The Agony of the Church (1917)
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Nikolaj Velimirovic >> The Agony of the Church (1917)
Or, if the Protestants of all classes would abandon their contemptuous
attitude towards so-called ecclesiasticism and ritualism, and criticise
themselves, saying: We have had too much confidence in human reason and
human words. Our worship is bare of every thing but the poor human
tongue. We have excluded Nature from our worship, though Nature is
purer, more innocent and worthier to come before the face of God than
men. We have been frightened by candles and incense, and vestments, and
signs, and symbols, and sacraments, but now we see that the mystery of
life and of our religion is too deep to be spoken out clearly in words
only. And we have been frightened by the episcopal administration of the
Church, but now we see that the episcopal system is a golden midway
between the papal and our extremes. Besides, we have gone too far in
our criticism of the Church tradition and of the Holy Scriptures. We
have to learn to abstain from calling the Eastern Church idolatrous and
the Roman Church tyrannical, and the Episcopal Church inconsistent. We
have our own idolatries (our idols are: individualism, human reason, and
the human word); and we have our own tyranny (the tyranny of criticism
and pride); and we have--thank god--our own inconsistencies.
Such a self-criticism would mean really a painful self-castigation,
because it would mean a reaction from a policy of criticism and
self-sufficiency which has lasted a thousand years, ever since the 16th
July 1054--the very fatal date when the Pope's delegates put an
Excommunication Bull on the altar of St Sophia's in Constantinople. The
primitive monks, who practised self-castigation because of the
world-evil, experienced a wonderful purification of soul, a new vision
of God, and an extraordinary sense of unity with all men, living and
dead. Well, that is just what the Church needs at present; a
purification, a new vision of God, and a sense of unity.
A COMMON ILLUSION
The present agony of the Church has resulted from an illusion which has
been common to all the Churches, i.e. that one of the Churches could be
saved without all other Churches. It is, in fact, only the enlarged
Protestant theory of individualism, which found its expression,
especially in Germany, in the famous formula: "Thou, man, and thy God!"
It is an anti-social and anti-Christian formula too, quite opposed to
the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father," which is in the plural and not in the
singular possessive. This prayer is a symbol of our salvation: we can be
saved only in the plural, not in the singular; only collectively, not as
individuals: i.e. we can be saved, but I cannot be saved. I cannot be
saved without thee, and thou canst not be saved without me. For if thou
art in need I can be saved only by helping thee; and vice versa, if I am
in need, thou canst save thyself only by saving me. And we all, and
always, are in need of each other. Peter could not be saved without
Andrew, and John and James, nor could the others be saved without Peter.
That is why Christ brought them all together, and educated them to live
and pray together, and spoke to them in assembly as to one being. If
Christ's method were like the German Protestant method, "Thou, man, and
thy God!" He would really never have gathered the disciples together,
but He would have gone to Andrew and saved Andrew first; and then to
Peter and saved Peter; and then to John and James and the others, and
saved them individually, one by one. That is just what He did
not--because He could not do it. He knew, and He said (speaking of the
two Commandments), that God is only one constituent of our salvation,
and that the other constituent is our neighbours. What does that mean,
but that I cannot be saved without God and my neighbours? And my
neighbours! The whole of mankind must become the mystical body of Christ
before any one of us is saved. If ninety nine of us think we are saved,
still we must wait in the corridor of Heaven until the one lost sheep is
found and brought in; the door of Heaven does not open for one person
only. And speaking in larger circles we may say: If ninety-nine Churches
think they are saved, still they must wait in the corridor of Heaven
until the one retrograde Church has become the member of the mystical
body of Christ. The door of Heaven is open for Christ only and for
nobody else. And the mystical Christ does not mean one righteous man
only, or two, or twelve, or one Church denomination, or one
generation--no. It means milliards and milliards of human beings. All
the Churches are inbuilt into His body. This building is yet far from
being finished, still it is much larger and more magnificent than we
think. It is larger than a denomination, it is loftier than our nation,
or our race, or our Empire; yea, it is stronger than Europe.
