Orthodox Christianity & Politics - Hieromonk Gabriel
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- Опубликовано: 5 ноя 2020
- In this episode, Hieromonk Gabriel discusses the relationship between Orthodox Christianity and secular politics.
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This is the third episode from my interview with Orthodox priest monk and blogger, Hieromonk Gabriel of Holy Cross Monastery in Wayne, WV.
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"The world will never encounter Christ if they don't encounter Christ in us." Well put and 100% true.
Lilies
“We should not look for a savior among the princes of men.” Psalm 146:3. Deep !
Thank you for this message. I am not Orthodox but I seem to be getting the best teaching from Orthodox teachers. I am sketching an icon as I listen to this. Please pray for me.
@DreamSideOut I became a baptized, Orthodox Christian almost nine years, ago, and feel amazingly blessed to have found the complete fullness of our Christian faith. I will absolutely pray for you and urge you to keep seeking the Orthodox Church. It is by no accident you found these videos and by no accident I found your comment. May God bless and have mercy on you!
Prayed for you just now.
@@wheeltorobinhomes Thank you for your prayers.
@@Mark-yb1sp Thank you for your prayers.
@@dreamsideout7831 do you mind giving your first name? I will add you to my daily prayers. You may email me at innocent [at] noelgreen [dot] com if you don't want to post your name here.
So...here it is...finally! The premiere function wasn't working, so I just went ahead and published it... thanks so much for your patience!
I was just texting this to my Orthodox friends and family tonight!
"I do not put my trust in princes, in sons of men in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans perish."
And now I'm sending this video to them. 🙏☦️
Thank you for this. Praying for everyone currently despairing from political events. 🙏🏻☦
God bless you brother. A wonderful explanation of the relation of the church, the faithful and the world we live in....We cannot seek the Living among the dead!!!
Good timing. "The Faith ultimately will not stand or fall based on the political order around us." And that sums up this whole video. You know what's interesting? The current political climate in the US has actually helped me INCREASE my prayer. So tell me, which is better for the spiritual life, a time of peace, or a time of persecution? (Rhetorical)
Very good points. Too often us christians argue between ourselves about worldly politics instead of seeking mutual agreement, brotherly love and unity in Christ.
Absolutely! We Christian too often argue between ourselves. Let us look more often to Christ for His counsel for our lives.
Beautifully put by a pious man
Bless Father Gabriel, a kind monk who serves the Holy Cross Hermitage with faithfulness.
Yes, exhibiting the love of God is probably the best way to bring others to Christ.
Especially toward other Christian people. Jesus said they will know we are Christians by our love for one another.
The expensive school of experience is the best teacher.
This was definitely worth waiting for! Thank you!
A timely messages, thank you!
A timeless message and much needed. A message I need to apply to my own spiritual life. Thank you!
I'm glad I found this. This video is answering a question big on my mind after talking with another Orthodox Christian who supports some very worldly policies that stand against things we believe in. There is honesty here, away from both the lie that we should compromise with the modern world, and the other extreme of active resistance and the ends justifying the means. The answer is found in Jesus Christ himself.
Thank you for this video, Hieromonk Gabriel.
Thank you so much dear. We share similar views. It is a time to stand still in our faith and dogma of our church. I am from Ethiopian Orthodox Church, one of the oldest churches
Words of wisdom. Thanks so much!
As a Orthodox Christian convert this is sound Orthodox talk. Too many want a new age messiah left or right & forget Christ as the center of the Christian Faith. Even in our Orthodox Church it happens & its a disease to hope in others to change this world to fit us
Thank you.
Awesome ...
Wow. Thanks for this. I certainly felt this was part of God working in this world through his servants.
Very nice
fantastic
My friend, don't despair: secularism and faith are not necessarily antithetical to one another, and the way in which they resolve themselves to each other may be seen as part of the mysterious workings of God.
Yes they are antithetical. Saying otherwise doesn’t make it so. This vague idea of them actually serving each others purposes in a way that it is conducive to good in the eyes of God is obviously susceptible to all kinds of concomitant compromises and practical horrors. Historically speaking, those compromises are more prevalent in the Church than in the state precisely because the secular means is not answerable to one truth but several. So no, sorry, but trying to form a blend or common ground is never going to leave the Church standing as a beacon of otherness for the benighted to aspire to.
