The Agony of the Church (1917)
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Nikolaj Velimirovic >> The Agony of the Church (1917)
Rome was armed to the teeth and the Church had no arms at all except an
ardent belief and the inspired word. Rome drew the sword against the
unarmed Christians, and the Christians armed only with Jesus Christ, and
with empty hands, took the challenge. The enemies knew each other from
the beginning. Rome's conviction was: better to lose the soul than the
Empire; and the Christians' was: better to save the soul than to get an
Empire. The Roman persecutors were every day sure of their victory,
slaughtering defenceless men and women, or throwing them ad bestias,
whereas the martyrs saw their victory as a distant vision, and still
rejoiced. "The prison was like a palace to me," exclaimed St Perpetua.
And Saturus, another martyr, spoke to his executors: "Mark our faces
well, that you may know us again in the day of judgment." Such was the
spirit of the primitive Church in her duel with pagan Imperialism.
Islam was another kind of Imperialism against which the Church fought.
If the Roman Imperialism was cool, calculating, without any fanaticism,
Islam was a unique form of religious, fanatical Imperialism, having in
view world-conquest and world-dominion, like Rome and yet unlike Rome.
Here the Church fought with the sword against the sword. Before the
definite fall of the Roman Empire the crusades of Christianity against
Islam began, and it has not been finished until this day. Very dramatic
was this struggle in Palestine, under Western crusaders, in Spain and
Russia. But I think the most dramatic act of this dramatic conflict
happened in the Balkans, especially in Serbia, during the last five
hundred years.
The conflict with Islamic Imperialism was not yet at an end when a
French, and English, and Russian, and German Imperialism were
formulated. We may call it by one name, European Imperialism, although
every species of it is different. What was the Church's attitude towards
the European imperialistic formulae? Did she agree with them? Or did she
oppose and protest as she did against Rome and the Crescent? No, she
neither agreed nor disagreed as a whole, but partially she agreed or
disagreed. Yet the true Church of Christ reserves the world-dominion
only for Christianity in its most spiritual and perfect form and
excludes every other dominion of man over men. The present cataclysm of
Europe may show the world that no earthly king is destined for dominion
over our planet, but Christ, the Heavenly King of souls.
THE INTERNAL CONFLICTS OF THE CHURCH
Dramatic was the external course of Church history, fighting against
exclusive Patriotism and Imperialism, dramatic too, her internal
struggles for a true doctrine and an ethical ideal.
1. The Struggle for a True Doctrine.--The central problem for the living
Church has always been: Who was Jesus? and how to worship Him? The
restless spirit of humanity endeavoured to define the details both in
His relation to God and to the world. The Church did not define her
doctrine in advance, but bit by bit, pragmatically, according to the
questions and doubts raised in the Christian communities. The refused
solutions of a raised question were called heresy, the adopted solution
by the Church was called orthodoxy. No heresy came merely as an abstract
theory, but every one was a dramatic movement, an organisation, a camp,
a deed--and not merely a word. That made the struggle against it more
difficult. Docetism, Nicolaism, Gnosticism, Chiliasm, Manichaism,
Monatism, Monarchism, Monophysitism, Monotheletism, Arianism,
Nestorianism--every one of these terms means both a theory and a drama.
The Church had to correct the opinion of the heretics for herself, and
to fight against them for themselves.
The doctrine of the Church was regarded by the heretics as incorrect or
insufficient, and by outsiders as wicked. Celsus, an Epicurean writer,
despised the Christian doctrine as of "barbarous origin." The people of
Smyrna being aroused against the Christians and their bishop, Polycarp,
cried: "Away with the Atheists!" the heathen misunderstood the Church
doctrine and called the Christians atheists, as Montanus, a Christian
heretic, misunderstood the Church doctrine and regarded Jesus only as
his own Percursor and himself as an incarnation of the Holy Spirit. But
the Church did not care either for the pressure from without or from
within, she went on her way cheerfully, struggling and believing,
showing to the world her saints and martyrs as her argument and Christ
as the guarantee of her ultimate victory.
