Resistance to Evil by Force

Orthodox Political Theology, Part II: Christian Service in War; Legitimacy, Symphonia, and the Role of Sobornost.

We have spoken at some length about the responsibilities of an Orthodox Christian to their people and the state and the need for each Christian to be obedient to their God ordained rulers. This naturally raises questions relating to marks of a ruler or regimes legitimacy, the limits of obedience, and resistance to evil by force. These are necessary questions which have sensible answers, many of which are, if not explicitly stated, alluded to in our previous essay.

To answer these questions satisfactorily, we will need to discuss two key elements of Orthodox political theology: Symphonia and Sobornost. Particularly, we will need to discuss how symphonia relates to the legitimacy of a particular ruler, and Sobornost as the mechanism by which God’s will is manifested, sanctioning action among the faithful. But before we do this, it will be helpful to discuss the Orthodox understanding of warfare and the duty of a Christian to defend faith and fatherland. By doing so, we will both put to bed once and for all the Amish-adjacent tendencies of many Orthodox Christians, and show the moral and theological continuity between obedience and resistance by force, revealing them as two aspects of Christian love and in no way locked in a dialectical opposition.

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Christian Service in War

“War in itself is absolutely evil, an extremely sad phenomenon and deeply contrary to the essence of Christianity. Words cannot express how joyous it would be if people ceased to war with one another and peace reigned on earth. Sad reality speaks quite otherwise, however. Only some dreamers far removed from reality and some narrowly one-sided sectarians can pretend that war can be omitted from real life.” - Metropolitan Philaret of New York¹

War is a reality, and unfortunately a reality which must come [Matt. 24:6]. This is a hard reality for many who have not appropriated the mind of the Church to accept, who want to hold to a Tolstoyite style pacifism. These often argue that evil can only be resisted in the heart, and that one can only fulfill the Gospel commands through non-resistance. In his 1925 book On the Resistance to Evil by Force, Ivan Ilyin refutes this position:

“What would ‘non-resistance’ mean, in the sense of the absence of any resistance? This would mean accepting evil: letting it in and giving it freedom, scope, and power. If under these conditions the uprising of evil occurred, and non-resistance continued, it would subordination to it, a surrender of the self to it, participation in it, and finally, turning oneself into its instrument, into its body, into its cesspool, its plaything, and an absorbed element thereof. It would be a voluntary self-corruption and self-infection at the start, and the active spread of infection among other people and their involvement in its coordination by the end.” - Ivan Ilyin²

The Church has always recognized that evil must be resisted - even by force. This is not mere speculation on my part, as it has been normative for most of the Church’s history to enter the names of slain Orthodox warriors into the diptychs of their local church and commemorate them. During his tenure as bishop of Kazan, St. Hermogenes of Moscow wrote a letter to St. Job of Moscow asking the latter’s blessing to commemorate those slain for faith and fatherland against the Tartar, in his See.³ Likewise, the Church commemorates Orthodox Warriors on August 29/September 11, serving the Office for Orthodox Warriors Slain on the Field of Battle for the Faith and the Fatherland. Among the many hymns and petitions contained in the service, we find the following:

“There is none without sin, save only thee, O Master. Wherefore pardon thou the sins of those who have suffered for thy Holy Church and the Fatherland; and establish them in Paradise.

Glory…

Give ear, O holy Trinity, to the voices of supplication which are offered unto thee in the Church for those who have perished in battle for the sake of thy Holy Church. And illumine, with thy divinely sovereign light, those souls which have been darkened by affection for earthly vanities….”

likewise among the litanies:

“[Again we pray] for the repose, tranquility, and blessed memory of the ever-memorable servants of God, [N.] the Orthodox Warriors who have valiantly contended: and for all who have laid down their life in battle for the Faith and Fatherland, let us pray to the Lord.” - Hapgood Service Book⁴

When asked how he could reconcile turning the other cheek with Christian service in war, Saint Cyril, the Enlightener of the Slavs said “We meekly endure personal offenses; but as a society, we defend each other, laying down our lives for our neighbors, so that you having taken them captive, do not force them to deny their faith or perform acts against God.”⁵ If nations were merely ideas or ideologies, they would be indefensible, but a nation is the people, one’s own people, and therefore an extension of one’s family and community.

