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BASES
OF THE SOCIAL CONCEPT
OF
THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
Adopted
at the Sacred
Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, this document sets
forth the basic provisions of her teaching on church-state relations and
a number of problems socially significant today. It also reflects the official
position of Moscow Patriarchate on relations with state and secular society.
In addition, it gives a number of guidelines to be applied in this field
by the episcopate, clergy and laity.
The
nature of the document is determined by the needs experienced by the whole
of the Russian Orthodox Church during a long historical period both within
and beyond the canonical territory of Moscow Patriarchate. Therefore, its
deals primarily with fundamental theological and ecclesio-social issues,
as well as those aspects of the life of state and society which were and
are equally relevant for the whole Church in the end of the 20th century
and in the nearest future.
I. Basic theological
provisions
I. 1. The Church is the assembly of believers in Christ, which He
Himself calls every one to join. In her ¨all things heavenly and earthly¯
should be united in Christ, for He is the Head of ¨the Church, which is
His Body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all¯ (Eph. 1:22-23).
In the Church the creation is deified and God's original design for the
world and man is fulfilled by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Church is a result of both the redemptive feat performed by the
Son Who was sent by the Father and the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit
Who descended on the great day of Pentecost. According to St. Irenaeus
of Lyons, Christ put Himself at the head of humanity, becoming the Head
of renewed humanity as His body in which access is found to the source
of the Holy Spirit. The Church is the unity of ¨the new humanity in Christ¯,
¨the unity of God's grace dwelling in the multitude of rational creatures
who submit to grace¯ (A.S. Khomyakov). ¨Men, women, children, deeply divided
as to race, nation, language, way of life, work, education, status, wealth…
— all are restored by the Church in the Spirit… All receive from her one
nature which is beyond corruption — the nature that is not affected by
the numerous and profound differences by which people differ from one another…
In her, no one is at all separated from the common, as everyone is as if
dissolved in one another by the simple and indivisible power of faith¯
(St. Maxim the Confessor).
I. 2. The Church is a divine-human organism. Being the body of
Christ, she unites in herself the two natures, divine and human, with their
inherent actions and wills. The Church relates to the world through her
human, created, nature. However, she interacts with it not as a purely
earthly organism but in all her mysterious fullness. It is the divine-human
nature of the Church that makes possible the grace-giving transformation
and purification of the world accomplished in history in the creative co-work,
¨synergy¯, of the members and the Head of the church body.
The Church is not of this world, just as her Lord, Jesus, is not of
this world. However, He came to the world He was to save and restore, ¨humbling¯
Himself to match its conditions. The Church should go through the process
of historical kenosis, fulfilling her redemptive mission. Her goal is not
only the salvation of people in this world, but also the salvation and
restoration of the world itself. The Church is called to act in the world
in the image of Christ, to bear witness to Him and His Kingdom. The members
of the Church are called to share in Christ's mission, in His service of
the world, which is possible for the Church only as a conciliar service
so that ¨the world may believe¯ (Jn. 17:21). The Church is called to serve
the salvation of the world, for even the Son of man Himself ¨came not to
be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for
many¯ (Mk. 10:45).
The Saviour said about Himself: ¨I am among you as he that serveth¯
(Lk. 22:27). Service for the salvation of the world and human beings cannot
be limited to national and religious limits, as the Lord Himself states
clearly in the parable of the merciful Samaritan. Moreover, the members
of the Church encounter Christ as the One Who assumed all sins and suffering
of the world when they welcome the hungry, homeless, sick or prisoners.
Help to those who suffer is in the full sense help to Christ Himself, and
the fulfilment of this commandment determines the eternal fate of every
man (Mt. 25:31-41). Christ calls upon His disciples not to shun the world,
but to be ¨the salt of the earth¯ and ¨the light of the world¯.
The Church, being the body of God-Man Christ, is divine-human. However,
even if Christ is the perfect God-Man, the Church is not yet perfect in
her divine humanity, for on earth she has to struggle with sin, and her
humanity, though inherently united with the Godhead, is far from expressing
Him and matching Him in everything.
I. 3. Life in the Church, to which every one is called, is continuous
ministry to God and people. All the people of God are called to it. The
members of the body of Christ, participating in common service, also fulfil
their particular functions. Each is given a special gift to serve all.
¨As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same, one to
another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God¯ (1 Pet. 4:10).
¨For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word
of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to
another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working
of miracles; to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits; to
another diverse kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues;
but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every
man severally as he wills¯ (1 Cor. 12:8-11). Gifts of the manifold grace
of God are given to every one individually but for the common ministry
of the people of God (also for the service of the world). And this represents
the common service of the Church performed on the basis of not one but
many various gifts. The variety of gifts creates various ministries; however,
¨there are difference of administrations, but the same Lord. And there
are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all
in all¯ (1 Cor. 12:5-6).
The Church also calls her faithful children to participation in the
life of society, which should be based on the principles of Christian morality.
In the High Priestly Prayer, the Lord Jesus interceded the Heavenly Father
for His followers: ¨I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the
world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil… As thou hast sent
me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world¯ (Jn. 17:15,
18). It is inadmissible to shun the surrounding world in a Manichean way.
Christian participation in it should be based on the awareness that the
world, socium and state are objects of God's love, for they are to be transformed
and purified on the principles of God-commanded love. The Christian should
view the world and society in the light of his ultimate destiny, in the
eschatological light of the Kingdom of God.
The variety of gifts in the Church is manifested in a special way in
her social ministry. The undivided church organism participates in the
life of the world around it in its fullness, but the clergy, monastics
and laity can realise this participation in different ways and degrees.
I. 4. Fulfilling the mission of the salvation of the human race,
the Church performs it not only through direct preaching, but also through
good works aimed to improve the spiritual-moral and material condition
of the world around her. To this end, she enters into co-operation with
the state, even if it is not Christian, as well as with various public
associations and individuals, even if they do not identify themselves with
the Christian faith. Without setting herself the direct task to have all
converted to Orthodoxy as a condition for co-operation, the Church hopes
that joint charity will lead its workers and people around them to the
knowledge of the Truth, help them to preserve or restore faithfulness to
the God-given moral norms and inspire them to seek peace, harmony and well-being
— the conditions in which the Church can best fulfil her salvific work.
II. Church and
nation
II. 1. The Old Testament people of
Israel were the prototype of the peoples of God — the New Testament Church
of Christ. The redemptive feat of Christ the Saviour initiated the being
of the Church as new humanity, the spiritual posterity of the forefather
Abraham. By His Blood Christ ¨hast redeemed us to God out of every kindred,
and tongue, and people, and nation¯ (Rev. 5:9). The Church by her very
nature is universal and therefore supranational. In the Church ¨there is
no difference between the Jew and the Greek¯ (Rom. 10:12). Just as God
is not the God of the Jews alone but also of the Gentiles (Rom. 3:29),
so the Church does not divide people on either national or class grounds:
in her ¨there is neither Greek, nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision,
Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all¯ (Col.
3:11).
In the contemporary world, the notion of ¨nation¯ is used in two meanings,
as an ethnic community and the aggregate citizens of a particular state.
Relationships between church and nation should be viewed in the context
of both meanings of this word.
In the Old Testament, the terms 'am and goy are used to
denote ¨a people¯. In the Hebrew Bible, each term is given a quite concrete
meaning, the former denoting God's chosen people of Israel, the latter
in its plural form goyim the Gentiles. In the Greek Bible (Septuagint),
the first term was rendered by the term laos (people) or demos (a nation
as a political entity), while the second by the term ethnos (nation, in
plural ethne, meaning ¨heathens¯).
God's chosen people of Israel are opposed to other nations
throughout the Old Testament books associated in one way or another with
the history of Israel. The people of Israel were chosen not because they
surpassed other nations in number or anything else, but because God chose
and loved them (Deut. 7:6-8). The notion of a God's chosen people was a
religious one in the Old Testament. The feeling of national community characteristic
of the sons of Israel was rooted in the awareness of their belonging to
God through a covenant made by the their fathers with the Lord. The people
of Israel became God's people whose calling was to preserve the faith in
one true God and to bear witness to this faith before other nations so
that through Israel God-Man Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all people, may
be revealed to the world.
In addition to their sharing one religion, the unity of
the people of God was secured by their ethnic and linguistic community
and their rootedness in a particular land, their fatherland.
The ethnic community of the Israelites was rooted in their
origin from one forefather, Abraham. ¨We have Abraham to our father¯ (Mt.
3:9; Lk. 3:8), the ancient Jews would say, emphasising their belonging
to the posterity of the one who God ordained to become ¨a father of many
nations¯ (Gen. 17:5). Great importance was attached to the preservation
of the purity of the blood: marriages with strangers were not approved
because in these marriages ¨the holy seed¯ was mingled with ¨the people
of those lands¯ (Ezra 9:2).
God gave the people of Israel the Promised Land for livelihood.
After they came out of Egypt, these people went to Canaan, the land of
their predecessors, and by God's will conquered it. Since then the land
of Canaan became the land of Israel, while its capital city, Jerusalem,
became the principal spiritual and political centre of God's chosen people.
The people of Israel spoke one language that was not only the language
of everyday life, but also the language of prayer. Moreover, Hebrew was
the language of Revelation, for it was in it that God Himself spoke to
the people of Israel. In the era before the coming of Christ when the dwellers
of Judea spoke Aramaic, Greek was elevated to the status of the national
language, while Hebrew continued to be treated as a sacred language in
which worship was conducted in the temple.
Being universal by nature, the Church is at the same time one organism,
one body (1 Cor. 12:12). She is the community of the children of God, ¨a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people…
which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God¯ (1
Pet. 2:9-10). The unity of these new people is secured not by its ethnic,
cultural or linguistic community, but by their common faith in Christ and
Baptism. The new people of God ¨have no continuing city here, but seek
one to come¯ (Heb. 13:14). The spiritual homeland of all Christians is
not earthly Jerusalem but Jerusalem ¨which is above¯ (Gal. 4:26). The gospel
of Christ is preached not in the sacred language understandable to one
people, but in all tongues (Acts. 2:3-11). The gospel is not preached for
one chosen people to preserve the true faith, but so that ¨at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth,
and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father¯ (Phil. 2:10-11).