The Church had also a dramatic struggle with the philosophers. She
rather was inclusive concerning the different opposed systems. John of
Damascus based his theology upon Aristotle, like Thomas Aquinas, and
Gregory of Nyssa based his own upon Plato, as the Scottish School did in
the nineteenth century. Pantheism and Deism were both against the
Church. Pantheism thought God immanent, Deism thought God transcendent.
The Church had already in its creeds the true parts of both of these
systems. She taught that God is by His essence transcendent to this
world, which is His image, but immanent in the world pragmatically, or
dramatically, i.e. visiting this world and acting in this world.
Materialism and spiritualism excluded each other, but both held the
Church in contempt as a "rough philosophy for the people." Yet the
Church included the true parts for both, not by asserting anything about
the atoms but by recognising two different worlds, the world of bodies
and the world of spirits, in a dramatic union in this transitory
Universe.
In the same way the Church cut off the extremities and one-sidedness in
empiricism and supernaturalism, in rationalism and mysticism, in
optimism and pessimism. All these systems represented the human effort
to solve the riddle of our life without taking any notice of the Church
and her wisdom. And all failed to become the universally accepted truth,
but all of them helped the Church unconsciously to her own orientation
and strength. The Church collided with any extreme philosophy. Her
wisdom was broad as life, simple as life on the one hand, and manifold
as life on the other; mystical as the starry night and pragmatic as a
weekday.
2. The Struggle for an Ethical Ideal.--The primitive Church was "of one
heart and of one soul," or, in the words of a very early document, it
was among the Christians: "A life in the flesh but not according to the
flesh" (Epist. ad Diognet.). But the restless human spirit soon dug out
difficult questions and conflicts concerning the ethical life of the
Church members. Of course the Lord Himself was the supreme moral ideal,
but men felt themselves to be too small and too narrow to grasp this
ideal both in its purity and its broadness and inclusiveness. Therefore
we see not only in the primitive Church but throughout Church history
extreme and exclusive propositions to solve the problem. For instance,
asceticism with celibacy and flight from the world was regarded by some
people in the primitive Church as the highest ideal of morality. The
deserts were populated with the ascetics. The same ideal has been
strongly accentuated in Russia even in the nineteenth century. On the
other hand, chastity has been preferred as an ideal by many others.
Another problem was: what were more salvatory, faith or works? Or
another: whether we are saved or condemned by God's predestination or by
our free will (libertarian, arbitrarian, Augustinianism, and
Pelagianism; Jansenism and Ultramontanism)? Or another: in our moral
perfection how much is God's grace operating and how much our human
collaboration? Or another: what part worship plays in our salvation (the
problem known in theology as opus operatum)? Or another: what should be
the normal relation of the Church and State, the Church and social life,
the Church and education, the Church and the manifold needs and
tribulations of mankind?
All these problems, and many others here unmentioned, moved every part
of the Christian Church in the East and West. Your Church history too is
full of a moving and dramatic struggle for light in all these problems,
from the day when the first Roman missionaries brought the new Gospel to
your country up to our days.
The Church, inclusive in wisdom, has had the most dramatic history in
the world. Struggling against Patriotism, she pleaded for humanity; and
struggling against Imperialism, she pleaded for spirituality. And again:
struggling against heretics, she pleaded for unity, and struggling
against worldly philosophers, she pleaded for a sacred and pragmatic
wisdom. She looked sometimes defeated and on her knees before her
enemies, but she rose again and again like the phoenix from its ashes.
In her dramatic struggle through the world and against the world the
internal voice of her Founder comforted and inspired her. The harder
struggles she fought the louder was the comforting and inspiring voice.
The more comfortable she made herself in this world, the less was His
magic voice heard. His life was a scheme of her life: his crucifixion
and resurrection a prophecy of her history to the world's end. Whenever
she became satisfied with herself and with the world around her she was
overshadowed and eclipsed. Whenever she feared struggle and suffering
she became sick, on the dying bed. He then stood, meek and sorrowful, at
her bed and called: Arise, my daughter!