Secularism is the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions, at least in its broadest and most agreed-upon definition. It seeks to affirm a non-coercive environment in which all people are allowed to exercise their faith through free will--it is 'answerable' to no one, neither is anyone under its system. One may prefer a theocracy, but that too is 'susceptible to all kinds of concomitant compromises and practical horrors,' I'm afraid, and if one is caught up in the laws of one, God help you if it is not one friendly to your beliefs. Secularism makes no statement about the true nature of reality and by remaining silent allows for all forms of belief regarding that nature--including the Christian one--with none predominating in force of law. In the end, all it seeks to do is to provide the ground for people of faith to develop it within themselves and in the world. It then remains to the Church and its people to be beacons--as we are meant to be in our faith. This is a rigorous undertaking, and may seem difficult under the present circumstances, but surely it is no more difficult than it was under the Romans. Perhaps the reason for my optimism is the assuredness of the promise within the Orthodox faith that the fulfillment of God's plan will come to pass. It is that consolation, and optimism, I would like to pass on to those concerned about secularism--it, per se, is not antithetical to Christianity, perhaps in particular, because both leave people free to contend with the core issues themselves.
I find it powerfully ironic that you are stirring the pot in the comment section of this particular video.
"To speak the truth in love ..." (@ 11:52+) Amen!
Wow this guy knows the true issue!
Christ is king! America first!
🔥
Thank you very much for this. But, I think we can and should present an ‘argument’ for Orthodox Christianity, because its truth and we have a responsibility to spread the faith. We should all be skilled in polemic apologetics. Our faith stands up to historical, philosophical, moral, spiritual and even scientific scrutiny. However, we are indeed becoming so far removed from the secular mindset and the followers of other faiths, that it can often become nothing other than just argument, which has a danger of being an exercise in pride. As such, the greatest ‘argument’, or mission if you will, is to lead a holy life. To live the Gospel. To struggle to become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. This is our calling. We will and are being hated, persecuted and killed for this, but so be it. Lord, have mercy.
Based.
Ignoring politics is the new meta
In a way father Gabriel speaks about Christians like the Letter to Diognetus does. There always was a dichotomy between the world and the Church, even in more conservative societies, however I believe we ourselves must not be dichotomical, as there is a certain degree of work that Chyrstians can do to affect the world, not just through an isolated good wittness, but from positions of political or civic power (in case of the latter I mean the influence of artists, entrepreneurs, academics or educators, etc). Each of us have God given talants and in His plan some of us are born for one role, while some for another. I am writing this from Romania (where most people still give lip service to Christianity, but it's visibly eroding), while also running for a public office, so you can call me biased, but also more experienced (also in a certain measure in the Church apologetic life, as a laymen); anyway, I have met a whole lot of priests and monks and simple believers who are just temperamentaly biased to be more reclusive and simply view most worldly things, positions and roles as impure somehow and I believe (and witness how) in the end this retreat of Christians from things that seem worldly only causes a vacuum, which is filled with the lowliest people. On the other hand, it remains true that our hypocrisy and lack of love and joy has made people walk away from Christianity and our good deeds are not a convincing enough wittness for our faith. My two cents is that these things (good works as a witness BUT also civic and political involvement of Christians) should go together.
However, there were times when nobles and Kings were living the Faith, in a glorious Byzantine style and even became Saints, but in the same periods you could also have virtual monsters in these roles in not so glorious Byzantine corruption Game of Thrones style affairs (don't discount your founding fathers, which took some insight from Christianity). The final point here is that it matters what kind of people have political and also civic power and that in current times, people of good faith stay away from the Ninive of Politics, only to find themselves in the bellow of the Whale 🐋 and do not understand why this is happening to them and to the world around them, which seems to go to shambles, and this is also in part because - maybe, just maybe - they were afraid to respond to God's calling and go use theirs Talants to do something for the niniveteans from a position that felt uncomfortable for them.
Could you tell me about the politics within the church...not politics outside the church, but inside. Such as voting in and voting out a Preist and so on.
What's going on? Why isn't the video playing? Everyone's waiting.
Not sure why YT was having issues compressing/preparing the video...but...it's live now...thanks for waiting!