II. 2. The universal nature of the Church, however, does not
mean that Christians should have no right to national identity and national
self-expressions. On the contrary, the Church unites in herself the universal
with the national. Thus, the Orthodox Church, though universal, consists
of many Autocephalous National Churches. Orthodox Christians, aware of
being citizens of the heavenly homeland, should not forget about their
earthly homeland. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Divine Founder of
the Church, had no shelter on earth (Mt. 8:20) and pointed that the teaching
He brought was not local or national in nature: ¨the hour cometh, when
ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father¯
(Jn. 4:21). Nevertheless, He identified Himself with the people to whom
He belonged by birth. Talking to the Samaritan woman, He stressed His belonging
to the Jewish nation: ¨Ye worship ye know what: we know what we worship:
for salvation is of the Jews¯ (Jn. 4:22). Jesus was a loyal subject of
the Roman Empire and paid taxes in favour of Caesar (Mt. 22-16-21). St.
Paul, in his letters teaching on the supranational nature of the Church
of Christ, did not forget that by birth he was ¨an Hebrew of the Hebrews¯
(Phil. 3:5), though a Roman by citizenship (Acts 22:25-29).
The cultural distinctions of particular nations are expressed in the
liturgical and other church art, especially in the peculiarities of Christian
order of life. All this creates national Christian cultures.
Among saints venerated by the Orthodox Church, many became famous for
the love of their earthly homeland and faithfulness to it. Russian hagiographic
sources praise the holy Prince Michael of Tver who ¨gave his life for his
fatherland¯, comparing his feat to the martyrdom of the holy protomartyr
Dimitrius of Thessaloniki: ¨The good lover of his fatherland said about
his native city of Thessaloniki, 'O Lord, if you ruin this city, I will
perish together with it, but if you save it, I will also be saved'¯.
In all times the Church has called upon her children to love their homeland
on earth and not to spare their lives to protect it if it was threatened.
The Russian Church on many occasions gave her blessing to the people for
them to take part in liberation wars. Thus, in 1380, the venerable Sergius
the abbot and miracle-maker of Radonezh blessed the Russian troops headed
by the holy Prince Dimitry Donskoy before their battle with the Tartar-Mongol
invaders. In 1612, St. Hermogen, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, gave
blessing upon the irregulars in their struggle with the Polish invaders.
In 1813, during the war with the French aggressors, St. Philaret of Moscow
said to his flock: ¨If you avoid dying for the honour and freedom of the
Fatherland, you will die a criminal or a slave; die for the faith and the
Fatherland and you will be granted life and a crown in heaven¯.
The holy righteous John of Kronstadt wrote this about love of one's
earthly homeland: ¨Love the earthly homeland… it has raised, distinguished,
honoured and equipped you with everything; but have special love for the
heavenly homeland… that homeland is incomparably more precious that this
one, because it is holy, righteous and incorruptible. The priceless blood
of the Son of God has earned that homeland for you. But in order to be
members of that homeland, you should respect and love its laws, just as
you are obliged to respect and really respect the laws of the earthly homeland¯.
II. 3. Christian patriotism may be expressed at the same time
with regard to a nation as an ethnic community and as a community of its
citizens. The Orthodox Christian is called to love his fatherland, which
has a territorial dimension, and his brothers by blood who live everywhere
in the world. This love is one of the ways of fulfilling God's commandment
of love to one's neighbour which includes love to one's family, fellow-tribesmen
and fellow-citizens.
The patriotism of the Orthodox Christian should be active. It is
manifested when he defends his fatherland against an enemy, works for the
good of the motherland, cares for the good order of people's life through,
among other things, participation in the affairs of government. The Christian
is called to preserve and develop national culture and people's self-awareness.
When a nation, civil or ethnic, represents fully or predominantly a
monoconfessional Orthodox community, it can in a certain sense be regarded
as the one community of faith — an Orthodox nation.
II. 4. At the same time, national sentiments can cause such sinful
phenomena as aggressive nationalism, xenophobia, national exclusiveness
and inter-ethnic enmity. At their extremes, these phenomena often lead
to the restriction of the rights of individuals and nations, wars and other
manifestations of violence.
It is contrary to Orthodox ethics to divide nations into the best
and the worst and to belittle any ethnic or civic nation. Even more contrary
to Orthodoxy are the teachings which put the nation in the place of God
or reduce faith to one of the aspects of national self-awareness.
Opposing these sinful phenomena, the Orthodox Church carries out
the mission of reconciliation between hostile nations and their representatives.
Thus, in inter-ethnic conflicts, she does not identify herself with any
side, except for cases when one of the sides commit evident aggression
or injustice.
III. Church and
state
III. 1. The Church as a divine-human organism has not only a mysterious
nature not submissive to the elements of the world, but also a historical
component which comes in touch with the outside world including state.
The state, which exists for the purpose of ordering worldly life, also
comes into contact with the Church. Relationships between state and the
followers of genuine religion have continuously changed in the course of
history.
The family represented the initial cell of human society.
The holy history of the Old Testament shows that the state was not formed
at once. The Old Testament people had no state before Joseph's brothers
went to Egypt. State was gradually formed in the epoch of the Judges. As
a result of a complex historical development guided by Divine Providence,
the complication of social relations led to the emergence of the state.
In ancient Israel before the period of Kings, there was
genuine theocracy, i. e. the rule of God, which proved to be unique in
history. However, as society moved away from obedience to God as the organiser
of worldly affairs, people began to think about the need to have a worldly
ruler. The Lord, while accepting the people's choice and authorising the
new form of government, regrets their rejection of divine rule. ¨And the
Lord said unto Samuel. Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that
they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected
me, that I should not reign over them… Now therefore hearken unto their
voice: howbeit solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king
that shall reign over them¯ (1 Sam. 8:7, 9).
Thus, the emergence of the temporal state should not be
understood as a reality originally established by God. It was rather God's
granting human being an opportunity to order their social life by their
own free will, so that this order as a response to the earthly reality
distorted by sin, could help avoid a greater sin through opposing it by
means of temporal power. At the same time, the Lord says clearly through
Samuel's mouth that He expects this power to be faithful to His commandments
and to do good works: ¨Now therefore behold the king ye have chosen, and
whom ye have desired! and, behold, the Lord hath set a king over you. If
ye will fear the Lord, and serve him, and obey his voice, and not rebel
against the commandment of the Lord, then shall both ye continue following
the Lord our God. But if ye will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel
against the commandment of the Lord, then shall the hand of the Lord be
against you, as it was against your fathers¯ (1 Sam. 12:13-15). When Saul
violated the Lord's commandment, God rejected him (1 Sam. 16:1) and ordered
him to anoint His other chosen one, David, a son of the commoner Jesse.
The Son of God Who reigns over heaven and earth (Mt. 28:18)
through becoming man subjected Himself to the worldly order of things,
obeying also the bearers of state power. To His crusifier, Pilate, the
Roman procurator in Jerusalem, He said, ¨Thou couldest have no power at
all against me, except it were given thee from above¯ (Jn. 19:11). The
Savoir gave this answer to the tempting question of a Pharisee about whether
it is permissible to pay tribute to Caesar: ¨Render unto Caesar the things
which are Caesar's¯ (Mt. 22:21).
Explaining the teaching of Christ on the right attitude
to state power, St. Paul wrote: ¨Let every soul be subject unto the higher
powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained
of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance
of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For
rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou them
not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have
praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But
if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword
in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon
him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath,
but also for conscience sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they
are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render
therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to
whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour¯ (Rom. 13:1-7). The
same idea was expressed by St. Peter: ¨Submit yourselves to every ordinance
of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto
governors, as unto them that are sent for the praise of them that do well.
For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the
ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke
of maliciousness, but as he servants of God¯ (1 Pet. 2:13-16). The apostles
taught Christians to obey the authorities regardless of their attitude
to the Church. In the apostolic era, the Church of Christ was persecuted
both by the Jewish and Roman State authorities. This did not prevent the
martyrs and other Christians of that time from praying for prosecutors
and recognising their power.
III. 2. The fall of Adam brought to the world sins and vices
which needed public opposition. The first of them was the murder of Cain
by Abel (Gen. 4:1-16). Aware of this, people in all known societies began
to establish laws restricting evil and supporting good. For the Old Testament
people, God Himself was the Lawmaker Who gave rules to regulate not only
religious life proper but also public life (Ex. 20-23).
God blesses the state as an essential element of life in the world distorted
by sin, in which both the individual and society need to be protected from
the dangerous manifestations of sin. At the same time, the need for the
state aroused not because God willed it for the primitive Adam, but because
of the fall and because the actions to restrict the dominion of sin over
the world conformed to His will. Holy Scriptures calls upon powers that
be to use the power of state for restricting evil and supporting good,
in which it sees the moral meaning of the existence of state (Rom.
13:3-4). It follows from the above that anarchy is the absence of proper
order in a state and society, while calls to it and attempts to introduce
it run contrary to the Christian outlook (Rom. 13:2).
The Church not only prescribes for her children to obey state power
regardless of the convictions and faith of its bearers, but also prays
for it, ¨that we may lead a quiet and peaceable
life in all godliness and honesty¯ (1 Tim. 2:2). At the same
time, Christians should avoid attempts to make it absolute and failure
to recognise the limits of its purely earthly, temporal and transient value
conditioned by the presence of sin in the world and the need to restrain
it. According to the teaching of the Church, power itself has no right
to make itself absolute by extending its limits up to complete autonomy
from God and from the order of things established by Him. This can lead
to the abuse of power and even to the deification of rulers. The state,
just as other human institutions, even if aimed at the good, may tend to
transform into a self-sufficing institute. Numerous historical examples
of such a transformation show that in this case the state loses its true
purpose.
III. 3. In church-state relations, the difference in their natures
should be taken into account. The Church has been founded by God Himself,
our Lord Jesus Christ, while the God-instituted nature of state power is
revealed in historical process only indirectly. The goal of the Church
is the eternal salvation of people, while the goal of state is their well-being
on earth.
¨My kingdom is not of this world¯, says the Saviour (Jn. 18:36). ¨This
world¯ is only partly obedient to God, but for the most part it seeks to
become autonomous from its own Creator and Lord. To the extent the world
disobeys God it obeys ¨the father of lie¯ and ¨lieth in wickedness¯ (Jn.
8:44; 1 Jn. 5:19). But the Church as ¨the body of Christ¯ (1 Cor. 12:27)
and ¨the pillar and ground of the truth¯ (1 Tim. 3:15), in her mysterious
essence can have no evil in herself, nor any shadow of darkness. Since
state is part of ¨this world¯, it has no part in the Kingdom of God, for
where there is Christ ¨all in all¯ (Col. 3:11) there is no room for coercion,
nor is there opposition between the human and the divine, hence there is
no state.