The Church's craving for comfort is indeed her craving for death. Like a
noble knight who descends into a prison to liberate the enchained
slaves, to whom the prison is painful and liberation still more painful,
so is the Church's position in this world. But how regrettable should it
be if the noble knight accommodated himself in the prison among the
slaves and forgot the light from which he had descended and to which he
ought to return! "He is one of ourselves," the slaves will say. So might
say to-day all the worldly institutions about the Christian Church in
this valley of slavery: "She is one of ourselves." She is destined to
quicken the world end, and she is postponing it. One millennium is past,
another is near by, yet the Church does not think of the world end: she
loves this world; that is her curse. The world still exists because of
the Church's hesitation and fear. Were she not hesitating and fearing
she had been dramatically struggling and suffering, and a new heaven and
a new earth should be in sight. Why has the Church stopped being a
drama? Why is she hesitating and fearing? Doubts and comfort have
weakened the Church. The most tragical religion has climbed from
Golgotha to Olympus and is now lying there comfortably, in sunshine and
forgetfulness, while Chronos, appeased, continues to measure the time by
thousands of years, as before.
CHAPTER III
THE AGONY OF THE CHURCH
The present time should be one of self criticism. The European race now
needs this self-criticism more than any other race, and the Christian
Church needs it more than any other religion in the world, for before
this War the European race set itself up as the critic of the defects
and insufficiencies of all other races, and the Christian Church exalted
herself over all other religions "as high as the heaven is exalted over
the earth." The other races and religions thought that behind this proud
criticism of Christian Europe there must be at least a well-possessed
security for the world-peace. Of course it was an illusion. On no
continent was the peace of mankind more endangered than in Europe, the
very metropolis of Christianity and Christian civilisation. And it has
been so not only during the last few years, it has been the case during
the last thousand years, that Europe has represented a greater contrast
to peace than any other continent. During the last thousand years
history can report more wars, more bloodshed, and more criminal unrest
in Christian Europe than in the heathen countries of the Far
East--China, Japan, and India. It is a very humiliating fact, both for
the white race and for its religion, but, nevertheless, it is a fact.
This humiliating fact should rouse us in the present painful times to
the consideration of our own defects and insufficiencies. Europe is
sick, and her Church is sick too. How can a wounded man be healed unless
his wounds are unveiled? Europe's soul is sick, therefore her body is so
sorely suffering and bleeding. Well, Europe's soul is nothing else than
Europe's religion, but the religion of Europe to-day is not Europe's
guide and lord, it is Europe's most obedient servant.
THE CHURCH THE SERVANT OF PATRIOTISM AND IMPERIALISM
Patriotism and Imperialism--qualities more physical than spiritual--were
the worst enemies of the primitive Church, as I tried to show in my
previous chapters. Well, Patriotism and Imperialism have been the most
prominent qualities of modern Europe. Now compare the primitive Church
with the modern Church: the primitive Church fought most tenaciously and
heroically against the exclusive Patriotism of the Jews and against the
Imperialism of the Romans, and the modern Church serves very obediently
modern Patriotism and Imperialism! I wish I were wrong in what I am
stating now, but, alas! the facts are too obvious, both the facts of
this War, and the facts of previous peace.
Here are the facts:
When Austria mobilised against Serbia and declared War, the Church in
Austria did not protest against it, but, on the contrary, she supported
the Vienna Government with all her heart and means.
It is well known how much the Church of Germany, both the Protestant and
the Roman Catholic, unanimously and strongly supported the War policy of
the Kaiser's Government--the very policy of a blind exclusiveness and a
regardless Imperialism.
The Governments of Russia and Great Britain declared War against their
enemies without consulting their respective Churches, yet the Churches
of both countries have done their best to help their "country's cause."
The Churches of France, Italy, Serbia, Rumania, Belgium, and Bulgaria
have been at the disposal of the War Governments of their countries.
Now we have almost the same denominations of religion on each fighting
side (it is, however, significant that the whole Anglican Church and the
Eastern Orthodox Church are on the side of the Allies), so that we
cannot say it is a War of Protestants against Catholics, nor of the
Orthodox against the Modernists, nor of the Episcopalians against the
Presbyterians, nor even of the Christians against Mohamedans (because on
both sides we have Christians and Mohammedans). No, we cannot say that,
for it is not a War of one Church against the other, nor of one religion
against another; it is a War of Patriotism against Patriotism, of
Patriotism against Imperialism, and of Imperialism against Imperialism.
