biblical Theological Institute (Moscow, Russia); the Valamo Lay Academy (Finland); and the European Fo- rum of Orthodox Schools of Theology (EFOST, Brussels).
Below you can flip through the program.