Christian service in war, then, is an extension of Christian love; the Christian has a duty to defend his people by force of arms when it is under assault. Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky) says that “One of the clearest and most self-denying struggles of service to one’s homeland is to die for the nation. A Christian soldier is a defender of the homeland and clearly fulfills Christ’s precept, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that one lay down his life for his friends,’ (Jn. 15:13)”.⁶ The love of one’s own people does not require one to hate other nations, but expressly forbids it. The Christian, while required to love the people from which God raised him, cannot exalt them to such a degree as to see others as less human - less a collection of living images of God.

"God! Truth! This is supreme over one's fatherland, but one's fatherland is also from God; and truth lies also in devoted love for your native people. All people in the world are family before Christ; so I ask you: what place is there for hatred of other nations?! No, there is only love. But if you don't love your own people with filial love, how will you love another people?" - Saint Gabriel (Urgebadze) of Samtavro⁷

When one’s homeland is under assault, it is not only one’s duty to defend his people, but the refusal to fight, be it from vain moralism or cowardice, is a grave sin. In Living According to God’s Will, Met. Philaret recalls the life of St. Athanasius of the Holy Mountain, during which Byzantium was invaded by the Persians. A great warrior prince of Georgia and Byzantine commander named Tornikian had entered the monastery, and was now refusing to be recalled to the army by the Empress Zoe. St. Athanasius told him bluntly:

“We are all children of our homeland and we are obligated to defend it. Our obligation is to guard the homeland by prayer. Nevertheless, if God deems it expedient to use both our hands and our heart for the commonwealth, we must submit completely… If you do not obey the ruler, you will have to answer for the blood of your compatriots whom you did not wish to save, and for the destruction of the Churches of God.”⁸

We could add to this the story of St. Alexander Peresvet, a renowned warrior Bogatyr who became a disciple of St. Sergius of Radonezh. When the Mongol warlord Mamai sought to destroy Rus, St. Dimitry Donskoy came to St. Sergius to obtain his blessing. The saint blessed him and gave him the monks Alexander and Andrew (Oslyabya) to take to battle. St. Alexander was perplexed, having taken an oath to do no harm, but St. Sergius told him that in defense of the faith and his fatherland, he was serving God to an even greater degree. He died in a duel with the Tartar champion, and the Russians defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Kulikovo, setting the stage for their liberation.

Sts Alexander Peresvet and Andrew Oslyabya [Credit: Damascene Gallery]

Thus, out of love for neighbor - and above all of Truth, Christ - the Christian takes up arms against evil forces. His love compels him to enter into the arena, to fend off the wolves from the flock of Christ. Christian service in war then can be a direct, religious and patriotic duty of man, and when this is the case, he has no right to evade it.⁹

One can, of course, sin grievously in war. This begins when one’s hatred of their enemy overcomes their love for their neighbor; this occurs when one engages in baseless slaughter of non-combatants, in theft, rape, etc… “On the contrary” says Met. Philaret, “the less [the Christian] thinks of himself, and the more he is ready to lay down his life for others, the closer the Christian soldier approaches the martyrs crown.”¹⁰ We should not read this as a pseudo-crusader ideology in which engaging in war against non-Christians or illegitimate forces makes one a martyr by default, but that it is the love of neighbor, the desire to preserve the faithful and the Churches of God that places one in continuity with the martyrs.

It follows then that wars of conquest for meager ends are sinful and a cause for repentance among a Christian people. By contrast, defensive wars are justified in the light of the Church’s teaching. Wars are defensive not merely when defending against foreign invasion, seizure of land, property, and persons, and violence against life, but those fought in defense of the Truth. It is with this knowledge in mind that we should view the blessing of soldiers and their weapons with holy water by the priests of the Church. The blessing is not given so that the soldiers can kill as many of the enemy as possible, but that the Lord would protect them, that He would bring about the defeat of the enemy quickly, and with as little loss of life as possible.

The Cost of War

The Church recognizes the immense moral burden society places on its young men (and unfortunately now women) in asking them to take life in order to preserve it. Death is an unnatural phenomenon and the taking of a life is always serious. As anyone who has been in a war can tell you, no “cause” or justification for killing in war can negate the wound it leaves in the soul. Orthodox Canon Law reflects this. For example, St. Basil the Great recommends that those who kill in war abstain from communion for three years.¹¹ This may seem extreme to those outside the Church. Afterall, many men spend the rest of their lives in anguish over their actions in war, excluding them from communion seems almost cruel from this perspective. But this is not the case.