In the contemporary world, state is normally secular and not bound
by any religious commitments. Its co-operation with the Church is limited
to several areas and based on mutual non-interference into each other's
affairs. However, the state is aware as a rule that earthly well-being
is unthinkable without respect for certain moral norms — the norms which
are also essential for the eternal salvation of man. Therefore, the tasks
and work of the Church and the state may coincide not only in seeking purely
earthly welfare, but also in the fulfilment of the salvific mission of
the Church.
The principle of the secular state cannot be understood as implying
that religion should be radically forced out of all the spheres of the
people's life, that religious associations should be debarred from decision-making
on socially significant problems and deprived of the right to evaluate
the actions of the authorities. This principles presupposes only a certain
division of domains between church and state and their non-interference
into each other's affairs.
The Church should not assume the prerogatives of the state, such
as resistance to sin by force, use of temporal authoritative powers and
assumption of the governmental functions which presuppose coercion or restriction.
At
the same time, the Church may request or urge the government to exercise
power in particular cases, yet the decision rests with the state.
The state should not interfere in the life of the Church or her government,
doctrine, liturgical life, counselling, etc., or the work of canonical
church institutions in general, except for those aspects where the Church
is supposed to operate as a legal identity obliged to enter into certain
relations with the state, its legislation and governmental agencies. The
Church expects that the state will respect her canonical norms and other
internal statutes.
III. 4. Various models of relationships between the Orthodox
Church and the state have developed in the course of history.
The Orthodox tradition has developed an explicit ideal
of church-state relations. Since church-state relations are two-way traffic,
the above-mentioned ideal could emerge in history only in a state that
recognises the Orthodox Church as the greatest people's shrine, in other
words, only in an Orthodox state.
Attempts to work out this form were undertaken in Byzantium,
where the principles of church-state relations were expressed in the canons
and the laws of the empire and were reflected in patristic writings. In
their totality these principles were described as symphony between church
and state. It is essentially co-operation, mutual support and mutual responsibility
without one's side intruding into the exclusive domain of the other. The
bishop obeys the government as a subject, not his episcopal power comes
from a government official. Similarly, a government official obeys his
bishop as a member of the Church, who seeks salvation in it, not because
his power comes from the power of the bishop. The state in such symphonic
relationships with the Church seeks her spiritual support, prayer for itself
and blessing upon its work to achieve the goal of its citizens' welfare,
while the Church enjoys support from the state in creating conditions favourable
for preaching and for the spiritual care of her children who are at the
same time citizens of the state.
St. Justinian in his Sixth Novella formulates the principle
lying in the basis of church-state symphony: ¨The greatest blessings granted
to human beings by God's ultimate grace are priesthood and kingdom, the
former (priesthood, church authority) taking care of divine affairs, while
the latter (kingdom, government) guiding and taking care of human affairs,
and both, come from the same source, embellishing human life. Therefore,
nothing lies so heavy on the hearts of kings as the honour of priests,
who on their part serve them, praying continuously for them to God. And
if the priesthood is well ordered in everything and is pleasing to God,
then there will be full harmony between them in every thing that serves
the good and benefit of the human race. Therefore, we exert the greatest
possible effort to guard the true dogmas of God and the honour of the priesthood,
hoping to receive through it great blessings from God and to hold fast
to the ones which we have¯. Guided by this norm, Emperor Justinian in his
Novellas recognised the canons as having the power of state laws.
The classical Byzantine formula of relationships between
state and church power is contained in the Epanagoge (later 9th century):
¨The temporal power and the priesthood relate to each other as body and
soul; they are necessary for state order just as body and soul are necessary
in a living man. It is in their linkage and harmony that the well-being
of a state lies¯.
This symphony, however, did not exist in Byzantium in
an absolutely pure form. In practice it was often violated and distorted.
The Church was repeatedly subjected to caesarean-papist claims from the
state authorities, which were essentially the demands that the head of
the state, the emperor, should have the decisive say in ordering church
affairs. Along with the sinful human love of power, these claims had also
a historical reason. The Christian emperors of Byzantium were direct successors
of the Roman pagan rulers who, among their numerous titles, had that of
pontifex maximus, chief priest. The caesarean-papist tendency manifested
itself most bluntly and dangerously for the Church in the policy of heretical
emperors, especially in the iconoclastic era.
Unlike Byzantine basileuses, Russian tsars had a different
legacy. For this and other historical reasons, relationship between the
church and the state authorities was more harmonious in Russian antiquity.
However, there were also deviations from the canonical norms (under Ivan
the Terrible and in the confrontation between Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich
and Patriarch Nikon).
As far as the Synodal period is concerned, the evident
distortion of the symphonic norm for two centuries in church history is
associated with the distinct impact that the Protestant doctrine of territory
and established church (see below) made on the Russian perception of law
and order and political life. An attempt to assert the ideal of symphony
in the new situation when the empire collapsed was made by the Local Council
of 1917-1918. In the declaration that preceded the Action on Church-State
Relations, the demand to separate church and state was likened to the wish
that ¨the sun should not shine and fire should not warm up. The Church,
by the internal law of her being, cannot renounce her calling to enlighten,
to transform the whole human life, to imbue it with her rays¯. In the resolution
of the Council on the legal status of the Orthodox Church of Russia, the
state is called upon to accept, in particular, these provisions: ¨the Russian
Orthodox Church, being part of the one Universal Church of Christ, shall
have the pre-eminent public and legal status among other confessions in
the Russian State, which befits her as the greatest shrine for the overwhelming
majority of the population and a great historical force that built the
Russian State… As soon as they are made public, decrees and statutes issued
the Orthodox Church for herself in the order established by herself, as
well as deeds of the church government and court shall be recognised by
the State as legally valid and important unless they violate state laws…
State laws concerning the Orthodox Church shall be issued only with the
consent of the church authorities¯. Subsequent Local Councils were held
in situations when history made it impossible to return to the pre-Revolutionary
principles of church-state relations. Nevertheless, the Church asserted
her traditional role in the life of society and expressed readiness to
work in social field. Thus, the 1990 Local Council stated: ¨Throughout
her millennium-long history the Russian Orthodox Church educated the faithful
in the spirit of patriotism and love of peace. Patriotism is manifested
in the concern for the historical heritage of the Fatherland, in active
civil position by sharing the joys and hardships of her people, in zealous
and conscientious work and in concern for the moral state of society and
for the preservation of nature¯ (from the Message of the Council).
In the European medieval West, a doctrine of ¨two swords¯
was formed not without influence by the work of St. Augustine entitled
¨On the City of God¯. According to it, both church and state power, the
former directly, the latter indirectly, go back to the Bishop of Rome.
Popes were absolute monarchs ruling over the Papal States, a part of Italy,
the remnant of which is what is the Vatican today. Many bishops, especially
in feudally divided Germany were princes with state-like jurisdiction over
their territories, with their own governments and armies of which they
were leaders.
The Reformation left no ground for the popes and Catholic
bishops to preserve their power in the territories of countries which became
Protestant. In the 17th-19th centuries, the legal conditions in Catholic
countries also changed so much that the Catholic Church was in fact removed
from government. Along with the Vatican, however, the doctrine of ¨two
swords¯ helped to retain the practice of concluding agreements in the form
of concordats between the Roman Curia and states in which there were Catholic
communities. Due to this, the legal status of these communities was determined
in many countries not only by internal laws, but also by the law regulating
international relations, to which the Vatican State was subject.
In the countries where the Reformation triumphed and later
in some Catholic countries, the territorial principle was established in
church-state relations, giving to state full sovereignty over a territory
and the religious communities found in it. This system of relations was
expressed in the phrase cujus est regio, illius est religio (the religion
of the sovereign is the religion of the country). If realised consistently,
this system implies that those whose faith is different from that of the
bearers of the highest state power should be banished from the state (a
practice realised more than once). In real life, however, this principle
gained a foothold in a softer form described as the established church.
It gives to the majority religious community, to which the sovereign belongs
and which he officially heads, the privileges of the state Church. A combination
of this system of church-state relations with remnants of the traditional
symphony inherited from Byzantium determined the peculiarity of the legal
status of the Orthodox Church in the Synodal period in Russia.
In the United State of America where there have been a
multiconfessional state from the outset, the principle of radical separation
of Church and State has been established, whereby the power system is neutral
to all confessions. However, absolute neutrality is hardly feasible at
all. Every state has to reckon with the real religious composition of its
population. No Christian denomination taken separately makes up a majority
in the United States, yet the decisive majority of US people are precisely
Christians. This reality is reflected, in particular, in the fact that
the president takes the oath of office on the Bible, Sundays are official
days off, etc.
The principle of church-state separation, however, also
has another genealogy. In the European continent it has resulted from the
anticlerical or outright anti-church struggle well known, in particular,
from the history of the French Revolutions. In these cases, the Church
is separated from State not because of the multiconfessionalism of the
population, but because the State identifies itself with a particular anti-Christian
or altogether anti-religious ideology, making it pointless to speak about
its neutrality towards religion and even its purely secular nature. For
the Church, it normally means restrictions, limited rights, discrimination
or outright persecution. The history of the 20th century has given many
examples of this attitude of State towards religion and Church in various
countries of the world.
There is also a form of church-state relations, intermediate
between the established church and the radical separation of Church from
State whereby the Church has the status of a private corporation. It is
the status of the Church as a legal public corporation. In this case, the
Church can have some privileges and obligations delegated to her by the
state without being the Established Church in the proper sense of this
word.
Today a number of countries, such as Great Britain, Finland,
Norway, Denmark, Greece, still have Established Churches. Other states,
which increasingly grow in number (USA, France), build their relations
with religious communities on the basis of full separation. In Germany,
the Catholic, Evangelical and some other Churches have the status of legal
public corporations, while other religious communities are fully separated
from state and regarded as private corporations. In practice, however,
the real status of religious communities in most of these countries depend
little on whether they are separated or not from the state. In some countries
where Churches have retained the public status, it has been reduced to
collecting taxes for their upkeep by the public fiscal administration and
recognising church baptism and marriage records as valid legally as civil
status certificates registered by public administrative bodies.
Today the Orthodox Church performs her service of God and people in
various countries. In some of them she represents the nation-wide confession
(Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria), while in others, which are multinational,
the religion of the ethnic majority (Russia). In still other countries,
those who belong to the Orthodox Church comprise a religious minority surrounded
by either heterodox Christians (Finland, Poland, USA) or people of other
religions (Japan, Syria, Turkey). In some small countries the Orthodox
Church has the status of the state religion (Cyprus, Greece, Finland),
while in other countries it is separated from state. There are also differences
in the concrete legal and political contexts in which the Local Orthodox
Churches live. They all, however, build both their internal order and relations
with the government on the commandments of Christ, teaching of the apostles,
holy canons and two-thousand-year-long historical experience and in may
situation find an opportunity to pursue their God-commanded goals, thus
revealing their other-worldly nature, their heavenly, divine, origin.