Consequently, the Church of England cannot be saved without the Church
of the East, nor the Church of Rome without Protestantism; nor can
England be saved without Serbia, nor Europe without China, nor America
without Africa, nor this generation without the generations past and
those to come. We are all one life, one organism. If one part of this
organism is sick, all other parts should be suffering. Therefore let the
healthy parts of the Church take care of the sick ones. Self-sufficiency
means the postponement of the end of the world and the prolongation of
human sufferings. It is of no use to change Churches and go from one
Church to another seeking salvation: salvation is in every Church as
long as a Church thinks and cares in sisterly love for all other
Churches, looking upon them as parts of the same body, or there is
salvation in no Church so long as a Church thinks and cares only for
herself, contemptuously denying the rights, beauty, truth and merits of
all other Churches. It is a great thing to love one's Church, as it is a
great thing to love one's country, but it is much better to love other
Churches and other countries too. Now, in this time, when the whole
Christian world is in a convulsive struggle one part against the other,
now or never the consciousness of the desire for one Church of Christ on
earth should dawn in our souls, and now or never should the
appreciation, right understanding and love for each part of this one
Church of Christ on earth should dawn in our souls, and now or never
should the appreciation, right understanding and love for each part of
this one Church begin in our hearts.
Stick to your Church: it is a beautiful and a holy Church, but,
nevertheless, break up every sort of disgraceful exclusiveness from
other Churches. That is the way to bring the Church out of the present
agony and weakness. That is the best way for you to serve your own
Church and your own nation. And the Crucified does not ask any other
service from your Church in the present world agony.
CHAPTER IV
THE VICTORY OF THE CHURCH
WHAT IS THE CHURCH?
What is the Church, psychologically viewed?
The Church is:
1. A school of the Christian spirit. That is her first task in the
world.
2. She is the Body of Christ. That is her official and physical
determination--her firm, her name.
3. She is the living Christ Himself, i.e. Christ's body (consisting of
all the human bodies inside the Church organisation), and Christ's
spirit (filling all the human bodies inside the Church). That is her
ideal, her end, her Horeb.
What is the Church, sociologically viewed?
The Church is:
1. A Theocracy. That is her general virtue, which she shares with all
the religions in history.
2. She is a Christocracy. God is the abstract Ruler of Humanity, but
Christ is the pragmatic God, leading, enlightening, encouraging and
inspiring Humanity. That is the Church's special charter, special way,
different from the charters and ways of other religions.
She is a Sanctocracy. The saints ought to lead mankind--not the great
men of the world, but the saints. But when all men become saintly, no
special leaders will be needed: no authority, no state, no law, no
punishment. All men will do their over-duty, and all will be happy in
their neighbour's happiness. The fight for right is an inferior stage in
human history. It is a savage fight. But there will come a fight for
over-duty. It will be a smiling, pleasant fight.
What is the Church, historically viewed?
The Church is:
1. A heresy regarding Judaism and Paganism, a real, deep heresy. Not so
deep was the outward gulf as the inward. Outwardly, this heresy made a
thousand compromises with Judaism and Paganism. That did not matter. But
inwardly it was a new, an absolutely new and most uncompromising spirit
with anything in the world.
2. She was a heresy regarding the whole practical life of mankind:
politics, society, art, war, education, nationalism, imperialism,
science. She meant the most obstinate conflict between what exists and
what ought to exist. Therefore her martyrdom is quite comprehensible.
3. She was built up and applied to human life by the Graeco-Hebrew
spirit. Yet she has become the European religion, par excellence, almost
exclusively European. That is her historical development and fate.
Europe's acceptance of Christianity is nominally definite. No other
Asiatic religion (all great religions are Asiatic) has had any notable
success in Europe. Yet Europe's mission of Christianity has been no
success. St Paul has done more for the Christian mission than the whole
of modern Europe. Historically, Christianity has been and has remained
until now the religion of the European race only.
What is the Church viewed from the point of view of the world war?
The Church is:
1. The only keeper of the secret of the present war. The present war is
the result of the de-christianisation of Europe, and de-christianisation
of Europe's Church. The Church only is conscious of this fact and keeps
silent. She has no courage to accuse because she has no courage to
self-accuse.
2. She is the only thing which makes European civilisation not lower
than the civilisation of Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and China. The ruins of
those ancient civilisations are more magnificent than the actual
constructions of Europe. But the Church gives Europe a special nimbus
and a special excellency over those ancient worlds. Secular Europe does
not know that, but the Church knows it and keeps silent. She cannot
announce it because she has sinned. Her sins keep her tongue-tied.
