Translated material
Orthodox counter project
In society
Orthodox counter project
November 21, 2005 Svetlana Solodovnik
The International Scientific and Theological Conference of the Russian Orthodox Church on the topic “eschatological teaching of the Church” testified to at least two important things in the Danilov Monastery last week. Firstly, that Orthodox thought is gaining momentum and theology in Russia gradually ceases to be only a line in the diocesanist reporting, behind which at best there are historical studies such as “Church in the Synodal period”. This was confirmed by the scope of the conference: about seventy speakers, among whom were spiritual persons representing the Russian foreign church, the local churches of Serbia, Greece, Romania, the Patriarchate of Constantinople (not to mention the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church); Theologians from the best Orthodox schools, including the Parisian Holy Sergius Theological Institute and the Holy-Vladimir Academy in New York, are not only Orthodox: let's say, the Uniate priest Lawrence Cross represented the Catholic University of Australia; Scientists from Germany, Italy, the USA and Russia. What can I say there, Christ himself Yannaras, a professor at the University of Athens, and today, probably, probably the most famous Orthodox philosopher and theologians in the world. Since 2000, the Moscow Conference, which the Synodal Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church has been holding every year (became only the exception last year - the Bishop Cathedral was prevented in October), it was called regularly, but he arrived - for the first time.The lion's share of reports touched on religious or theoretical issues, however, eschatology is a topic that traditionally excites not only scientists of church husbands, but the entire church people. Eskhatological sentiments, the feeling of the “end of history” and future disasters, arose in society at all times, especially in moments of social and political crises. Today they are strengthened by globalization processes, which by many Christians are perceived as the end of human history, as a kingdom of chaos, preparing the way to the Antichrist. Therefore, the church is extremely important to develop not only theological, but also practical approaches to the problem of globalization. And here the second important thing was discovered.
Either the theological conference set up for special thoughtfulness and correctness of the formulations, or restrained the presence of foreign guests, but the obvious rate of the priesthood on confrontation in relation to the Western world, and the reinforcement of radical fundamentalist trends within the church, which was felt all recently, was restrained. Perhaps, for this reason, secular experts were involved in the conference - sociologists, philosophers, political scientists, religious scholars - various views, including moderately liberal ones. A whole section of the conference, which turned out to be both the most crowded and the most lively, worked on the “political” eschatology.
The spectrum of opinions ranged between the two poles. The first pole, which had the greatest attractiveness: globalization reflects objective world integration processes. A modern person lives in a mass society that dictates its laws, and the creation of a global market really requires centralized management. Therefore, globalization in a certain sense is just a technical tool that, as such, can serve both good and evil. Christians in this situation should put forward their project emanating from the teachings of the Church. The directed, according to the chairman of the Synodal Theological Commission of Metropolitan of Minsk and Slutsky Filaret, to the “wakeful expectation of the Savior”, and not on the intense expectation of the Antichrist. Moreover, the omnivorous tolerance, on which a mass society sets up a person, threatens believers to people with a very real danger: already now at the public level they are increasingly forcing them to recognize the norm of life that which contradicts their beliefs. Take at least a case with the Italian politician Rocco Buttillone, who was not appointed to the post of commissar of justice and internal affairs of the European Commission due to his negative attitude to homosexuality. In the limit, this can lead to a prohibition of a profession for Christians.
Pole is second: globalization is the triumph of the biblical apocalyptic Babylon, a society of decline and corruption. Its main task is the disintegration of traditional structures and integration on completely different principles that are not natural for a person (hence the recognition of same -sex marriages and other disgraces). The goal is to subordinate the countries and peoples of the transnational financial and economic elite of the world that controls earthly wealth. Therefore, Christians, or rather Orthodox (from Europe and the United States, the upper layer of Christianity subsides, and the further, the more frankly they expose their barbaric gutters - evidence of this, except for the unbridled “free” lifestyle, the bombing of Yugoslavia and Iraq), should intercept the initiative and take globalization processes into their own hands. It should be created by genuine political Orthodoxy and begin the Christianization in essence of the barbaric world, putting nuclear warheads on the guardian of their interests. “So that no one dare to shut up the mouth of our testimony,” as the political observer of the Mayak radio station and the chairman of the conservative meeting Yegor Kholmogorov said, in whose speeches the above point of view was most fully expressed (I advocated not only for himself, but also for Alexander Dugin, he announced after the speech the “globalization and eschatology”, since Dugin had run away, not withstanding, not withstanding, not withstanding, not withstanding, not withstanding, not withstanding, not withstanding, without withstanding. Obviously, general, by no means aggressive, the mood of the conference participants).
Metropolitan of Smolensky and Kaliningrad Kirill, who was presiding at the discussion, resolutely shallowed the idea of warheads, formulating that today it can be considered an official position of the Russian Orthodox Church. The response of Christians to the challenge of unification and globalism should be traditional universalism - "that is, communication in diversity, the free cooperation of holistic communities that store their traditions and their own way of life." It is necessary to look for the docking nodes in inter -civilization models, and such nodes can be a moral beginning, opposed to freedom without any responsibility. Note that the Vladyka did not recently repeat the idea that he had expressed this time that "Russia could become a prototype of a new world order." Moreover, he emphasized that it is necessary to attract all potential allies, not only Christians, but also representatives of other traditional religions, and this gives a new impetus to inter -religious cooperation to discuss the problems of globalization and developing the final decisions.
At the conference, many quite domestic problems were considered that give birth to believers painful eschatological moods. They recalled an endlessly stretching epic with the TIN, fears associated with the right to use objects and documents with non -Christian, say, pagan symbols. “The worldview of people sharing such views,” said the Archbishop of Lviv and Galician Augustine in this regard, “is distinguished by gloom, isolation ... There is not so much the theological problem as the cultural (uncultural) and psychological problem.” It is necessary to influence the quality of the mental life of society, the archbishop concluded.
“I think this is a very timely conference and, in a sense, a fighting,” the secretary of the German diocese of the Russian foreign church, Archpriest Nikolai Artemov, shared with the correspondent of the “daily magazine”. - If the work that is carried out here will not remain with the participants, but will come out, then it will give a very important result - more rooting in the basis among the people. As they say, far from the king, to God is high - that is, the connection between the highest church authorities and the general stream of thought is not always established. Such conferences play the role of an intermediate link, and this is for the good. ”
Surely for the good, if, having reached their dioceses, the speakers do not lose all those wise and correct thoughts that they shared with the conference participants. And then, for example, Archbishop Augustine, who spoke so soulfully about the “mystical fear of an uneducated person before technical innovations”, to the persistent question of the lady from the Chisinau diocese, who heard the other performances of the lord on the same topic, as he himself belongs to TIN, briefly answered: “I personally did not take him.”
Svetlana Solodovnik
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