When you speak of Christianity vs anti-christianity, do you think this divide maps onto partisan divides in the US or elsewhere? Or is it a separate divide between two mindsets that are present among all parties?
The 2 mindsets are antithetical in the entire world. Faith is not based on earthly geography. It’s refreshing to hear that faith cannot be adequately expressed rationally (l know I tried for years as a junior apologetic.) It wasn’t until a brother of mine shared Orthodoxy with me that l have come back to the historic Church - apophatic theology = speaking of God’s essence as unknowable or ineffable, that we are inadequate to describe God. The West is not so with their systematic theology that puts everything, including God, in neatly wrapped boxes that all stack nicely in the corner. Our quest is to share the gospel of good news, and let the Holy Spirit do the work of converting the soul - salvation = saved, being saved, and will be saved. Or, politics shmolotics, my politic act is to vote for the person who can best serve the people of this world, but knowing no person can do that deed righteously other than my Saviour. For all have sinned... and my job is to live out this Gospel by God’s grace.
@@matthewvanmatre5137 Thank you for writing this, Matt. I was blessed reading it. I needed to read it for today has been a soul searching day for me. Thank you again.
@@matthewvanmatre5137 I wish I had that insight 40 years ago, it would have saved me a lot of grief and pointless pursuits. Thank you for your comment and thank you Brother Gabriel.
What do you think about Orthodox fathers suggesting sinfulness based on politics? I read an article saying the Russian Orthodox patriarch said it is a sin not to get vaccinated.
5:50 There has to be a distinction between kingdom seeking through politics, and theough obedience to the Lords commandments though, right? We can oppose one without forsaking the other, right?
"As the judge of the people is himself, so are his ministers; and what manner of man the leader of the city is, such are all they that dwell therein. An unwise king destroyeth his people; but by the rulers' prudence the city shall be inhabited. The power of the earth is in the hand of the Lord, and in due time he will set over it one that is beneficial." (Sirach 10,2-4)
9:10 I think Jordan Peterson made some good arguments for religion using secular frame works. Got me to be at least interested in Christian ideas.
Thanks for the words Fr. Gabriel. I have a question. Did the Orthodox Church in Russia warn people about Communism and not to vote for them?
What vote ? Power was taken by the bolsheviks through a brutal civil war
@@raduandreinegrila215 Thanks for that info. Did the Church speak out against these bolsheviks publicly?
@@theodore615 Yes, and they were either executed or put in the gulag as many as did not escape abroad, reaching a death toll of over 66 million. Please research St Tikhon and the creation of the OCA and of ROCOR. Many consider St Tikhon to have been martyred by poisoning by the Soviets...
@@MikhalisBramouell Thanks, I was wondering why the Orthoxdox Churches in USA are silent about the Globalists' trying to take over our country. They are using Marxist tactics in the Media and schools, election fraud, and the list goes on, and they have infiltrated the Democratic Party. 30% of the Democratic party has direct ties to the Communist Party of America. See the Epoch Times for verification of that 30% Our Churches need to be brave and speak out.
In Russia the Bolsheviks would walk into the churches and shoot the priests as they stood at the altar. God have mercy on us, that it will never come to that here.
Now that Eastern Orthodox Christianity is part of the United States 🇺🇸. My question is this, should the Eastern Orthodox Christians in America get involved with American politics such as voting or running for political office? Well I have a friend of mine who’s a devout Greek Orthodox Christian and a representative of former president Donald J Trump. However, I remember when I was at a Greek Orthodox Church and during the homily that the priest gave out said that the faithful should just focus on staying committed to Christ and nothing else. Don’t get involved with American politics.
It’s pretty clear to me that political abstemiousness is Christian observance. And quite honestly, if you take that understanding to its logical ending then you collide with the epiphany that any idea of the state and Christianity joining forces in a protracted salvific sense is extremely delusional, counterproductive and sad.
If that is true then it stands to reason that the attitude most conducive to otherness (“come out from among them and stand apart, and touch no unclean thing”) is a sort of sublunary anarchism (as distinct from cosmic or eternal or categorical ideas of anarchy as the refusal of all conceivable hierarchy).