III. 5. Given their different natures, Church and State use different
means for attaining their goals. The state relies basically on material
power including coercion and on respective secular ideological systems,
whereas the Church has at her disposal religious and moral means to give
spiritual guidance to the flock and to attract new children.
The Church infallibly preaches the Truth of Christ and teaches moral
commandments which came from God Himself. Therefore, she has no power to
change anything in her teaching. Nor has she the power to fall silent
and to stop preaching the truth whatever other teachings may be prescribed
or propagated by state bodies. In this respect, the Church is absolutely
free from the state. For the sake of the unhindered and internally
free preaching of the truth, the Church suffered persecution by the enemies
of Christ not once on history. But the persecuted Church is also called
to endure the persecution with patience, without refusing to be loyal to
the state persecuting her.
Legal sovereignty in the territory of a state belongs to its authorities.
Therefore, it is they who determine the legal status of a Local Church
or her part, either giving her an opportunity for the unhampered fulfilment
of church mission or restricting this opportunity. Thus, state power makes
judgement on itself and eventually foretells its fate. The Church remains
loyal to the state, but God's commandment to fulfil the task of salvation
in any situation and under any circumstances is above this loyalty.
If the authority forces Orthodox believers to apostatise from Christ
and His Church and to commit sinful and spiritually harmful actions, the
Church should refuse to obey the state. The Christian, following the will
of his conscience, can refuse to fulfil the commands of state forcing him
into a grave sin. If the Church and her holy authorities find it impossible
to obey state laws and orders, after a due consideration of the problem,
they may take the following action: enter into direct dialogue with authority
on the problem, call upon the people to use the democratic mechanisms to
change the legislation or review the authority's decision, apply to international
bodies and the world public opinion and appeal to her faithful for peaceful
civil disobedience.
III. 6. The principle of the freedom of conscience,
which emerged as a legal notion in the 18th-19th centuries, has become
a fundamental principle of interpersonal relations only after World War
I. It was confirmed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and included
in the constitutions of most states. The emergence of this principle testifies
that in the contemporary world, religion is turning from a ¨social¯ into
a ¨private¯ affair of a person. This process in itself indicates that the
spiritual value system has disintegrated and that most people in a society
which affirms the freedom of conscience no longer aspire for salvation.
If initially the state emerged as an instrument of asserting divine law
in society, the freedom of conscience has ultimately turned state in an
exclusively temporal institute with no religious commitments.
The adoption of the freedom of conscience as legal principle points
to the fact that society has lost religious goals and values and become
massively apostate and actually indifferent to the task of the Church and
to the overcoming of sin. However, this principle has proved to be one
of the means of the Church's existence in the non-religious world, enabling
her to enjoy a legal status in secular state and independence from those
in society who believe differently or do not believe at all.
The religio-ideological neutrality of the state does not contradict
the Christian idea of the Church's calling in society. The Church, however,
should point out to the state that it is inadmissible to propagate such
convictions or actions which may result in total control over a person's
life, convictions and relations with other people, as well as erosion in
personal, family or public morality, insult of religious feelings, damage
to the cultural and spiritual identity of the people and threats to the
sacred gift of life. In implementing her social, charitable, educational
and other socially significant projects, the Church may rely on the support
and assistance of the state. She also has the right to expect that state,
in building its relations with religious bodies, will take into account
the number of their followers and the place the occupy in forming the historical,
cultural and spiritual image of the people and their civic stand.
III. 7. The form and methods of government is conditioned in
many ways by the spiritual and moral condition of society. Aware of this,
the Church accepts the people's choice or does not resist it at least.
Under the Judges' rule, the public system described
in the Book of Judges, power acted not through coercion, but authority,
which was sanctioned by God. For this authority to be effective, the faith
in society should be very strong. Under monarchy, power remains
God-given, but for its exercise it uses not so much spiritual authority
as coercion. The shift from the judges' rule to monarchy indicated the
weakening faith — the fact that caused the need to replace the King Invisible
by the king visible. Contemporary democracies, including those monarchic
in form, do not seek the divine sanction of power. They represent the form
of government in secular society that presupposes the right of every able-bodied
citizen to express his will through elections.
Any change in the form of government to that more religiously rooted,
introduced without spiritualising society itself, will inevitably degenerate
into falsehood and hypocrisy and make this form weak and valueless in the
eyes of the people. However, one cannot altogether exclude the possibility
of such a spiritual revival of society as to make natural a religiously
higher form of government. But under slavery one should follow St.
Paul advice: ¨if thou mayest be free, use it rather¯ (1 Cor. 7:21). At
the same time, the Church should give more attention not to the system
of the outer organisation of state, but to the inner condition of her members'
hearts. Therefore, the Church does not believe it possible for her to become
an initiator of any change in the form of government. Along the same line,
the 1994 Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church stressed the soundness
of the attitude whereby ¨the Church does not give preference to any social
system or any of the existing political doctrines¯.
III. 8. The state, including the secular state, is normally aware
if its calling to build the life of the people on the principles of good
and justice, taking care of both the material and spiritual welfare of
society. Therefore, the Church can cooperate with the state in affairs
which benefit the Church herself, as well as the individual and society.
For the Church this co-operation should be part of her salvific mission,
which embraces comprehensively the concern for man. The Church is called
to take part in building human life in all spheres where it is possible
and, in doing so, to join efforts with representatives of the secular authority.
Church-state co-operation should be realised on the following conditions:
the Church's participation in the work of the state is correspondent to
her nature and calling; the state does exercise dictate in the Church's
social work; and the Church is not involved in the spheres of public activity
where her work is impossible for canonical and other reasons.
The areas of church-state co-operation in the present historical
period are as follows:
a) peacemaking on international,
inter-ethnic and civic levels and promoting mutual understanding and co-operation
among people, nations and states;
b) concern for the preservation of
morality in society;
c) spiritual, cultural, moral and patriotic
education and formation;
d) charity and the development of joint
social programs;
e) preservation, restoration and development
of the historical and cultural heritage, including concern for the preservation
of historical and cultural monuments;
f) dialogue with governmental bodies
of all branches and levels on issues important for the Church and society,
including the development of appropriate laws, by-laws, instructions and
decisions;
g) care of the military and law-enforcement
workers and their spiritual and moral education;
h) efforts to prevent crime and care
of prisoners;
i) science and research;
j) healthcare;
k) culture and arts;
l) preservation of the environment;
n) economic activity for the benefit
of the Church, state and society;
o) support for the institution of family,
for motherhood and childhood;
p) opposition to the work of pseudo-religious
structures presenting a threat to the individual and society.
Church-state co-operation is also possible in some other areas if it contributes
to the fulfilment of the tasks enumerated above.
At the same time, there are areas in which the clergy and canonical
church structures cannot support the state or cooperate with it. They are
as follows:
a) political struggle, election
agitation, campaigns in support of particular political parties and public
and political leaders;
b) waging civil war or aggressive external
war;
c) direct participation in intelligence
and any other activity that demands secrecy by law even in making one's
confession or reporting to the church authorities.
Among the traditional areas of the social efforts of the Orthodox Church
is intercession with the government for the needs of the people, the rights
and concerns of individual citizens or social groups. This intercession
is a duty of the Church, realised through verbal or written interventions
by appropriate church bodies with the governmental bodies of various branches
and levels.
III. 9. In the contemporary state, power is normally divided
into the legislative, executive and judicial branches and the national,
regional and local levels. This determines the specificity of the Church's
relations with the authorities of various branches and levels.
Relations with the legislative power consist in dialogue between
the Church and the legislators on the improvement of the national and local
law pertaining to the life of the Church, church-state co-operation and
the spheres of the Church's social concern. This dialogue also concerns
the resolutions and decisions of the legislative power which have no direct
bearing on legislation.
In contacts with the executive power, the Church should conduct dialogue
on making decisions pertaining to the life of the Church, church-state
co-operation and the spheres of the Church's social concern. To this end,
the Church maintains contacts on the respective level with central and
local executive power bodies, including those responsible for solving
practical problems in the life and work of religious associations and those
responsible for monitoring the observance of law (organs of justice, prosecution,
interior) by the above-mentioned bodies.
The Church's relationships with the judiciary on various levels should
be limited to the representation, if necessary, of her interest in court.
The Church does not interfere in the judicial authority's exercise of its
functions and powers. Except for absolute necessity, the interests of
the Church are represented in court by lay people empowered by the church
authorities on the respective level (Chalced. 9). Internal church
disputes should not be brought out to secular court (Antioch. 12).
Interconfessional
conflicts and conflicts with schismatics which do not touch upon doctrinal
matters can be brought to secular court (Carth. 59).
III. 10. The holy canons forbid the clergy to approach the government
without permission from the church superiors. Thus, Canon 11 of the Council
of Sardica reads: ¨If any bishop or presbyter or generally any one of the
clergy dare go to the ruler without permission and credentials from the
bishop of the province and even more so from the bishop of the metropolis,
let he be suspended and deprived of not only communion but also the dignity
he enjoyed… If an urgent necessity makes one go to the ruler, let he do
this with consideration and permission of the bishop of the metropolis
and other bishops of that province and let he be sent with credentials
from them¯.
The Church's contacts and co-operation with the highest state authorities
are carried out by the Patriarch and the Holy Synod directly or through
representatives who have powers confirmed in writing. Her contacts and
co-operation with the regional governments are carried out by diocesan
bishops or through representatives who also have powers confirmed in writing.
Her contacts and co-operation with the local authorities and self-government
bodies are carried out by deaneries and parishes with the blessing of their
diocesan bishops. The representatives of the church supreme authorities
empowered to maintain contacts with the governmental bodies may be appointed
both on the permanent and ad hoc basis.
If a matter considered previously on the local or regional level
is referred to the highest governmental bodies, the diocesan bishop notifies
the Patriarch and the Holy Synod about it and asks them to keep in contact
with the state in further consideration of this matter. If a legal case
is transferred from a local or regional to the highest level, the diocesan
bishop should make a written report to the Patriarch and the Holy Synod
about the earlier court examination. Those presiding over self-governed
church districts and the administrators of dioceses in particular states
have a special blessing from the Patriarch and the Holy Synod to maintain
contacts with the leaders of these states.