Instead, the Church functions as a source of spiritual healing, of cleansing for those defiled by the blood of our fellow man - each a unique and living image of God. The canons are not punitive punishments, instead they are part of the Church’s psycho-therapeutic program, bringing healing to the soul. Priests are meant to serve as spiritual doctors, and the penitent is by no means left to fend for himself during the period of abstinence. Instead, he undergoes counsel and undertakes prescribed spiritual exercises, a physical therapy for the soul.

It is important to outline the Orthodox understanding of war, and a Christian’s duty to fight, as it shows that pacifism is an element of cosmopolitanism, not Christianity. If there are instances in which the Christian has a duty to resist evil by force from abroad, then it logically follows that one likewise has a duty to resist evil by force when it comes from our own rulers. Thus, the question is not can we reconcile a duty to resist evil with a duty to be obedient to our rulers, but when does the former overcome the latter.

To understand this we must understand two key Orthodox concepts and how they function in Orthodox Political Philosophy: Symphonia and Sobornost.

Symphonia

Symphonia is the Orthodox conception of Divine-Human cooperation, by which the divine plan unfolds in history through the use of, or in collaboration with human agency. It is, therefore, a thoroughly Biblical concept which is deeply rooted in the Eastern Orthodox worldview and understanding of salvation history. As an element of political theology, we see symphonia typified in the symbol adopted by Orthodox states: the double-headed eagle.

Russian Coat of Arms, displaying the two authorities of the Christian nation, above which is the crown of the King of Kings. [Credit: Google Images]

Each head of the eagle bears a crown and above the two is a single, larger crown. The two heads represent the Oikumene or Empire (the state) and the Ekklesia or Assembly (the Church and faithful). These work in concert to guide the Orthodox nation - symbolized by the body of the eagle - under the authority and direction of the King of Kings, Christ, symbolized by the larger crown above the two. The Orthodox recognize no absolute division between the spiritual and secular, while each of the two authorities which the heads symbolize has its respective responsibility, they are organic parts of the whole body of the people of God, or Orthodox nation.

The Church did not develop its conceptions of symphony out of thin air - nor from neo-platonism as some have mistakenly stated - instead, it is drawn from the relationship which God had established with the Church in the Old Testament, which lays out a very clear teaching on how God relates to the Ekklesia of Israel, the role of the king, priesthood, and people. Similar to Israel in the Old Testament, the Christian head of state has a duty to safeguard and protect life (both by maintaining order and preventing foreign invasion), provide material security, and provide them with the required means to prosper and reach the full development of their capabilities, moral and material. They are given full authority in these matters. By contrast, the Church is responsible for the moral health of the nation, and the people for maintaining tradition, justice, and serving faithfully the church and state. We see this principle of Symphonia laid out fairly clearly in one of St. Justinian the Great’s Novellas:

“There are two greatest gifts which God, in his love for mankind, has granted from on-high: the priesthood and the imperial dignity. The first serves divine things, while the latter directs and administers human affairs; both, however, proceed from the same origin and adorn the life of mankind. Thus, nothing should be of such a source of care to the emperors as the dignity of the priests, since it is for their (imperial) welfare that they constantly implore God. For if the priesthood is in every way free from blame and possesses access to God, and if the emperors administer equitably and judiciously the State entrusted to their care, general harmony (symphonia tis agathe) will result, and whatever is beneficial will be bestowed upon the human race.” - Novella VI¹²

The rulers likewise have an ultimate responsibility in ensuring justice is maintained throughout the land, for this reason, citizens/subjects have the right to appeal the decision of local authorities to the highest authority in the land. We see this even in the United States, where one can appeal a lower court decision to a higher court if they feel their verdict was unfair. The head of state is not given authority to interject himself in the affairs of the people, to direct culture nor meddle in the affairs of the Church - though rulers often do. While he is not to interject himself in Church affairs, he is called to defend the Church and enable conditions by which the Church can fulfill its mission of sanctifying the nation. He can do this by building and supporting churches and monasteries, facilitating travel and safety for councils, acting against local or foreign powers who seek to abuse or destroy the Church. Clearly there are times where a ruler has overstepped the bounds, or took on certain tasks with a degree of zeal which was not appropriate. But the failure of a ruler, or series of rulers, to reach the ideal, does not negate the ideal.