3. Nothing is sure to survive the present catastrophe of Europe, but the
Christian Church. None of the European potencies has the idea for the
reconstruction of the world, for durable and Godlike world-peace, but
the Church.
Socialism, Masonry, Philanthropy, Rousseauism,--all these are only small
units of the great treasury that the Christian Church hides under her
clouds and dust of errors and miseries. All non-Christian systems and
schemes mean, my own interest first and then thine, or first I and my
nation and my race, and then thou and thy nation and thy race, or, my
happiness and, along with it, thy happiness. The Christian idea hidden
in the Church is a revolutionary one, the most revolutionary idea in the
world. The Christian idea is, thou and thy nation and thy race first,
and then me and my nation and my race; or, thy happiness first and in
thy happiness my happiness. Saintliness above everything, the true
saintliness including goodness and sacrifice. That is the fundamental
idea of the Church. That is the only constructive, Godlike treasury that
Europe still possesses, the sleeping, never used, never tried treasury.
The Church is the keeper of this treasury. This treasury must survive
the old Europe and the old Church, the de-christianised Europe and the
de-christianised Church.
THE POVERTY OF EUROPEAN CIVILISATION
The poverty of European civilisation has been revealed by this war. The
ugly nakedness of Europe has brought to shame all those who used to bow
before Europe's mask. It was a silken shining mask hiding the inner
ugliness and poverty of Europe. The mask was called: culture,
civilisation, progress, modernism. All was only vanitas vanitatum and
povertas povertatum. When the soul fled away, what remained was empty,
ugly and dangerous. When religion plunged into impotence, then:
Science became a mask of pride.
Art--a mask of vanity.
Politics--a mask of selfishness.
Laws--a mask of greediness.
Theology--a mask of scepticism.
Technical knowledge--a poor surrogate for spirituality.
Journalism--a desperate surrogate for literature.
Literature--a sick nostalgy and a nonsense, a dwarf-acrobacy.
Civilisation--a pretext for imperialism.
Fight for right--an atavistic formula of the primitive creeds.
Morals--the most controversial matter.
Individualism--the second name for egoism and egotism.
Christ--a banished beggar looking for a shelter, while in the royal and
pharisaic palaces lived: Machiavelli, the atheist; Napoleon, the
atheist; Marx, the atheist; and Nietsche, the atheist, imperially ruling
Europe's rulers.
The spirit was wrong and everything became wrong. The spirit of any
civilisation is inspired by its religion, but the spirit of modern
Europe was not inspired by Europe's religion at all. A terrific effort
was made in many quarters to liberate Europe from the spirit of her
religion. The effort-makers forgot one thing, i.e. that no civilisation
ever was liberated from religion and still lived. Whenever this
liberation seemed to be fulfilled, the respective civilisation decayed
and died out, leaving behind barbaric materialism in towns and
superstitions in villages. Europe had to live with Christianity, or to
die in barbaric materialism and superstitions without it. The way to
death was chosen. From Continental Europe first the infection came to
the whole white race. It was there that the dangerous formula was
pointed out: "Beyond good and evil." Other parts of the white world
followed slowly, taking first the path between Good and Evil. Good was
changed for Power. Evil was explained away as Biological Necessity. The
Christian religion, which inspired the greatest things that Europe ever
possessed in every point of human activity, was degraded by means of new
watchwords; individualism, liberalism, conservatism, nationalism,
imperialism, secularism, which in essence meant nothing out
de-christianisation of the European society, or, in other words,
emptiness of European civilisation. Europe abandoned the greatest things
she possessed and clung to the lower and lowest ones. The greatest thing
was--Christ.
As you cannot imagine Arabic civilisation in Spain without Islam, or
India's civilisation without Hinduism, or Rome without the Roman
Pantheon, so you cannot imagine Europe's civilisation without Christ.
Yet some people thought that Christ was not so essentially needed for
Europe, and behaved accordingly without Him or against Him. Christ was
Europe's God. When this God was banished (from politics, art, science,
social life, business, education), everybody consequently asked for a
God, and everybody thought himself to be a god, and in truth there it
failed, not on theories in Europe proclaiming, openly or disguisedly,
everyone a god. So the godless Europe became full of gods!
