| The wave of attacks followed clashes between the military and Morsi supporters that left more than 800 dead. But what did the Christians have to do with that? Nothing. The leader of the military , like nearly every top government official in Egypt, is a devout Muslim. Yet, in the town of Al Nazla, a local mosque broadcast through its loudspeakers the lie that it was Christians who were attacking the protesters. Hundreds of villagers stormed the local church shouting “Allahu akbar” and “Islam is the solution,” according to local residents . A Brotherhood spokesman dismissed the wave of attacks as being perpetrated by “foolish boys” and alleged a conspiracy against his organization. But the Facebook page of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party is rife with false accusations meant to foment hatred against Copts, including the absurd claim that the Church has declared “war against Islam and Muslims” and justified the attacks by saying: “After all this, people ask why they burn the churches.” Then came a threat: “For every action there is a reaction.” The Muslim Brotherhood has been inciting violence against the Copts in an effort to scapegoat the religious minority for the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi. The FJP Facebook page is filled with the rhetoric the Brotherhood leaders have been using in their speeches at the sit-ins: “The pope of the Church is involved in the removal of the first elected Islamist president. The pope of the Church alleges Islamic Sharia is backwards, stubborn, and reactionary.” It’s true that Pope Tawadros and most Coptic Christians supported Morsi’s removal. But they were a fraction of the larger coalition against him. After all, Christians make up just 10 percent of the population in a country where millions of people turned out to call for the removal of the Egyptian president. In raw numbers, far more Muslims opposed Morsi than Christians. Of the leaders who stood with al-Sisi as he announced the ouster of Morsi, the pope was joined by the grand imam of Al Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, a respected Sunni cleric. |
| Scholars from across the contemporary theological spectrum recognize that, although Father and Son are distinct in this text, they share deity in the same way; 3294 thus some translate: «the Word had the same nature as God,» 3295 or much less ambiguously (though still not quite precisely) «What God was, the Word was.» 3296 That is perhaps the closest English translation by which one may hope to catch John " s nuance: fully deity but not the Father. That many sectors of Judaism had already stretched monotheism to accommodate a divine agent distinct from the Father made John " s apologetic task easier, even if he stretched the divine agent idea farther than most of his contemporaries (occasionally excepting Philo). The Word and Creation (1:3) John " s Logos, like Wisdom/Torah, is God " s agent of creation, a role that may also prefigure his work in the new creation. Before examining parallels between the Johannine Logos and Jewish tradition " s Wisdom/Torah, we must survey some of the various backgrounds that have been proposed for the creative Logos of 1:3. 1. Proposed Greek Parallels Scholars who view John s purpose as antignostic could find plenty of antignosticism in 1:3; in contrast to gnostic beliefs, Christ alone is the mediator of creation in John. In Gnosticism, emanations from the primal Aeon formed the evil material world; 3297 the creator was generally the Demiurge, a power far removed from the original deity. 3298 Were Mandaic literature not so late, one could even read the verse from an anti-Mandaic angle, noting later rabbinic polemic against the idea of Adam as a divine agent in creation, a tenet of later Mandaism. 3299 Yet creation through mediation was hardly limited to gnostic sources; in Greek texts a supreme deity could create other deities to assist in creation. 3300 Further, Jewish circles were familiar with the idea of mediation in creation, which appears in Philo; 3301 polemic against it appears in rabbinic 3302 and other 3303 sources about angelic involvement in creation. Further, John " s language does not imply polemic against such a view as Col 1does; we may observe John " s lack of polemic against a gnostic view of creation, for instance, in that he neither agrees with gnosticism that matter is evil 3304 nor emphasizes the contrary Jewish position of the goodness of creation ( 1Tim 4:4 ), though he certainly accepts the latter position (cf. 1:14). 3305 Still, for John, Jesus is the only mediator of creation, with or without polemic against other claims; Greeks well understood the divine instrumental function of δι with reference to creation. 3306 |
| B. The Manuscripts and the Constitution of the Text D=Mount Athos, ερ Μον Διονυσου, ms 194 (Athon. 3728). 460 Fourteenth century (a.d. 1363), paper, 414 folios, 210x145 mm. Since the Catalogue of Lambros, the order of the folios has been disturbed, perhaps in the course of rebinding: the Λγος διασαφν (Meyendorff #52) which was n° 43 in Lambros now appears at the head of the ms, and the dated colophon together with Psellos» treatise addressed to Michael Doukas (n° 48 in Lambros) have disappeared. 461 The ms contains a non-systematic collection 462 of Palamite and anti-Latin writings. 