Thus, in ideal circumstances, the State and Church adhere to their respective “spheres” of society, working together for the benefit of society and aiding one another in carrying out their responsibility. The Church serves the state by raising responsible, morally sound citizens; the state provides an environment in which the Church can evangelize and shepherd the flock, exhorting them to piety without threat of foreign invasion or economic collapse. The Church, filled with sons of their people, serve one another and are ready to defend one another at the expense of their own lifes; the state, filled with sons of the Church, does not act in opposition to the Gospel and good of the Church.

Symphonia sub Barbarorum

We should note that none of this mandates the ruler be himself an Orthodox Christian. While symphonia works best when the ruler, people, and church are a united whole, the ruler’s legitimacy is not derived from his faith, but his fulfillment of the obligations we’ve outlined above. Throughout history we see the church and people find a symphonic balance with non-christian rulers; likewise, symphonia has been shattered by many an Orthodox prince and emperor. The Scriptures show us many examples of pagan rulers who are legitimate rulers ordained by God. For example, the Book of Ezra begins with the Persian king Cyrus saying “The Lord God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah” [Ezra 1:2]. Upon rebuilding the temple, Ezra and Nehemiah offered prayers for the Persian king [Ezra 6:10].

The Mongols in Medieval Rus

In the context of Christian history, rulers who held to these principles - especially if their realm was broad and united the Orthodox people - who protected the Christians from foreign invasion and heresy were seen as legitimate, God ordained rulers. The coming of the Mongols was viewed by the Russians as Divine retribution,¹³ and while the Russian princes resisted the invasion - as was their duty - once defeated, they recognized the khans as legitimate rulers, even bestowing upon then the title previously reserved for the Emperor in Constantinople:

“To you, O Caesar, I bow, since God has bestowed on you the kingdom [tsarstvo] of this world.” - Prince Michael of Chernigov¹⁴

George Fedotov notes that “the khan was a legal tsar, ordained by God, against whom resistance would be sinful.”¹⁵ Within a fairly short time, the descendants of the khan stepped into the same role of protector and benefactor of the people and Church which the Grand Prince had previously held. When we consider the realities of early Mongol role, this shouldn’t be too surprising, as they largely conformed to the symphonic vision of the Church. In his Great Yasa, Ghengis Khan gave absolute religious freedom to his subjects, all religious organizations were given a tax free status, and Churches, temples, and priests were not to be molested. While not Christian, they were largely respectful towards the Christian religion, giving donations to build churches and monasteries and granting their full protection to church property. In return, the Church prayed for the health and welfare of the khans and their dominion. Uzbeg Khan says in a decree “let no one injure the Church… These people, by their prayers, preserve us.”¹⁶

The Mongols believed it to be their mission from God to unite the world under one ruler, establishing order under heaven. Their vast realm afforded those under their dominion with peace, and the violation of societal order was met with swift retribution. Additionally, this opened up the Eurasian interior to missionary work, and Orthodoxy was able to spread eastward - prior to the conversion of the Mongols to Islam. In addition to their patronage and protection of the Church, they likewise became seen as a sort of protector of the faith:

“The Mongol khans were also held to be protectors, of a sort, of the Orthodox from the ‘corrupted’ forms of Christianity that existed in the West, in the Roman Catholicism practiced by Poles, Swedes, and Teutonic Knights, all of whom sought to expand the Roman sphere of influence into Russian territories. Under the ‘mongol umbrella,’ the Orthodox in Russia were not pressured to seek union with the Roman Church, as happened in the Byzantine Empire (facing the onslaught of the Turks) or in the Balkans (Bulgaria and Serbia facing Western enemies).” - Nikolas Gvosdev¹⁷

This is something we touched on in part one of Two Ukraines, in which we describe St. Alexander Nevsky’s decision to place Novgorod in submission to Batu Khan in the midst of the Northern Crusades. Batu agrees to maintain the rights and privileges of the Church and its clergy, and ensure the people are not molested, maintaining their local system of rule - which we will touch on later. According to Gvosdev, “the notion that the family of Ghengis Khan was in fact a legitimate ruling family to whom allegiance should be given played a role in the ‘abdication’ of Ivan the Terrible and the appointment of an Orthodox descendant of Genghis Khan, Simon Bekbulatovich, as the ceremonial emperor (tsar) of Russia.”¹⁸

The Ottoman Oikumene

The same is true of the Orthodox Roman people after the Fall of Constantinople. The people, of course, mourned the fall of The City and the empire at large, but accepted this as God’s will, and that He had ordained for the Turks to rule over them because of their own sloth and moral decay.¹⁹ Ironically, it was the collapse of Orthodox Byzantium which led to the four ancient Eastern Patriarchates being reunited under a single earthly ruler for the first time in seven centuries, further uniting the Orthodox world with the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans and Caucasus. The sultans consciously sought to portray themselves as the continuation of the East Roman Empire. Mehmet had placed Hagia Sophia under his personal protection, restored the Patriarchate of Constantinople, granting George Scholarios many of the same privileges as the patriarchs enjoyed under the emperors.