Being de-christianised, Europe still thought to be civilised. In reality
she was a poor valley full of dry bones. The only thing she had to boast
of was her material power. By material power only she impressed and
frightened the unchristian (but not antichristian) countries of Central
and Eastern Asia, and depraved the rustic tribes in Africa and
elsewhere. She went to conquer not by God or for God, but by material
power and for material pleasure. Her spirituality did not astonish any
of the peoples on earth. Her materialism astonished all of them. Her
inner poverty was seen by India, China, Japan, and partly by Russia.
What an amazing poverty! She gained the whole world, and when she looked
inside herself she could not find her soul. Where has fled Europe's
soul? The present war will give the answer. It is not a war to destroy
the world but to show Europe's poverty and to bring back her soul. It
will last--this war--as long as Europe remains soulless, Godless,
Christless. It will stop when Europe gets the vision of her soul, her
only God, her only wealth.
THE CHRISTIANISATION OF THE CHURCH
The Church must first awaken out of her sleep and her European
emptiness, and then Europe will come again to life. The Church has
failed, not because she was not Europeanised, but just because she was
too much Europeanised. Instead of inspiring Europe she was inspired by
Europe, i.e. emptied by the empty Europe. The soul obeyed the body and
became the body itself. All the secular watchwords entered the Church
and the Church watchwords were eclipsed. Liberalism, conservatism,
ceremonialism, right, nationalism, imperialism, law, democracy,
autocracy, republicanism, socialism, scientific criticism, and similar
things have filled the Christian theology, Christian service, Christian
pulpits as the Christian Gospel. In reality the Christian gospel has
been as different from all these worldly ideas and temporal forms as
heaven is different from earth. For all these ideas or forms were
earthly, bodily, dustly--a convulsive attempt to change unhappiness for
happiness through the changing of institutions. The Church ought to have
been indifferent towards them, pointing always her principal idea,
embodied in Christ. And her principal idea meant never a change of
external things, of institutions, but a change of spirit. All the ideas
named were secular precepts to cure the world's evil, the very poor
drugs to heal the sick Europe outside of the Church and without the
Church.
Yet the Church only possessed the true remedy, although she became
forgetful of it, because she herself got sick, and instead of giving the
world the necessary remedy she looked about to take it from the world.
Weakened in her position in the world and forgetful of her external
value, the Church, or some parts or parties of the Church, made even
coquetry with the current and transitory potencies in order to make her
position stronger. Yet the fact stood in history as big as a mountain
that the Church always failed when making concessions of her spirit to
any temporary power, and when not making concessions as to the visible
forms and transitory shapes of human societies.
Neither Ritualism nor Liberalism helps anything without the true
Christian spirit. The modern Ritualism and Liberalism are absolutely
equally worthless from the Christian point of view, being so hostile to
each other as they are, filled with the unclean spirit of hatred,
unforgiveness, despising and even persecuting each other. They are
equally unchristian and even antichristian. Measured by the mildest
measure they are a new edition of the Judaistic Pharisaism and
Sadduceeism. The Ritualists cling to their ritual, the Liberals cling to
their protest against the Ritualists. But the true spirit by which both
of them move and act and write and speak is the unclean spirit of hatred
and despite of each other, the very spirit which excludes them both from
communion with Christ and the saints. The Church has been equally
de-christianised by Ritualists and Liberals, by Conservatives and
Modernists, by bowers and by talkers. The Church must be now
re-christianised amongst all of them and through all of them.
Let the Church be the Church, i.e. the community of the saints. Let the
world know that the Church's mission on earth is not to accumulate
wealth, or to gain political power or knowledge, or to cling to this
institution or to that, but to cleanse mankind from its unclean, evil
spirits, and to fill it with the spirit of saintliness. Let the Church
first change her spirit and then urge the whole of mankind to change
theirs.
Let the Ritualists know that however devout they might be, still they
can call the Protestants their brothers. The most devout have been often
killers of their neighbours and killers of Christ.