In the practical sense the Orthodox Church is fundamentally anarchic anyway. Realistic anarchism is the rejection of compulsion based systems. Hierarchy is congruent so long as it is entered into volitionally and can be rejected at a later date according to our free will. Being that we reject hyper-Calvinism entirely, no one forces you to become Orthodox. No one forces you to be baptized, etc, into the Church. No one threatens you with violence for squandering the faith once handed down in favor of your damnation by leaving it. So it is purely voluntary order which is all anarchism purports to be.
The word anarchy scares the dickens out of the Orthodox but I have no idea why. Anomie is the rejection of order whereas anarchy is the rejection of coercively wrought notions of order because these actually produce disorder (e.g. endless wars, economic cataclysm, social enmity and bellicosity, moral relativity, all of which are present in the state lead order prevailing today). Hierarchy is not the enemy of anarchy if it comes about through a voluntary process of deliberation. As stated here, 99% of the time the state has been the scourge of our faith even as it masqueraded about as its valiant champion.
Is it really so outlandish to suggest that holiness and eschewing the political/coercive means which the state thrives upon are fundamentally interrelated?
Obviously ours is an anarchy quite distinct from that of the 19th and 20th century radicals, most of whom saw religion and God as a hurdle. Nevertheless the same basic goal is implied insofar as we see the state in the light of history as an engine of repression, heresy, murder, degeneracy and expropriation.
In any case, politics is a secular deviation from Christian means. Christ certainly took no part in trying to roll back recriminations by coercion or harness the powers of the state on behalf of the gospels.
St. Maximus articulated the reason for this some centuries hence:
“Truly he is wise who, having forsaken what is corruptible, comes to belong wholly to what is incorruptible.”
What is more corruptible than this current apparat called politics?
But of course persuasion, admonition and resonance is incorruptibly sound insofar as it moves us to self denial without intimidation.
Today the state has predictably created a rift throughout our Church regarding health measures (back of which is the threat of violence) and compromised the faith of numerous bishops by way of the scientism it steadily promotes as the picture of sagacity and benevolence.
May the state and the faith be utterly divided.
Enjoyable read, Maximus! I genuinely think there is a lot of good food for thought here (e.g. you understand anarchism well). I'd encourage everyone here to read it. I view the state, politics, and science more favorably, but the concerns you point to are legitimate.
This is not Orthodox.
The Orthodox Church doesn't believe in "separation of the Church & state". We believe there's a distinction, but a distinction doesn't entail separation. We believe in symphonia. The state should be based on the faith, not vice versa, lest, you get modern Protestantism.
Modern Protestantism, where the faith is based on the state, this state being secular, & essentially nihilist.
Stop bringing previous baggage to the faith.
@@kieran296 Excessive “previous baggage” is the fruit the Orthodox Church in the west is beginning to reap through the harvesting of meme theology that is continually planted by a legion of self-important and completely deluded lay “RUclips staretz ” who proselytize socially and religiously disaffected people who are schizophrenically searching for truth via RUclips and the internet.
There is nothing new that the Church hasn’t seen before. What is shocking to me isn’t what those without Christ do, but the lack of love for all from within our own Church even for each other.
I have been called a demon, told I’m going to hell because I’m a pro-life Democrat. I choose to stand in a place with others like me to create change, and so far 37% of the party are pro-life.
I am compelled to love as Christ has commanded us to love without judgment.
This is hard, but we are told not to judge or we will be judged.
You should be rebuked. You're lost. You're chasing after the vain philosophies of men. Come back to Christ. Amen.
"Cannot present Orthodoxy or Christianity in any way that is going to be palatable to a secular society."
"Far Left" .... I would also add that the "Far Right" needs to leave us alone as well.
Jesus said to Judas "Open your heart Judas, open your eyes and your heart"...secular arguments will never be won. Its only by your heart that you win. If you sincerely Love Jesus with your heart and not just your mind. The 1st commandment. "Love one another" Many people, including Christians don't understand this. "Love one another as I have accepted you".
How can there be No Synthesis between Orthodoxy and Catholicism? There is only One God.
The Gospel that cannot rise beyond the wiles of this world is no Gospel at all.
King David ruled as an absolute Theocractic Monarchy with full Autocracy and he's a Saint. So if his Government was righteous then why can't we try to do that?
The answer is to build our own city state like Vatican City 🇻🇦 That is the only way and we will just have to have Washington Recognize us as an autonomous people and state