“See how clearly our Lord… has undertaken to guard once more the unsullied Holy and Orthodox faith of us, the pious, and to save all mankind. He raised out of nothing this powerful empire of the Ottomans, in place of our Roman Empire which had begun, in a certain way, to cause to deviate from the beliefs of the Orthodox faith, and He raised up the empire of the Ottomans higher than any other kingdom so as to show without doubt that it came about by divine will. The all-mighty Lord… puts into the heart of the sultan of these Ottomans an inclination to keep free the religious beliefs of our Orthodox faith and, as a work of supererogation, to protect them, even to the point of occasionally chastising Christians who deviate from their faith.” - Pat. Anthimos of Jerusalem; Paternal Exhortations (1798)²⁰

This does not mean they didn’t harass and persecute the Church, this was certainly the case. Persecution came in various degrees depending on who sat on the throne and the territory within which one lived.²¹ Even without outright persecution, life was not easy for Christians under the Ottomans. The community was “self-governed” by its religious leaders, who were in charge of education and social welfare, something they were wholly incapable of doing due to the isolation and poverty of the community and the lack of funding by which to carry out these duties. The state of the people and clergy became utterly pathetic, with most priests being illiterate, forbidden from hearing confessions or preaching homilies. The people were destitute and under an impossible tax burden, leading many to apostatize because of the pressure. This is not even mentioning the practices surrounding the “recruiting” of Janissaries.

How then did the Ottomans retain legitimacy in the eyes of their Christian subjects? To start, their rule was seen as God’s wrath for the decadence of late Byzantium, the flourishing of Byzantine Humanism during the Paleologian Era and the numerous, short-termed unions with Rome. Part of how the sultans remained in the good graces of the Christians was that, by and large, they did not attempt to alter the doctrines of the Church. The Ottomans even came to be seen as defenders of Orthodoxy due to their efforts to prevent Catholic missionaries from converting the Orthodox in Ottoman territory. One such decree reads:

“Some of the devilish Frankish monks [Roman Catholic missionaries], with evil purposes and unjust intentions, are passing through the country and filling the Greek [Orthodox] rayah [flock] with their worthless Frankish doctrine; by means of stupid speeches they are deflecting the rayah from its ancient faith… Such Frankish monks… should not undertake any journeys or engage in missionary work.”²²

Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain praises the Ottomans for their opposition to the Catholic kingdoms of Europe:

“Because the papacy at that time was in the ascendant, and had all the powers of the kings of Europe in its hands, while our own empire was breathing its last. … But now such bad things they cannot do to us, since Divine Providence has set up over us such a guard that in the end he laid low the brows of the haughty ones. Now I say, … the fury of the papacy counts as nothing to us… Rigour and the canons of the Eastern Church should have their rightful place.²³

Like the Mongols, the Ottomans became seen as a providential means of preserving the purity of Orthodoxy. Because the Orthodox principalities and kingdoms were incapable of defending themselves against the united power of the Papal West, the Orthodox Romans, like their Russian brethren, viewed their non-Christian rulers as a providential means by which God had chosen to preserve the faith unmolested. Because the Patriarchates were united within Ottoman territory, many believed that once the period of chastisement was over, the sultan would convert and Orthodox Rome would rise once again.