The Churches are only the tools of Patriotism or Imperialism. Not one of
the Churches has stated her standpoint as a different one from the
standpoint of its respective Government. The Churches have simply
adopted the standpoint of the Government. They seemed to have no
standpoint of their own concerning this War between nations. As if the
War were quite a surprisingly new event in history!
When the Austrian Government declared war on Serbia, the Church of
Austria adopted the standpoint of the Austrian Government as the right
one. The Serbian Church adopted the standpoint of the Serbian
Government, of course, as the right one. So it happened that the
Churches in Austria and Serbia prayed to the same God, and against each
other.
The Church of Germany stood up against the Church of Russia because the
German Government stood up against the Russian Government. Neither could
the Church of Germany raise any protest against the warlike German
Government, nor could the Church of Russia say anything to cancel what
the Russian Government had already said. And so it happened that the
Churches of Germany and Russia prayed to the same God for each other's
destruction.
The Churches of France, England, Belgium, and Italy have fully
recognised the justice of the Governments of France, Belgium, and Italy
concerning the War of those countries against other countries, whose
justice on the other hand has been fully recognised by their Churches.
And so it has happened that during the last three years the most
contradictory prayers have been sent to God in Heaven from the "One,
Holy, Catholic Church" on earth.
The Churches of the different countries adopted the standpoint of those
countries which governed them. What is the consequence if a Christian
Church adopts the standpoint of a worldly Government as the true one? It
means practically nothing else but that the said Church recognises that
standpoint as the Christian one.
Now, if the German policy is right, the German Church is right, and
consequently, the Russian Church is wrong; and, on the other hand, if
the Russian policy is right the Russian Church is right, and,
consequently, the German Church is wrong. The same, if the Serbian
Patriotism, which dictates the Serbian policy, is right, then the
Serbian Church, too, is right; and if the Austro-German Imperialism is
right, then the Austro-German Churches are right, and the Church in
Serbia wrong. Of course the same could be said for other belligerent
Churches, i.e., the justice or injustice of the Church of England
depended on the justice or injustice of the English Government, and the
same about the French, Belgian, and Italian Churches, which are
dependent on the justice or injustice of their respective Governments.
The same is true not only of the so-called established Churches, but of
the Disestablished as well. The great fact remains: no Church whatever
did protest against the War action taken by the respective Governments;
no Church whatever refused to do the War work she was asked to do, and,
finally, no Church whatever opposed her views to the views of the
Governments. In one word, no Christian Church now existing has declined
to be the very obedient servant either of Patriotism or Imperialism.
Future generations will be, I hope, more truly Christian than we have
been--they will be shocked to read in the history of the greatest and
bloodiest conflict in the world's history, that the worldly Governments,
and not the Christian Church, formulated the truth; in other words, that
the politicians and soldiers were bearers and formulators of the truth,
and that the Church was only a follower and supporter of that truth,
this truth having to wage War in consequence, i.e. the disobedience of
all God's ten Commandments--not to speak of the New Testament--which
truth must be condemned by the Church as untrue. Following to the
extreme the ideals of Patriotism and Imperialism, the Churches partially
did not shrink even from preaching War as a legal thing. The court
preacher of the Kaiser, preaching in the Domchurch at Berlin after the
Allie's refusal to enter into peace negotiations with Germany, said: "We
have spoken to our enemies (read, the enemies of German Imperialism),
and they did not listen to our words; well, let our guns talk now until
our enemies are compelled to listen to us!" That is the voice of a great
Church. Yet this voice has not remained unaccompanied with similar
warlike and unchristian voices from other great and small Churches.
THE LITTLE ISLANDS AMIDST THE OCEAN
Why did not the Church--the educator of Europe for the space of nineteen
hundred years--why did she not protest against this War?
Because she was too weak everywhere; and, even if she had protested, her
voice would not have been listened to.
But why was the Church so weak as to be silent at a most fatal moment in
history, and to have to listen to the Foreign and War Offices to know
what the truth was?
Because she was not a united, universal Church, like a lofty mountainous
continent despising all the storms of an angry ocean around. She was
weak, because she was cut in pieces and had become like an archipelago
of small islands in a stormy ocean.