III. 11. To avoid any confusion of church and state affairs and
to prevent the church authority from acquiring temporal nature, the
canons prohibit the clergy from participating in the affairs of state government.
Apostolic Canon 81 reads: ¨It does not befit a bishop or a presbyter to
go into the affairs of the people's government, but to be always engaged
in the affairs of the Church¯. Apostolic Canon 6 and Canon 10 of the Seventh
Ecumenical Council speak of the same. In the contemporary context, these
provisions apply not only to administration but also participation in the
representative bodies of power (see, V. 2).
IV. Christian
ethics and secular law
IV. 1. God is perfection, therefore the world created by Him is perfect
and harmonious. Life is observance of the divine laws, as God Himself is
life endless and abundant. Through the original fall, evil and sin entered
the world. At the same time, fallen man has retained the freedom to choose
the right way with God's help. In this effort, the observance of God-given
commandments asserts life. But deviation from them leads inevitably to
damage and death, as it is noting else but deviation from God, hence, from
being and life, which can be only in Him: ¨See, I have set thee this day
life and good, and death and evil; in that I command thee this day to love
the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, and
his statutes and his judgements, that thou mayest live… But if thine heart
turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away… ye shall
surely perish, and ye shall not prolong your days upon the land¯ (Deut.
30:15-18). In the earthly order of things, sin and retribution do not often
follow each other immediately but may be intervened by many years and even
generations: ¨For I the Lord thy God an a jealous God, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations
of them that hate me, and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love
me and keep my commandments¯ (Deut. 5:9-10). This distance between crime
and punishment keeps man free, on the one hand, and compels the reasonable
and pious people to study the divine commandment with a special attention,
on the other, in order to learn to distinguish between right and wrong,
lawful and unlawful.
Among the oldest monuments of the written language are numerous collections
of homilies and statutes. Undoubtedly, they go back to the even earlier,
pre-alphabet, existence of humanity, since ¨the work of the law¯ is written
by God in human hearts (Rom. 2:15). Law has been there in the human society
from times immemorial. The first rules were given to man as far back as
the paradise time (Gen. 2:16-17). After the fall, which is violation by
man of the divine law, law becomes a boundary and trespassing against it
threatens the destruction of both the human personality and human community.
IV. 2. The law is called to manifest the one divine law of the
universe in social and political realms. At the same time, any legal system
developed by the human community, being as it is a fruit of historical
development, carries a seal of limitation and imperfection. Law is a special
realm, different from the related ethical realm, as it does not qualify
the inner conditions of the human heart, since God alone is its Reader.
Yet it is human behaviour and actions that is the subject of the legal
regulation, which is the essence of legislation. The law also provides
for coercive measures for making people obey it. The legislative sanctions
to restore the trampled law and order make law a reliable clamp of society
unless, as it has often happened in history, the whole system of the enforced
law capsizes. However, as no human community can exist without law, a new
legislative system always emerges in place of the destroyed law and order.
The law contains a certain minimum of moral standards compulsory
for all members of society. The secular law has as its task not to turn
the world lying in evil into the Kingdom of God, but to prevent it from
turning into hell. The fundamental principle of law is: ¨do not do
to others what you would not want to be done to yourself¯. If a person
has committed a sinful action against another, the damage inflicted on
the integrity of the divine law and order can be made up by the suffering
of the offender or pardon whereby the moral consequences of a sinful action
is assumed by the person (ruler, spiritual father, community, etc.) who
issues pardon. Suffering heals the soul affected by sin, while the
voluntary suffering of the innocent for the sins of a criminal represents
the highest form of redemption the ultimate of which is the sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Who took upon Himself the sin of the world (Jn 1:29).
IV. 3. The understanding of where the ¨wounding edge¯ separating
one person from another lies was different in various societies and in
various periods. The more religious a human community the greater its awareness
of the unity and integrity of the world. People in a religiously integral
society are viewed in two perspectives, both as unique personalities, who
either stand or fall before God (Rom. 14:4) and who cannot be judged by
other people, and as members of the one public body in which the illness
of one member leads to the sickness and even death of the whole body. In
the latter case, every person can and must be judged by the whole community,
since the actions of one make an impact on many. The seeking of the spirit
of peace by one righteous man, according to St. Seraphim of Sarov, leads
to the salvation of thousands around him, while a sin committed by one
culprit may entail the death of many.
This attitude to sinful and criminal manifestations is
firmly grounded in Holy Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church. ¨By
the blessing of the upright the city is exalted; but it is overthrown by
the mouth of the wicked¯ (Prov. 11:11). St. Basil the Great taught the
people of Caesarea in Cappadocia: ¨Because of a few, disasters come upon
a whole people, and because of the evil deeds of one, many have to taste
their fruits. Ahab committed sacrilege, and all the chariots were defeated;
already Zimri committed whoredom with a Midianitish woman, and punished
was Israel¯. St. Cyprian of Moscow writes about the same: ¨Do not you know
that people's sin fall upon the prince, and the prince's sin fall upon
the people?¯
That is why old statute books also regulated those aspects
of life which are outside regulation by today's law. For instance, by the
legal provisions of the Pentateuch, adultery was punished by death (Lev.
20:10), whereas today it is not regarded as a legal offence in most states.
If the vision of the world in its integrity is lost, the field of legal
regulation becomes reduced to the cases of the visible damage done, and
the boundaries of the latter become more narrow with the erosion of public
morality and secularisation of consciousness. For instance, today's law
treats sorcery, which was a grave crime in ancient communities, as a imaginary
action not to be punished.
The fallen nature of man that has distorted his awareness does not allow
him to accept the divine law in all its fullness. In various periods, people
have been aware of only part of this law. This is evident from the Gospel's
talk of the Savoir about divorce. Moses permitted divorce ¨because of the
hardness of our hearts¯, but it was not so ¨from the beginning¯ because
in marriage a man becomes ¨one flesh¯ with his wife, making marriage indissoluble
(Mt. 19:3-5).
However, in the cases where the human law completely rejects the
absolute divine norm, replacing it by an opposite one, it ceases to be
law and becomes lawlessness, in whatever legal garments it may dress itself.
For instance, the Decalogue clearly states: ¨Honour thy father and thy
mother¯ (Ex. 20:12). Any secular norm that contradicts this commandment
indicts not its offender but the legislator himself. In other words, the
human law has never contained the divine law in its fullness, but in order
to remain law it is obliged to conform to the God-established principles,
rather then to erode them.
IV. 4. Historically, both religious and secular laws originate
from the same source. Moreover, for a long time they only represented two
sides of one legal field. This idea of law is also characteristic of the
Old Testament.
The Lord Jesus Christ, in calling those faithful to Him to the Kingdom
that is not of this world, separated (Lk. 12:51-52) the Church as His body
from the world lying in evil. In Christianity, the internal law of the
Church is free from the spiritually-fallen state of the world and is even
opposed to it (Mt. 5:21-47). This opposition, however, is not the violation
but the fulfilment of the law of the divine Truth in its fullness, which
humanity repudiated in the fall. Comparing the Old Testament norms with
that of the Gospel, the Lord in His Sermon on the Mount calls people to
seek the full identity of life with the absolute divine law, that is to
deification: ¨Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect¯ (Mt. 5:48).
IV. 5. In the Church founded by the Lord Jesus, there is special
law based on the Divine Revelation. It is the canon law. While other religious
statutes are given to humanity as fallen away from God and can be essentially
part of the civil law, the Christian law is fundamentally supra-social.
It cannot be part of the civil law, though in Christian societies it can
make a favourable influence on it as its moral foundation.
The Christian state normally used the modified law of
the pagan times (for instance, the Roman law in the Codex of Justinian),
since it included the norms consonant with the divine truth. However, any
attempt to develop the civil, criminal and public law based on the Gospel
alone cannot be efficient, for without the full churching of life, that
is without complete victory over sin, the law of the Church cannot become
the law of the world. This victory is possible, however, only in the eschatological
perspective.
However, the experience of the Christianization of the
legal system inherited from the pagan Rome under Emperor Justinian proved
to be quite successful. It was so not in the least because the legislator,
in developing the Codex, was fully aware of the dividing life between the
order of this world, marked with the fall and sinful erosion even in the
Christian era, and the statutes of the grace-giving body of Christ, the
Church, even its members and the citizens of a Christian state are the
same people. The Codex of Justinian determined for centuries the Byzantine
legal system and made a considerable impact on the development of law in
Russia and in some Western European countries both in the middle ages and
the modern time.
IV. 6. The idea of the inalienable rights of the individual has become
one of the dominating principles in the contemporary sense of justice.
The idea of these rights is based on the biblical teaching on man as the
image and likeness of God, as an ontologically free creature. ¨Examine
what is around you¯, writes St. Anthony of Egypt, ¨and see that princes
and masters have power over your body alone, not over your soul, and always
keep this in mind. Why when they order, say, to kill or to do something
else, inappropriate, unrighteous and harmful for the soul, it is not proper
to obey them, even though they torture your body. God has created the soul
free and self-ruled, and it is free to do as it wills, good or bad¯.
The Christian socio-public ethics demanded that a certain autonomous
sphere should be reserved for man, in which his conscience might remain
the ¨autocratic¯ master, for it is the free will that determines ultimately
the salvation or death, the way to Christ or the way away from Christ.
The right to believe, to live, to have family is what protects the inherent
foundations of human freedom from the arbitrary rule of outer forces. These
internal rights are complimented with and ensured by other, external ones,
such as the right to free movement, information, property, to its possession
and disposition.
God keeps man free, never forcing his will. Contrary to it, Satan
seeks to possess the human will, to enslave it. If the law conforms to
the divine truth revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ, then it also stands
guard over human freedom: ¨Where the Spirit is, there is liberty¯ (2 Cor.
3:17). Therefore, it guards the inalienable rights of the personality.
Those traditions, however, which do not know of the principle of the freedom
of Christ, often seek to subject the human consciousness to the external
will of a ruler or a collective.
IV. 7. As secularism developed, the lofty principles of inalienable
human rights turned into a notion of the rights of the individual outside
his relations with God. In this process, the freedom of the personality
transformed into the protection of self-will (as long as it is not
detrimental to individuals) and into the demand that the state should guarantee
a certain material living standard for the individual and family. In the
contemporary systematic understanding of civil human rights, man is treated
not as the image of God, but as a self-sufficient and self-sufficing subject.
Outside God, however, there is only the fallen man, who is rather far from
being the ideal of perfection aspired to by Christians and revealed in
Christ (¨Ecce homo!¯). For the Christian sense of justice, the idea of
human freedom and rights is bound up with the idea of service. The Christian
needs rights so that in exercising them he may first of all fulfil in the
best possible way his lofty calling to be ¨the likeness of God¯, as well
as his duty before God and the Church, before other people, family, state,
nation and other human communities.