We see then that heterodox rulers, even when their rule is imperfect - to put it lightly - can still retain the anointing to rule. But the Mongol and Ottoman Yokes - which their rules were certainly a yoke, in spite of their redeeming factors - were both thrown off at particular points in history. How is this possible if they were legitimate rulers ordained by God? We have said previously that when a ruler goes outside the realm of his responsibilities, neglects his obligations, seeks to destroy the Church or lead the people into decadence and debauchery, they run the risk of losing their legitimacy and the anointing of God to rule. If one doesn’t turn back when called to repentence, the Lord revokes His anointing, anointing another to rule in their place.²⁴ This plays out in the Sacred History of the Old Testament [1 Kingdoms 15:1 - 16:14], and Fr. Daniel Sysoev alludes to this in his seventy-first letter:

“Neither St. Sergius, nor St. Philip (of Moscow), nor St. Hermogenes called for civil strife… Incidentally, Mamai was not the lawful khan, which is why St. Sergius blessed opposition to him, taking into account that Mamai was not looking for tribute, but only wanted to destroy Christianity in Rus.” - Fr. Daniel Sysoev²⁵

Mamai was a powerful commander in the Golden Horde, but was not the Khan. He sought to control internal Russian affairs and levy taxes himself, he sacked cities who refused to pay tribute to him in the midst of the Great Troubles within the Golden Horde, while also intervening in the affairs of the Church. These various actions led a coalition of princes, led by St. Dimitry Donskoy, to resist Mamai. On his way to the Battle of Kulikovo, he received the blessing of St. Sergius of Radonezh, who sent with him Saints Alexander Peresvet and Andrew (Rodion) Oslyabya who, like Tornikian, had been brave warriors prior to monasticism, and were recalled to defend faith and fatherland.

Metropolitan Germanos III of Old Patros blesses a Greek Revolutionary Flag. Met. Germanos called for a National Day of Uprising, credited with launching the Greek War of Indpendence. [Credit: Wikicommons]

The steadfast persecution of the Orthodox peoples of the Ottoman Empire, sporadic massacres by rogue groups of Janissaries, the weakening of the Ottomans by their repeated military defeats and rising ethno-nationalism, led to the formation of numerous Orthodox lay political associations on the periphery of the empire. In Serbia, this culminated in the First Serbian Uprising - and eventually the Serbian Revolution; in the Greek territories, this culminated in the proclamation of a National Day of Uprising by Metropolitan Germanos III of Old Patros, leading to the Greek War of independence.

Thus, the Lord removed His anointing from the Tartar and Turks because of their impious actions. Having lost their legitimate right to rule, they were overthrown. What we should note here is that in both the case of Russia and the Orthodox peoples of the Balkans, it was widespread action on the part of the laity, the near unanimous raising of their voices in discontent which announced God’s revocation of these regimes legitimacy. A moment in time appeared in which the conscience of each, as one united whole, was moved by the Holy Spirit to action, towards the resistance to evil by force. This is no vain outburst of emotion - which would likely be crushed or result in some other punishment of the people. Instead, the voices of God’s people rise, harmonizing into a sort of moral choir of the nation, announcing the judgment of God like the angels of the Apocalypse. This is a manifestation of Sobornost.

Sobornost: The Church as Res Publica

Virtually every Orthodox culture has a popular saying “the will of the people is the will of God.”²⁶ for just this reason. This is a manifestation of Sobornost. Because this concept is so closely tied with symphonia, one cannot be properly understood without the other. After all, harmony and symphony are impossible without unanimity of mind. As an element of political theology, sobornost could be said to be the unanimity of mind of the assembly of the faithful as res publica.

This is not to erase a distinction between the Church and society, instead it's a recognition that the Christian persons who make up the assembly as the faithful, as ekklesia, likewise make up the assembly as citizens-subjects, as politeia. The assembly as the Church is responsible for pursuing the salvation of the people, maintaining the moral health of the nation. The faithful of the Church are responsible for maintaining the pious traditions and culture of the nation and being faithful sons of the Church and their people. Because the role of the ruler in the Orthodox conception is fairly limited - though in this limited sphere they have sweeping power - the faithful play a key role in governing at the community level. We see this with particular clarity in the medieval Republics of Northern Russia.

The Assembly

In Novgorod, the affairs of the city were governed by the veche, an assembly of all free born citizens. The veche mediated disputes within the community, organized the upkeep and development of the city and its churches, and ensured the prince’s plans were faithfully executed. Likewise, the veche elected the mayors, princes and hierarchs of Novgorod, and had a broad range of authority in order to circumscribe the powers of the prince. This system likewise flourished in Pskov and Viakta, but similar systems persisted throughout Russian history by way of peasants assemblies and similar structures.