The Churches were not prepared to protest, they were prepared only to
surrender to any temporal power. Therefore, they surrendered altogether,
without making any effort, to Patriotism and Imperialism.
But what led to the Churches' surrender? It was through their internal
quarrels; through their fruitless controversies and paralysing mutual
accusations and self-sufficiency.
For instance:
The Eastern Church proudly insisted on her superiority over all other
Churches, because she preserved faithfully and unchangingly the most
ancient traditions of Christianity, and because she had an episcopal
decentralised system of Church administration, which has been capable of
adapting itself to all political and social situations. She reserved
perfection only for herself, and was prodigious in criticising other
Christian communities. She became an isolated island.
The Roman Church has had nothing to do with any other Church, living in
her isolation and raising higher and higher the walls which separated
her from other Churches. She has a wonderful record of missionary work
in Europe and outside; she has a minutely organised centralisation, with
an infallible autocrat at the head; and she has an enlarged dogmatic
system, larger than any other Church. She pointed out again and again
her superiority to all other Christian communities, and claimed for
herself the exclusive right to speak in the name of Jesus Christ. Thus
she became an isolated island.
The Anglican Church repudiated the papal authority. She repudiated as
well the Eastern worship of the saints and use of ikons on the one side,
and on the other she repudiated all the extremes of Protestantism in
teaching, worship and administration. She thought in that way to be the
absolutely true Christian organism, incomparably better than any other
all around. Thus the Anglican Church became an isolated island too.
The Protestants of the Continent, and of England and Scotland, thought
to save the Christian religion in its integrity by bringing it back to
its primitive simplicity. By repudiating the Pope and the Bishops, by
shortening the Christian dogmatic, and by reducing worship to a minimum,
they boasted of restoring the true Church of Christ and His Apostles.
Everything which was an addition to their simplicity was regarded by
them either as unnecessary, or even as idolatrous and false. Thus the
Presbyterian and Protestant Nonconformist Churches became isolated
islands.
But the more the morselling of Christianity went on, the more dangerous
became the raging ocean around it, so that now the Christian Archipelago
seems to be quite covered with the stormy waves. The Church, therefore,
is in an agony everywhere. Even if the Church had no responsibility upon
her shoulders for the present bloodshed in Europe, she would be in
agony, just because the whole Christian world is in agony, but much more
so because a great deal of responsibility for it must rest on her
shoulders.
SELF-CASTIGATION
The Christian monks of old used to castigate themselves when a great
plague came over the world. They used to consider themselves as the real
cause of the plague, and did not accuse anybody else. Well, this extreme
method ought to be used now by the Churches, for the good of mankind and
for their own good. It would be quite enough to bring the dawning of a
new day for Christianity if this self-castigation of the Churches were
only a self-criticism.
If, for instance, the Eastern Church would say: Although I have
preserved faithfully and unchangingly the most ancient traditions of
Christianity, still I have many faults and insufficiencies. I have much
to learn from the Roman Church, how to bring all my sections, all my
national and provincial branches into closer touch; and from Anglicanism
I have to learn the wonderful spirit of piety, expressed not only in old
times, but even in quite modern times through new prayers, new hymns,
new Psalms, added to the old ones; and from Protestantism I have to
learn the courage to look every day to the very heart of religion in its
simplest and most common expressions.
Or, if the Roman Church would use this self-criticism, saying: My
concentration is my strength and my weakness. Perhaps, after all, my
Pope is more a Caesaristic than a Christian Institution, making more for
worldly Imperialism than for the Spirituality of the world. I have to
learn from the Christian East more humility, and from Anglicanism more
respect for human freedom and social democracy, and from Protestantism a
more just appreciation of human efforts and results in science and
civilisation generally.
Or, if the Anglican Church would use self-criticism like this, and say,
I am, of course, an Apostolic Church, but I am not the only Church. I
have to learn from the Eastern Church something, and from the Church of
Rome something, but, above all, I have to learn that they are the
Apostolic Churches as well as I, and that I am, without them, too small
an island, and unable to resist alone the flood of patriotic and
imperialistic tendencies. And from the Protestants I have to learn to
put the living Christ above all doctrinal statements and liturgical
mysteries.