As a result of the secularisation in modern times, the
theory of natural law prevailed, which in its constructions did not take
into account the fallen humanity. This theory, however, did not lose links
with Christian tradition, for it proceeded from the conviction that the
notions of good and evil were inherent in humanity. Therefore, law grew
up from life itself, based on conscience (¨the categorical moral imperative¯).
This theory was dominant in the European society up to the 19th century.
Its practical consequences included, firstly, the principle of the historical
continuity of the legal domain (law cannot be abolished as conscience cannot
be abolished; it can only be improved and adjusted also legally to new
situations and cases). Secondly, it gave rise to the principle of precedent
(in conformity with conscience and the legal tradition, the court can pass
a right sentence, that is a sentence consonant to the Divine Truth).
In the contemporary understanding of law, views apologetic
towards the positive law in force have prevailed. Law is viewed as a human
invention, a construction that is built by society to benefit itself and
to fulfil tasks defined by itself. Hence, any changes to the law, if approved
by society, are considered valid. The written law has no absolute legal
basis whatsoever. This view gives validity to the revolution that rejects
the laws of ¨the old world¯ and to the full rejection of the moral norm
if this rejection is approved by society. Thus, if in contemporary society
abortion is not believed to be murder, it is not such legally either. Apologists
of the positive law believe that society can introduce very diverse standards,
on the one hand, and consider any law in force to be legitimate by virtue
of its very existence, on the other.
IV. 8. The law and order of a particular country is a special
version of the common worldview law characteristic of a given nation. The
national law expresses the fundamental principles of relations between
persons, between power and society and between institutions in accordance
with the peculiarities of a given nation moving in history. The national
law is imperfect, for imperfect and sinful is any nation. However, it establishes
a framework for the people's life if it translates God's absolute truths
into and adjusts them to the concrete historical and national existence.
Thus, law and order in Russia gradually developed and
grew ever more complex for a millennium as society itself developed and
grew in its complexity. The conventional Slavic law, which had preserved
the ancient common Aryan forms until the 10th, due to Christianization
incorporated some elements of the Byzantine legislation. It did it through
the Codex of Justinian tracing back to the classical Roman law and the
church canon law, which at that time was fused with the civil law. From
the 17th century, the Russia law drew intensively on the standards and
legal logic of the Western European law, doing it in a fairly organic way,
since the Roman legal tradition, basic for Europe, was borrowed by Russia
from Constantinople together with Christianity as far back as the 10th-11the
centuries. The Old Russian Russkaya pravda (Russian truth), princes' statutes
and charters, legal documents and books, the Council of the Hundred Chapters
and the 1949 Conciliar code, Petrine articles and decrees, legal actions
by Catherine the Great and Alexander I, reforms of Alexander II and the
1906 Basic Law — all represented one legal fabric of the creative people's
organism. Some standards became out of date, while other come replace them.
Some legal novations failed as inconsonant with the order of people's life
and ceased to be applied. The flow of the river of Russian national law
whose sources were lost in distant history was stopped by the year 1917.
On November 22 of that year, the Council of People's Commissars, in conformity
with the spirit of the positive law, repealed the whole Russian legislation.
After the collapse of the Soviet statehood in the early 90s, the legal
system in the CIS and Baltic countries is still in the making. At its foundation
are the ideas dominating in the contemporary secularised sense of justice.
IV. 9. The Church of Christ, preserving her own autonomous law based
on the holy canons and keeping within the church life proper, can exist
in the framework of very diverse legal systems which she treats with respect.
The Church invariably calls upon her flock to be law-abiding citizens of
their earthly homeland. At the same time, she has always underlined
the unshakeable limits to which her faithful should obey the law.
In everything that concerns the exclusively earthly order of things,
the Orthodox Christian is obliged to obey the law, regardless of how far
it is imperfect and unfortunate. However, when compliance with legal
requirements threatens his eternal salvation and involves an apostasy or
commitment of another doubtless sin before God and his neighbour, the Christian
is called to perform the feat of confession for the sake of God's truth
and the salvation of his soul for eternal life. He must speak out lawfully
against an indisputable violation committed by society or state against
the statutes and commandments of God. If this lawful action is impossible
or ineffective, he must take up the position of civil disobedience (see,
III.
5).
V. Church and
politics
V. 1. In the contemporary state, citizens participate in the government
of the country by voting. Most of them belong to political parties, movements,
unions, blocs and other suchlike organisations based on various political
doctrines and views. These organisations, seeking to order social life
according to the political convictions of their members, have as one of
their goals to hold or reform power in the state. Exercising powers given
to them by popular vote during elections, political organisations can participate
in the work of the legislative and executive power structures.
The presence in society of different, sometimes opposing political convictions
and discordant interests generates political struggle which is waged by
both legitimate and morally justified methods and methods sometimes contradicting
the norms of public law and Christian and natural morality.
V. 2. The Church, according to God's commandment, has a task
to show concern for the unity of her children and peace and harmony in
society and the involvement of all her members in common creative efforts.
The Church is called to preach and build peace with outer society: ¨If
it is possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men¯ (Rom.
12:19); ¨Follow peace with all men¯ (Heb. 12:14). It is even more important
for her, however, to be internally united in faith and love: ¨I beseech
you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ… that there be no divisions
among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind¯ (1
Cor. 1:10). For the Church the highest value is her unity as the mysterious
body of Christ (Eph. 1:23) on which the eternal salvation of humanity depends.
St. Ignatius the God-Bearer, addressing the members of the Church of Christ,
writes: ¨You all make up as if one church of God, as if one altar, as if
one Jesus¯.
In face of political differences, contradictions and struggle, the
Church preaches peace and co-operation among people holding various political
views. She also acknowledges the presence of various political convictions
among her episcopate, clergy and laity, except for such as to lead clearly
to actions contradicting the faith and moral norms of the church Tradition.
It is impossible for the Church's Supreme Authorities and for the
clergy, hence for the plenitude of the Church to participate in such activities
of political organisations and election processes as public support for
the running political organisations or particular candidates, election
campaigns and so forth. The clergy are not allowed to be nominated for
elections to any body of representative power at any level. At the same
time, nothing should prevent bishops, clergy and laity from participation
in the expression of the popular will by voting along with other citizens.
In church history there were not a few cases when the
whole Church gave support to various political doctrines, views, organisations
and leaders. In some cases, this support was linked with the need for the
Church to defend her fundamental interests in the extreme conditions of
anti-religious persecution and the destructive and restrictive actions
of the non-Orthodox and non-Christian power. In other cases, this support
resulted from the pressure from the state or political structures and usually
led to divisions and controversies within the Church and to the falling
away of some of her people infirm in their faith.
In the 20th century, the clergy and hierarchy of the Russian
Orthodox Church were members of some representative bodies of power, in
particular, the State Duma of the Russian Empire and the Supreme Soviets
of the USSR and the Russian Federation, some local councils and legislative
assemblies. In some cases, their participation in the work of governmental
bodies was beneficial for the Church and society. However, it sometimes
generated confusions and divisions. This happened especially when the clergy
were permitted to run for elective offices without the blessing of the
Church. The practice of this participation as a whole has shown that it
is almost impossible without one's assuming responsibility for making decisions
which are in the interests of only a part of the population and against
those of others. This is a situation that seriously complicates the pastoral
and missionary work of the clergy called to be, according to St. Paul,
¨all things to all men… that by all means some may be saved¯ (1 Cor. 9:22).
At the same time, history has shown that the decision of the clergy to
participate or not to participate in political activities was made and
should be made depending on the needs of a particular period and the internal
condition of the church organism and its place in the state. From the canonical
point of view however, the answer to the question of whether a priest in
a public office should work as a professional is unequivocally negative.
On October 8, 1919, St. Tikhon appealed to the clergy
of the Russian Orthodox Church not to interfere in the political struggle.
He pointed out in particular that the servants of the Church ¨by virtue
of their rank should be above and outside any political interests. They
should remember the canonical rules of the Holy Church whereby she prohibits
her servants from interfering in the political life of the country, joining
any political parties and, what is more, from making the liturgical rites
a tool of political demonstrations¯.
Prior to the elections of the USSR people's deputies,
the Holy Synod resolved on December 27, 1988, that ¨in case of the nomination
and election of representatives of our Church, blessing be given upon this
activity in the conviction that it will benefit the faithful and our whole
society¯. In addition to being elected as USSR people's deputies, some
bishops and clerics occupied deputy's posts in republican, regional and
local soviets. The new situation in the political life compelled the Bishops'
Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in October 1989 to pay more attention
to the two questions: ¨Firstly, how far can the Church go in assuming responsibility
for political decisions without casting doubt on their pastoral authority
and, secondly, is it permissible for the Church to refuse participation
in legislation and the opportunity to make a moral impact on the political
process at a time when a particular decision determines as much as the
fate of the country?¯ As a result of this discussion, the Bishops' Council
recognised the Holy Synod decision of December 27, 1988, as valid only
for the previous elections. It adopted the procedure for the future, whereby
the Supreme Church Authorities, namely the Holy Synod (in case of bishops)
and ruling bishops (in case of clergy under their jurisdiction), should
decide beforehand in every particular case whether the participation of
the clergy in an election campaign was desirable.
Notwithstanding, some representatives of the clergy did
take part in the elections without obtaining the necessary blessing. The
Holy Synod regretted to state on March 20, 1990 that ¨the Russian Orthodox
Church declines the moral and religious responsibility for the participation
of these persons in the elected offices¯. For the reasons of oikonomia,
the Synod refrained from using appropriate sanctions against the violators,
¨stating that such a behaviour lies on their own conscience¯. On October
8, 1993, in view of the establishment of a professional parliament in Russia,
the Holy Synod at its enlarged session decided to prescribe to the clergy
to refrain from participating in the parliamentary elections in Russia
as nominees to parliament. It resolved that the clergy who violated this
decision should be defrocked. The 1994 Bishops' Council of the Russian
Orthodox Church approved this resolution as ¨timely and wise¯ and resolved
to apply it to ¨the future participation of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox
Church in any election to the representatives bodies of power in the CIS
and Baltic countries on both national and local levels¯.