Let the learned doctors of Protestantism think that however learned they
might be, still they are foolish and ignorant enough to be
self-satisfied. It is doubtful whether the most elaborate sermon of a
Protestant doctor smells more beautifully than incense. The most learned
theologians in Germany and elsewhere have whole-heartedly supported the
criminal enterprise of the warlike and criminal scientia militans. The
deepest learning and the meanest spirit have often shown in history a
very brotherly alliance. Christianity is not that.
Let the Pope be congratulated for his tenacious keeping of the idea of
Theocracy. But let him consider this idea only as the starting-point in
the social science of the Church. His Theocracy has been refused because
it was not at the same time Christocracy and Sanctocracy. The saints in
Christ are alone infallible. Let the Vatican be filled with saints, and
infallibility then will not need to be preached and ordered but only to
be silently shown. Nobody believes infallibility upon authority, but
everyone will accept it upon Saintliness.
The way of authority is a fallible way.
The way of knowledge is quite as fallible.
But the way of saintliness is infallible.
Every spirit is fallible but the spirit of saintless. The Church is
infallible not by any talisman but by her saintliness. The Bishop of
Rome or of Canterbury will be infallible only if they are saints. The
saints are detached from everything and attached to Christ, so that
Christ incarnates His spirit in them. Not we, but Christ in us, is
infallible.
Let the people of the Eastern Church stick to their Christian ideal of
saintliness. Their interpretation of the Christian spirit may be the
best and truest. Yet the ideal must become flesh. Let them not be proud
of their not having pride, and exclusive because God chose them to
understand the bottomless deepness of the esoteric Christianity. By
pride towards the proud and by exclusiveness they may spoil and darken
their ideals and remain in the dark.
Let all the Churches feel their unity in the ideal spirit of
saintliness. But if that is difficult for them, let them first feel
their unity in sinfulness, in committed sins and crimes, in their
nakedness and poverty. Just to start with, this first step seems
absolutely necessary. Never any great saint became saintly unless he
first thought himself equal in impurity and sinfulness with all other
human beings. The Churches must go the way of the saints. Their way is
the only infallible one.
THE ONLY NECESSARY EXCLUSIVENESS OF THE CHURCH
When you deeply search in history about the causes of the strength of
the primitive Church and of the weakness and decay of the modern Church,
you will come to a very clear and simple conclusion.
1. The primitive Church was inclusive as to its forms, but exclusive as
to its spirit.
2. The modern Church has been exclusive as to its forms, but inclusive
as to its spirit.
The primitive Church was very puritanic concerning the Christian spirit.
She was not particular as to the vessels in which to pour the new wine,
but she was extremely particular as to the wine itself. She borrowed the
vessels in Judaea, Alexandria, Athens, Rome, but she never borrowed wine.
The Christian spirit and the pagan spirit were just like two opposite
poles, like white and black, or day and night. The Church was conscious
of it, and jealously watchful that no drop of any foreign spirit should
be mixed with the precious spirit of the New Gospel. There existed no
thought of compromise, and no idea of inclusiveness whatever regarding
the spirit. The terrific conflict of Christianity and Paganism through
centuries sprang from the irreconcilability of two different spirits.
Were the Church as inclusive as to the spirit as she was to forms,
doctrines, customs and worships, conflicts never would arise--but then
neither would Christianity arise.
The modern Church is particular as to its institutions, but not
particular at all as to its spirit. The Roman Emperors never would
persecute the modern Church, for they would easily recognise their own
spirit included in her. Nor would the Pharaohs from Egypt persecute
modern Christianity. Nor would Areopagus or Akropolis be puzzled so much
had St Paul preached to them the modern European Christianity with its
complicated spirit of all kinds of compromises with Heaven and Hell,
compromise with the State, Plutocracy, Nationalism, Imperialism,
Conquest, War, Diplomacy, Secular Philosophy, Secular Science, Agnostic
Parliaments, Tribal Chauvinism, Education, Officialism, Bureaucracy,
etc., etc. All these things have their own spirit, and every such spirit
is partly or wholly included in the spirit of the Church, i.e. of modern
Christianity. None of the Christian Churches of our time makes an
exception as to this inclusiveness of all kinds of spirits. Even
Protestantism, which claims the simplicity of its Christian ritual and
administration, represents a lamentable mosaic of spirits gathered from
all the pagan corners of secular Europe and mixed up with the Christian
wine in the same barrel.