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The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia represents, to the best of our knowledge, the first time in 2000 years of Orthodox history that a church has identified explicitly by where it isn’t. The Russian term for which “Outside of Russia” stands in is Заграницей (Zagranitsei), “Abroad.” 

The following interview raises a number of important questions ranging from the canonical justification for a non-territorial ecclesiology to the role of a pro-Kremlin ecclesiastical apparatus in the West; a sanitized, hagiographical history of tsarist Russia; ROCOR’s enduring silence despite Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s repeated requests for comment on the presence of white supremacy in some of its parishes and institutions on this continent; the need (or not) of a particular church-state structure for the Orthodox Church to fulfil her mission in the world; the conscription of the Church as an “ideological state apparatus” (see Louis Althusser); Orthodox political theology(ies?) for the 21st century; anti-intellectualism as a marker of piety; and many others.

Orthodoxy in Dialogue welcomes thoughtful responses to the ideas and sentiments expressed below.  

Addendum: Within an hour of our posting this interview a resourceful reader discovered that it was originally published on May 11, 2015 on the anti-Semitic Real Jew News website. One wonders if Archbishop Gabriel was aware of the identity of YouTube personality “Brother Nathanael” and the nature of his agenda. ROCOR condemned Nathanael Kapner’s online activities seventeen years into Archbishop Gabriel’s episcopacy. 

Br Nathanael: Why is the idea of the monarchy important to us who are members of the Russian Orthodox Church?

Abp Gabriel: We cannot forget who we are, either in the Fatherland or abroad.

While the memory of Holy Orthodox Rus and the Russian Tsars was burned out of the people by the Bolsheviks, those in the diaspora never forgot the divinely-appointed monarchy.

Br Nathanael: How so?

Abp Gabriel: The monarchist ideal, the rejection of which led to the February Revolution, then to the October Revolution of 1917, did not fade away in the diaspora.

The number of adherents to the monarchy was small at first, because in pre-revolutionary Russia there were few monarchists in any of the social classes, especially among the educated—or at least those who considered themselves such.

Still, by Divine Providence, many Russians, having lived abroad for a few years, began to abandon the progressive liberalism and other such errors common among the intelligentsia and longed for Russia’s return to the monarchy.

Br Nathanael: You mentioned above that the idea of the sacred monarchy is connected to our self-identity as members of the Russian Orthodox Church. What do you mean by this? Read More

Bioethics as a phenomenon of secular culture

With the onset of post-non-classical science, humankind has reached a horizon of new problems and challenges—threats to the existence of the individual and life on earth. According to the apt comment of the philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952), technogenic civilization has realized the importance of humanitarian values in the face of global danger (Дж. Дьюи, Реконструкция в философии. Проблемы человека, Москва: Республика, 2003: 111-112). Never before had the question of self-harm threatened by an individual’s own achievements arisen so acutely. The dominance of industrialization has caused the pollution of the ecosystem and global warming. Robotization and the development of artificial intelligence has led to the reduction of the value of human labor. The discovery of the possibility of birth control, family planning, and sex-change has led to a devaluation of the family institution. To this issue also belong questions of passive and active euthanasia, eugenics, abortion, artificial insemination, organ transplants, and so on. Bioethics—an interdisciplinary field of knowledge about the way to reduce threats to the existence of life and the disappearance of man as man—has emerged on the basis of such collisions between values.

Bioethics includes a wide range of approaches to resolving its problems that have developed throughout its history. The source of bioethical thought is considered to be the humanistic motives of the American biochemist, Van Rensselaer Potter (1911-2001). With the decline of the era of rationalism prevailing, he attempted to create a “science of survival” for the human species of the future. The main goal of Potter’s project was to create a superethical criterion: “How to use knowledge for the common good” (V. Potter, Global Bioethics. Building on the Leopold Legacy, Michigan State University Press, 1988: 3). In order to put the “new wisdom” into practice, proposals were considered to incorporate technical means into the human body and to modify the environment for optimal life activity. Read More

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Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest…for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

If you struggle with thoughts of taking your own life, reach out to your parish priest or someone else you trust.

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