The same Bishops' Council, responding to the challenges
of time in faithfulness to the holy canons, adopted a number of rules concerning
the subject under discussion. Thus, in one of its resolutions, the Council
decided: ¨to re-affirm the impossibility for the church Plenitude to give
support, first of all in election campaigns, to any political party, movement,
bloc, union or a similar organisation and to any of their leaders … To
consider it extremely undesirable for the clergy to join political parties,
movements, unions, blocs and similar organisations which are intended primarily
for pre-election struggle¯.
The Bishops' Council that took place in 1997 developed
the principles of the Church's relations with political organisations and
made even stronger one its previous resolution by refusing to give its
blessing to the clergy for them to join political associations. It resolved,
in particular, in its statement ¨On Relations with State and Secular Society:
¨to welcome the Church's dialogue and contacts with political organisations
if such contacts are not supportive politically; to consider it admissible
to maintain co-operation with these organisations in tasks beneficial for
the Church and the people unless this co-operation can be interpreted as
political support… to consider inadmissible the participation of bishops
and clergy in any election campaign or their memberships in political associations
whose constitutions provide for the nomination of their candidate to elective
offices on all levels¯.
The fact that the Plenitude of the Church does not participate in
political struggle, in the work of political parties and in election processes
does not mean her refusal to express publicly her stand on socially significant
issues and to present this stand to governmental bodies in any country
and on any level. This position may be expressed only by Councils, the
church authorities and those empowered to act for them. In any case, the
right to express it cannot be delegated to public offices or political
or other secular organisations.
V. 3. Nothing can prevent the Orthodox laity from participating
in the work of legislative, executive and judicial bodies and political
organisations. This involvement took place under various political
systems, such as autocracy, constitutional monarchy and various forms of
the republican system. The participation of the Orthodox laity in civic
and political processes was difficult only in the contexts of non-Christian
rule and the regime of state atheism.
In participating in government and political processes, the Orthodox
laity are called to base their work on the norms of the gospel's morality,
the unity of justice and mercy (Ps. 85:10), the concern for the spiritual
and material welfare of people, the love of the fatherland and the desire
to transform the surrounding world according to the word of Christ.
At the same time, the Christian, a politician or a statesmen, should
be well aware that in historical reality and, all the more so, in the context
of today's divided and controversial society, most decisions adopted and
political actions taken tend to benefit only a part of society, while restricting
or infringing upon the interests and wishes of others. Many such decisions
and actions are stained with sin or connivance with sin. Precisely for
this reason the Orthodox politician or statesman is required to be very
sensitive spiritually and morally.
The Christian who works in the sphere of public and political building
is called to seek the gift of special self-sacrifice and special
self-denial. He needs to be utterly attentive to his own spiritual condition,
so that his public or political work may not turn from service into an
end in itself that nourishes pride, greed and other vices. It should
be remembered that ¨principalities or powers, all things were created by
him, and for him… and by him all things stand¯ (Col. 1:16-17). St. Gregory
the Theologian, addressing the rulers, wrote: ¨It is with Christ that you
command, with Christ that you govern, from Him that you have received the
sword¯. St. John Chrysostom says: ¨A true king is he who conquers anger
and jealousy and voluptuousness and subjects everything to the laws of
God and does not allow the passion for pleasure to prevail in his soul.
I would like to see such a man in command of the people, and the throne,
and the cities and the provinces, and the troops, because he who subjected
the physical passions to reason would easily govern people also according
to the divine laws… But he who appears to command people but in fact accommodates
himself to wrath and ambition and pleasure, … will not know how to dispose
of the power¯.
V. 4. The participation of the Orthodox laity in the work of
governmental bodies and political processes may be both individual and
corporate, within special Christian (Orthodox) political organisations
or Christian (Orthodox) units of larger political associations. In both
cases, the faithful have the right to choose and express their political
convictions, to make decisions and to carry out appropriate work. At the
same time, lay people who participate in public or political activity
individually or within various organisations do it independently, without
identifying their political work with the stand of the Church Plenitude
or any of the canonical church institutions or speaking for them. At the
same time, the supreme church authority does not give special blessing
upon the political activity of the laity.
The 1994 Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church resolved that
it is admissible for lay people to join political organisations and ¨to
found such organisations, and if they describe themselves as Christian
or Orthodox organisations, they are called to increase their interaction
with the church authorities. It is also possible for the clergy, including
those representing canonical church structures and the church authorities,
to participate in particular activities of political organisations and
maintain co-operation with them in tasks beneficial for the Church and
society if this participation is not supportive of political organisations
and contributes to building peace and accord among people and in the church
community¯.
A similar resolution of the 1997 Bishops' Council reads in particular:
¨To believe it possible for lay people to participate in the work of political
organisations and to found such organisation if the latter have no clergy
among their members and conduct responsible consultations with the church
authorities. To resolve that these organisations as participants in the
political process cannot enjoy the blessing of the church authorities and
speak for the Church. The Church's blessing cannot be given and, if given
previously, will be denied to the church-public organisations involved
in election campaigns and political agitation and claiming to express the
Church's opinion, which is expressed before the state and society only
by church Councils, His Holiness the Patriarch and the Holy Synod. The
same should be applied to the ecclesial and ecclesio-public mass media¯.
The existence of Christian (Orthodox) political organisations and
Christian (Orthodox) units in larger political associations is perceived
by the Church as positive as it helps lay people to engage in common political
and public work based on Christian spiritual and moral principles. These
organisations, while being free in their activity, are called to consult
the church authorities and to co-ordinate their actions in implementing
the Church's position on public issues.
In relations between the Church Plenitude and Christian (Orthodox)
political organisations, in which Orthodox lay people participate, and
particular Orthodox politicians and statesmen, situations may arise where
their statements or actions essentially differ from the Church's stand
on public issues or impede the realisation of this stand. In such cases,
the Church Authorities ascertains the fact of differing positions and states
it publicly in order to avoid confusion and misunderstanding among the
faithful and society at large. The statement of such a difference should
compel the Orthodox laity participating in political activity to think
whether it is appropriate for them to continue their memberships in this
political organisation.
The organisations of Orthodox Christians should not have the nature
of secret society presupposing one's total subjection to the leaders and
conscious refusal to disclose their essence when consulting the Church
Authorities and even making one's confession. The Church cannot approve
of the participation of the Orthodox laity and, more so, clergy in the
non-Orthodox societies of this kind, since by their very nature they divest
a person of his total commitment to the Church of God and her canonical
order.
VI. Labour and
its fruits
VI. 1. Labour is an organic element of human life. The Book of Genesis
says that in the beginning ¨there was not a man to till the ground¯ (Gen.
2:5). Having created the Garden of Eden, God put man in it ¨to dress it
and to keep it¯ (Gen. 2:15). Labour is the creative fulfilment of man who
was called to be the co-creator and co-worker of the Lord by virtue of
his original likeness of God. However, after man fell away from the Creator,
the nature of his labour changed: ¨In the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread, till thou return into the ground¯ (Gen. 3:19). The creative
component of labour weakened to become mostly a means of sustenance for
the fallen man.
VI. 2. The word of God does not only draw people's attention
to the need of daily labour, but also sets a special rhythm for it. The
fourth commandment reads: ¨Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six
days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the
sabbath of the Lord the God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor
thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, not thy maidservant, not thy
cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates¯ (Ex. 20:8-10). By this
commandment of the Creator the human labour is compared to the divine creative
work that made the beginning of the universe. Indeed, the commandment to
observe the sabbath is substantiated by the fact that in the creation ¨God
blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested
from all his work which God created and made¯ (Gen. 2:3). This day should
be dedicated to the Lord so that everyday chores may not divert man from
the Creator. At the same time, the active manifestations of charity and
selfless aid to one's labours are not violations of the commandment: ¨The
sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath¯ (Mk. 2:27). In Christian
tradition, the first day of the week, the day of the Resurrection of Christ,
has been a day of rest since the apostolic times.
VI. 3. The improvement of the tools and methods of labour, its division
into professions and move to more complex forms contributes to better material
living standards. However, people's enticement with the achievements of
the civilisation moves them away from the Creator and leads to an imaginary
triumph of reason seeking to arrange earthly life without God. The realisation
of these aspirations in human history has always ended in tragedy.
Holy Scriptures relates that the first builders of the
earthly civilisation were Cain's successors: Lamech and his children invented
and made the first copper and iron tools, movable tents and various musical
instruments; they were also the founders of many skills and arts (Gen.
4:22). However, they and many other people with them failed to avoid temptations:
¨all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth¯ (Gen. 6:12). Therefore,
the Creator willed that the Cainite civilisation be ended with a flood.
Among the most vivid biblical images of the failure of the fallen humanity
to ¨to make a name for itself¯ is the construction of the Tower of Babel
¨whose top may reach unto heaven¯. The Babel is presented as a symbol of
people's joining efforts to achieve an ungodly goal. The Lord punishes
the arrogant men: by confusing their tongues He makes understanding among
them impossible and scattered them throughout the earth.
VI. 4. From a Christian perspective, labour in itself is not an absolute
value. It is blessed when it represents co-working with the Lord and contribution
to the realisation of His design for the world and man. However, labour
is not something pleasing to God if it is intended to serve the egoistic
interests of individual or human communities and to meet the sinful needs
of the spirit and flesh.
Holy Scriptures points to the two moral motives of labour: work to
sustain oneself without being a burden for others and work to give to the
needy. The apostle writes: ¨Let him labour, working with his hands
the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth¯
(Eph. 4:28). Such labour cultivates the soul and strengthens the body and
enables the Christian to express his faith in God-pleasing works of charity
and love of his neighbours (Mt. 5:16; James 2:17). Everyone remembers the
words of St. Paul: ¨If any would not work, neither should he eat¯ (2 Thes.
3:10).
The Fathers and Doctors of the Church continuously stressed
the moral meaning of labour. Thus, St. Clement of Alexandria described
it as ¨a school of social justice¯. St. Basil the Great argued that ¨a
pious intention should not be a pretext for idleness and evasion from work,
but rather an incentive for even more work¯. St. John Chrysostom insisted
that ¨not labour but idleness should be regarded as ¨dishonour¯. Monks
in many monasteries gave an example of laborious asceticism. Their economic
activity was in many ways an example for emulation, while the founders
of major monasteries were renowned not only as high spiritual authorities
but also great toilers. Well known are such models of zealous work as the
Venerable Theodoius of Pechery, Sergius of Radonezh, Cyril of White Lake,
Joseph of Volotsk, Nil of Sora and other Russian ascetics.
VI. 5. The Church blesses every work aimed to benefit people.
At the same time, she does not give preference to any form of human work
if it conforms to Christian moral standards. In His parables, our Lord
Jesus Christ keeps referring to various professions, without singling out
any of them. He speaks of the work of a sower (Mk. 4:3-9), servants and
the ruler of a household (Lk. 12:42-48), a merchant and fishermen (Mt.