We have noted that to be a member of the veche, one had to be a free-born citizen; but we should note that a free-born citizen was rather explicitly a communicant of the Cathedral, or Sobor. Decisions in the veche were not made by a base majority vote, but by unanimous consent. Majority rule was viewed as a capitulation to expediency at the expense of truth and harmony.²⁷ And this unanimity is crucial, as the oneness of mind of the assembly of the faithful, seeking above all to make the decision which most reflected Truth (Christ), which was seen as synonymous with the oneness of mind of the hierarchs in their own sobor. It’s for this reason that the Novgorodian chronicle could say of the election of the Metropolitan of Novgorod “The people of Novgorod, all of Novgorod, from the greatest to the least, with the igumens and the entire hierarchical rank, select as their spiritual father David, elected by God and Saint Sophia.”²⁸

Saint Sophia was the main cathedral of Novgorod, but this statement is not saying that this occurred in a council in the cathedral. Instead, the veche and the faithful of St. Sophia were spoken of synonymously, with no distinction made before the faithful as ekklesia and politeia. Thus, in 1215, Prince Mstislav stated that “where St. Sophia is, there also is Novgorod.”²⁹ Likewise, when Prince Iaroslav attempted to seize power in Novgorod by force, the leaders of the veche sent him a letter stating “you have indeed plotted against St. Sophia, so come forth, so that we may die for the honor of St. Sophia; for we have no prince, but God and truth and St. Sophia, and we do not want you.”³⁰

Nor was this system unique to Novgorod and the Northern Republics, our own Orthodox Anglo-Saxon ancestors had similar institutions. Local disputes were mediated by a local clergyman, a respected monk or hermit, or a pious local lord. Local assemblies also ensured justice, elected representatives, and, like the veche, assisted the ruler in the levying and collecting of taxes and soldiers. Kings assisted in the calling of Church councils, ensuring the clergy could safely travel to the council and had sufficient accommodations. The kings of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms saw it as their duty to assist in mediating inter-ecclesial disputes for the benefit of peace throughout society, viewing themselves as a sort of “bishop of the people,” in the Constantinian sense. This system prevailed largely until the Norman Conquests, when the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic Churches were forced into conformity with the Latin Schism, and local government largely eradicated under the much more centralized systems of the emerging Papal Era.³¹

When the authority of the ruler became overbearing and took under its control the powers delegated to the local assembly, Orthodox have always found a means by which to preserve their role as guardians of Truth, Tradition, and justice. One example being the lay political organizations formed by Greeks and Serbs in Odessa prior to the Greek War of Independence. Likewise, the Orthodox Brotherhoods formed in opposition to Polish-Catholic overreach, and the oppression levied upon the Orthodox peoples in the wake of the Union of Brest. These we will discuss in greater detail at a later time.

Conclusions

From our discourse we can say the following in summary. Obedience should not imply a capitulation to tyranny, nor a flight from the world. Christ calls us to know Him - He that is Truth - that we may participate in the cosmic struggle against the forces of Chaos. It is our allegience to Christ, then, which defines Christian obedience to our rulers. Our obedience is an expression of meekness and discernment: knowing how and when to draw one’s sword and when to leave it sheathed.

Resistance to evil by force for the Orthodox Christian is rooted in Christian love and an uncompromising allegience to Truth as person and the love for others which this produces. This personal knowledge of Truth, manifested in the Life of Christ as experienced within the community, is the singlular vision and standard of the community of the faithful, through which all things are judged or discerned - be it ecclesial, moral, or political.

The decision to refuse a law or order which would cause one to sin is made at the level of the individual, as it is the individuals responsibility to obey the commandments and not sin. On the contrary, resistance to evil by force is always a communal decision. While the individual has a duty to defend their loved ones from violence, apostasy and death, war does not happen at the level of individuals; thus, the Christian fights as part of the community, against another. Likewise, when symphonia breaks down between the Church and the faithful on the one hand and the ruler and his governing apparatus on the other, the decision to engage in an armed struggle occurs at the level of the community - the communion of persons. It is the unanimity of conscience among each person of the community having been moved towards a harmony by the Holy Spirit which pronounces the judgement of God. This oneness of mind, this expression of Sobornost is authoritative and has been understood as such throughout the history of the Church.

To attain to this, we must renounce of egotism and primacy of person. We must reject ideologies and seek, above all else, Truth and harmony amongst ourselves. We have to cast off the pridefullness of the Correctness Disease which is once more beginning to infect the Church. Those seeking the tenants of a political ideology will not be able to easily discern God’s will. Those seeking ideology will never see clearly the Light of Christ. For this reason, we must smash the ideological idols we have enthroned in our souls. While our political will should be guided by our Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy has not dogmatized a political system, party, or ideology - nor should we ever. We should work towards a Christian, moral nation, without expecting it to conform to our image of righteousness overnight - Rome wasn’t built in a day. More than anything we should seek to abide by the commandments of God, to be obedient to our rulers, to engage with the history of our people and repent for the wrongs of our nation, to be faithful sons of our nation and of our Church, that we may correctly discern the signs of the times and, God willing, see our nation baptized into the Church.

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In our next installment, we will examine the lives of saints revered in their local churches for their poliitcal action. Likewise, we will discuss the history of Orthodox Brotherhoods, and a template for Orthodox political action in our own time. Future installments will deal with Orthodox Political Theology through the lens of Orthodox Christology, Triadology, and Ecclesiology; a survey of political theologies of the 19th and 20th century, and critique of the post-modern political theology of some Orthodox academics.

1. Met. Philaret (Voznesensky) of New York, Living According to God’s Will, p. 114

2. Ivan Ilyin, On Resistance to Evil by Force, p. 7

3. St. Hermogenes letter to St. Job of Moscow, January 9, 1592

4. Canon for Orthodox Warriors Slain on the Field of Battle for the Faith and the Fatherland, The Requiem Office (Panikhidi) of the Dead, Hapgood Service Book, pp. 440-453

5. Vita Prima: St. Cyril, Enlightener of the Slavs

6. Living According to God’s Will, p. 114

7. The Orthodox Word, Vol. 52, No. 3 (308), pp. 137-138

8. Living According to God’s Will, pp. 115-116

9. On Resistance to Evil by Force, p. 163

10. Living According to God’s Will, p. 117

11. St. Basil the Great, First Canonical Epistle, Canon XIII; Philip Schaff, Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 14, p. 605; Hendrickson Publishers

12. Novella VI, I, Schoell-Kroll, pp. 35-36

13. “But who can resist the wrath of God?.. All of this happened according to the will of God and because of our sins.” - Tale of the Destruction of Ryazan

14. As quoted by: Nikolas Gvosdev, An Examination of Church-State Relations in the Byzantine and Russian Empires with an Emphasis on Ideology and Models of Interaction, p. 165

15. George Fedotov, Russian Religious Mind, Vol II., p. 184

16. Decree of 1319

17. Gvosdev, An Examination of Church-State Relations, p. 168

18. Ibid., p. 165

19. Many historians now speak of Byzantine refugees carrying with them the seeds of the Renaissance, which I believe is true. In the centuries immediately preceding the collapse of Byzantium, Byzantine Humanism had flourished. There was a long battle between the Orthodox party, Humanists and Neo-Platonists. The latter party were a driving force behind the many short-lived unions with the Latin church. Many after the fall blamed the apostosy of Humanism for the fall of Constantinople. It is plausible that the fall of New Rome preserved Byzantine Orthodoxy amongst the Greek people; likewise, that had the city not fallen, the cancer of Humanism would’ve continued to spread and led to a permanent falling away into the heresy of the Latins.

20. Gvosdev, An Examination of Church-State Relations, p. 170

21. Unlike in Mongol-occupied Russia, where the khans had to rule based on consensus due to being a minority, the Turks came to settle and the Orthodox became a minority group within a foreign empire. As a result, the Romans were treated as a distinct nation within the empire, administered and cared for by the Patriarchate - who became a sort of viceroy of orthodox peoples. As a result, the degree of persecution was largely based on where the Orthodox people were, political circumstances, etc… While we use both the Tartar and Turkish yokes to show symphonia with a non-Christian ruler, the circumstances themselves are far different.

22. Gvosdev, An Examination of Church-State Relations, p. 171

23. Ibid., p. 170

24. Monastics play a key role in the calling of the ruler and people to repentance. This is an important topic, but one which we have determined to cover in a later article due to the restraints of the platform.

25. Fr. Daniel Sysoev, Letters, pp. 75-76

26. Slavonic: Глас во народа -- плас Божией; Greek: Φωνή λαού, φωνή Θεού

27. Gvosdev, An Examination of Church-State Relations, pp. 200-201

28. Ibid., p. 150

29. Chronicle of Novgorod, p. 332

30. Ibid., p. 320-321

31. See the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; Vladimir Moss, Saints of England’s Golden Age, The Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, 3 Volumes.