13:45-48), the householder and labourers of a vineyard (Mt. 20:1-16). Modern
times, however, have seen the emergence of a whole industry intended to
propagate vice and sin and satisfy such baneful passions and addictions
as drinking, drug-addiction, fornication and adultery. The Church testifies
to the sin of being involved in such activities as they corrupt not only
workers, but also society as a whole.
VI. 6. A worker has the right to use the fruits of his labour:
¨Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? Who feedeth
a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?… He that ploweth should
plow in hope; and he that threshesth in hope should be partaker of his
hope¯ (1 Cor. 9:7, 10). The Church teaches that refusal to pay for honest
work is not only a crime against man, but also a sin before God.
Holy Scriptures says: ¨Thou shalt not oppress an hired
servant… At his day thou shalt give him his hire… lest he cry against thee
unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee¯ (Deut. 24:14-15); ¨Woe unto him…
that useth his neighbour's services without wages, and giveth him not for
his work¯ (Jer. 22:13); ¨Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped
down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries
of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth¯
(James 5:4).
At the same time, by God's commandment workers are ordered to take
care of those who for various reasons cannot earn their living, such
as the weak, the sick, strangers (refugees), orphans and widows. The worker
should share the fruits of his work with them, ¨that the Lord may bless
thee in all the work of thine hands¯ (Deut. 24:19-22).
Continuing on earth the service of Christ Who identified Himself with
the destitute, the Church always comes out in defence of the voiceless
and powerless. Therefore, she calls upon society to ensure the equitable
distribution of the fruits of labour, in which the rich support the
poor, the healthy the sick, the able-bodied the elderly. The spiritual
welfare and survival of society are possible only if the effort to ensure
life, health and minimal welfare for all citizens becomes an indisputable
priority in distributing the material resources.
VII. Property
VII. 1. Property is commonly understood as a socially recognised
form of people's relation to the fruits of labour and to natural resources.
The basic powers of an owner normally include the right to own and use
property, the right to control and collect income, the right to dispose
of, lease, modify or liquidate property.
The Church is not someone who defines the rights to property. However,
the material side of human life is not outside her field of vision.
While calling to seek first ¨the kingdom of God and his righteousness¯
(Mt. 6:33), the Church does not forget about people's the need for ¨daily
bread¯ (Mt. 6:11) and believes that every one should have resources
sufficient for life in dignity. At the same time, the Church warns against
the extreme attraction to wealth, denouncing those who are carried away
by ¨cares and riches and pleasures of this life¯ (Lk. 8:14). The Church
in her attitude to property does not ignore the material needs, nor does
she praise the opposite extreme, the aspiration for wealth as the ultimate
goal and value of life. The status of a person in itself cannot be seen
as an indication as to whether God is pleased with him.
The attitude of Orthodox Christians to property should be based on the
gospel's principle of love of one's neighbour, expressed in the words of
the Saviour: ¨A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another¯
(Jn. 13:34). This commandment is the basis of Christian moral behaviour.
For Christians and the Church believes for other people as well, it should
be an imperative in regulating interpersonal relationships, including property
relations.
According to the teaching of the Church, people receive all the earthly
blessings from God who is the One who holds the absolute right to possess
them. The Saviour repeatedly points to the relative nature of the right
to property in His parables on a vineyard let out to be used (Mk. 12:1-9),
on talents distributed among many (Mt. 25:14-30) and on an estate handed
over for temporary management (Lk. 16:1-13). Expressing the idea inherent
to the Church that God is the absolute owner of everything, St. Basil the
Great asks: ¨Tell me, what do you have that is yours? Where from did you
take it and bring to life?¯ The sinful attitude to property manifested
in the conscious rejection of this spiritual principle generates division
and alienation among people.
VII. 2. Wealth cannot make man happy. The Lord Jesus Christ warns:
¨Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not
in the abundance of the things which he possesseth¯ (Lk. 12:15). The pursuit
of wealth makes a baneful impact on the spiritual condition of a person
and can lead him to complete degradation. St. Paul points out that ¨they
that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish
and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the
love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after,
they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many
sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things¯ (1 Tim. 6:9-11). In
a talk to a young man the Lord said: ¨If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell
that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven:
and come and follow me¯ (Mt. 19:21). Then He explained these words to His
disciples: ¨A rich man shalt hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven… It
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich
man to enter into the kingdom of God.¯ (Mt. 19:23-24). St. Mark clarifies
that it is difficult to enter the Kingdom of God precisely for those who
trust not in God but in wealth, who ¨trust in riches¯ (Mk. 10:24). Only
those who ¨trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed,
but abideth for ever¯ (Ps.125:1).
However, a rich man can be saved as well, for ¨the things which are
impossible with men are possible with God¯ (Lk. 18:27). In Holy Scriptures
there is no censure of richness as such. Abraham and the Old Testament
patriarchs, the righteous Job, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were well-off
people. An owner of a considerable wealth does not sin if he uses it in
accordance with the will of God to Whom everything belongs and with the
law of love; for the joy and fullness of life lie not in acquirement and
possession but in giving and sacrifice. St. Paul calls people ¨to remember
the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than
to receive¯ (Acts 20:35). St. Basil the Great regards as thieves those
who do not give away part of their property in donation to their neighbours.
The same idea is stressed by St. John Chrysostom: ¨Failure to share one's
property is also theft¯. The Church urges Christians to see in property
a God's gift given to be used for their own and their neighbours' benefit.
At the same time, Holy Scripture recognises the human right to property
and deplores any encroachment on it. In two out of its Ten Commandments,
the Decalogue states clearly: ¨Thou shalt not steal… Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing
that is thy neighbour's¯ (Ex. 20:15, 17). In the New Testament, this attitude
to property continues, acquiring a more profound ethical substantiation.
The Gospel says: ¨Thou shalt not steal… Thou shalt not covet; and if there
be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely,
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself¯ (Rom. 13:9).
VII. 3. The Church recognises the existence of various forms of ownership.
Public, corporate, private and mixed forms of property have taken different
roots in the course of historical development in various countries. The
Church does not give preference to any of these forms. Any of its forms
can produce both sinful phenomena, such as theft, money-grubbing, unfair
distribution of wealth, and the proper and morally justified use of wealth.
The intellectual property, such as scientific works and inventions,
information technologies, works of art and other achievements of the creative
thought acquires a growing significance. The Church welcomes the creative
work aimed at benefitting society, and deplores the violation of copyright.
In general, the Church cannot approve the alienation and re-distribution
of property with violations of the rights of its legitimate owners.
An exception may be made only for the alienation of property based on the
law, conditioned by the interest of the majority of people and accompanied
by fair compensation. Russian history has shown that the violation of these
principles has always resulted in social upheavals and people's suffering.
In Christian history, many communities would pool property, abandoning
personal proprietary aspirations. This kind of property relations contributed
to the consolidation of the spiritual unity of the faithful and in many
cases proved rather effective economically, as in the case of Orthodox
monasteries. However, the repudiation of private property in the early
apostolic community (Acts 4:32) and later in coenobite monasteries was
exclusively a voluntary affair and a personal spiritual option.
VII. 4. The property of religious organisations is a special
form of property. It is acquired in various ways, but the primary component
of its formation is the voluntary donation of believers. According to Holy
Scriptures, donation is sacred, that is, it belongs directly to God as
a donator gives to God, not to a priest (Lev. 27:30; Ez. 8:28). Donation
is a voluntary action made by the faithful for religious purposes (Neh.
10:32). Donation is called to support not only the servants of the Church,
but also the whole people of God (Phil. 4:14-18). Being consecrated to
God, donation is immune, and any one who has stolen it must return more
than has been stolen (Lev. 5:14-15). Donation belongs to the basic commandments
given by God to man (Sirach 7:30-34). As donation is a special case of
economic and social relations, it should not be made automatically subject
to the laws regulating finances and economy of a state, in particular,
public taxation. The Church declares that the income drawn through
entrepreneurial activity can be taxed, but any encroachment on the donations
of believers is a crime before people and God.
VIII. War and
peace
VIII. 1. War is a physical manifestation of the latent illness of
humanity, which is fratricidal hatred (Gen. 4:3-12). Wars have accompanied
human history since the fall and, according to the Gospel, will continue
to accompany it: ¨And when ye hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not
troubled: for such things must needs be¯ (Mk. 13:7). This is also testified
by the Apocalypse in its story of the last battle between good and evil
at Mount Armageddon (Rev. 16:16). Generated by pride and resistance to
the will of God, earthly wars reflect in fact the heavenly battle. Corrupted
by sin, man found himself involved in the turmoil of this battle. War
is evil. Just as the evil in man in general, war is caused by the sinful
abuse of the God-given freedom; ¨for out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts, murder, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies¯
(Mt. 15:19).
Killing, without which wars cannot happen, was regarded as a grave crime
before God as far back as the dawn of the holy history. ¨Thou shalt not
kill¯, the Mosaic law reads (Ex. 20:13). In the Old Testament, just as
in all ancient religions, blood is sacred, since blood is life (Lev. 17:11-14).
¨Blood defiles the land¯, says Holy Scriptures. But the same biblical text
warns those who resort to violence: ¨The land cannot be cleansed of the
blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it¯ (Num.
35:33).
VIII. 2. Bringing to people the good news of reconciliation (Rom,
10:15), but being in ¨this world¯ lying in evil (1 Jn. 5:19) and filled
with violence, Christians involuntarily come to face the vital need to
take part in various battles. While recognising war as evil, the Church
does not prohibit her children from participating in hostilities if at
stake is the security of their neighbours and the restoration of trampled
justice. Then war is considered to be necessary though undesirable but
means. In all times, Orthodoxy has had profound respect for soldiers
who gave their lives to protect the life and security of their neighbours.
The Holy Church has canonised many soldiers, taking into account their
Christian virtues and applying to them Christ's world: ¨Greater love hath
no man but this, that a man lay down his life for his friends¯ (Jn. 15:13).
When St. Cyril Equal-to-the-Apostles was sent by the Patriarch
of Constantinople to preach the gospel among the Saracens, in their capital
city he had to enter into a dispute about faith with Muhamaddan scholars.
Among others, they asked him: ¨Your God is Christ. He commanded you to
pray for enemies, to do good to those who hate and persecute you and to
offer the other cheek to those who hit you, but what do you actually do?
If anyone offends you, you sharpen your sword and go in |