463 The principal Palamite works in the ms are the following: Palamas, Λγος διασαφν (fols. 1r-12r) Palamas, Reply On Cyril (fols. 13v-16v) Phakrases, Dialogue (fols. 17r-23v) Matthew Blastares, On Divine Grace (fols. 41r-61v) 464 David Dishypatos, Against Barlaam and Akindynos (fols. 61v-93v) 465 Neilos Kabasilas, ντγραμμα Against Nikephoros Gregoras (fols. 95r-95v) 466 7. Palamas, Against Bekkos (fols. 97r-102v) 8. Synodal Tome 1341 (fols. 161r-172r) 9. Palamas, Hagioretic Tome (fols. 172r-177r) Synodal Tome 1351 (fols. 177r-208r) Palamas, Dialogue of an Orthodox and a Barlaamite (fols. 209r-228v) Neophytos Prodromenos, Refutation of Barlaam and Akindynos (fols. 327r-338r) and Against Akindynos (fols. 338r-352v) 467 Z=Mount Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, ms gr. 1671. 468 Fifteenth century, paper, 343 folios, 211x 145 mm. Meyendorff has suggested that the ms originally belonged to the Great Lavra on Mt. Athos. It is an important witness to the text of the Triads. The ms contains the following works of Gregory Palamas. Apodictic Treatises (fols. 1r-118v) Against Bekkos (fols. 119r-129r) Reply On Cyril (fols. 129v-134r) Triads (fols. 136r-327v) Treatise on the Economy (i.e., Hom. 16; fols. 328r-343r) In addition to the two mss D and Z there is a further witness to the text, namely Palamas, Cap. 113–121 (=Pal). Wherever D and Z are in agreement (even if Pal is not) I give this as the text. The one exception is 3.4 τ Pal recte: τ DZ. When the Reply On Cyril was incorporated into the Capita 150 the various sections of the work were rearranged and the text was altered in minor ways, and so many of the variations between DZ and Pal are stylistic and intentional. D is the older of the two mss but it does not always carry the best readings: e.g., |
| The question that preoccupied the wider public opinion all these years was whether religion constituted a key factor in the resurgence of ethnic conflicts. This very question was insistently raised and commented in different ways, particularly after the breaking of the civil war in Yugoslavia, when the belligerents were depicted not so much on the basis of their nationalistic, ideological and geopolitical aspirations, but rather on the basis of their religious affiliation. That is to say, “Serbian Orthodox against Croatian Roman Catholics,” “Bosnian Moslems against Serbian Orthodox,” “Christian Croats and Serbs against Moslems of Bosnia,” “Roman Catholic Croats and Bosnian Moslems against Orthodox Bosno-Serbians”! The same religious character was attributed earlier to the Lebanese civil war, although the root cause of this conflict was not any theological dispute between Shiite Islam and Maronite Christianity, but the misery and the subsequent revolt of the populations of the Beka’a-Valley and of the Palestinian refugee camps, who could not stand any longer the provocative life style of a Lebanese elite, formed both by Christians and Sunni Moslems. And in fact, as Tarek Mitri once remarked, “on both sides of the barricades there were people who never went to the church or to the mosque, who have never read the Qu’ran or the Gospel.” 341 It is worth mentioning also that at the height of the war in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and later during the NATO raids in Serbia and Montenegro following the Kosovo crisis, there were attempts to qualify these events as nothing else but a new crusade of the “catholico-protestant West” against the “Orthodox East.” Some even (for example, the French psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva) invoked the theological controversy of Orthodox and Roman-Catholics over the Filioque in order to explain NATO’s attitude vis-a-vis Serbia, regardless that Clinton and Blair, Chirac and Schroeder, Milosevic, Putin or Simitis, in hearing the term filioque, would ask with astonishment, “What are you talking about?” 342 |
| 6. Thou shalt not kill . The sixth commandment of the Lord God forbids murder, taking the lives of other people, or taking one’s own life (suicide). Life is the greatest gift of God. Therefore, to deprive oneself or someone else of life is a most terrible, grave, and enormous sin. Suicide is the most terrible of all sins committed against the sixth commandment, because in suicide, besides the sin of killing, there is also the grave sin of despair, grumbling against God, and insolent uprising against the Providence of God. Furthermore, suicide precludes the possibility of repentance. A person is guilty of murder even if he kills another person accidentally, without thinking. Such a murder is a grievous sin, because in this case the murderer is guilty due to his carelessness. A person is guilty of murder even when he does not commit the murder himself, but promotes the murder or allows someone else to do it. For example: A judge, condemning the accused to death when his innocence is known. Anyone who does not save a neighbor from death, when he is fully capable of doing it. Anyone who helps another commit murder by his decree, advice, collaboration, or rationalization; or who condones and justifies a death and by that gives opportunity for more killing. Anyone who by hard labor or cruel punishment exhausts victims into a weakened state and thus hastens their death. Anyone who through self-indulgence in various vices curtails one’s own life. Other sins against the sixth commandment are: wishing that someone were dead, not rendering help to the indigent and sick, not living with other people in peace and concord, but on the contrary, maintaining hatred, envy, and malice towards others, instigating quarrels, brawls, and distress among others. Sin against the sixth commandment is doing anything which injures the weak, children in particular. The Gospel of Christ says, Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer (I John 3:15). Besides physical killing, there is yet a more terrible and accountable murder: spiritual killing. Among the sins of spiritual murder is seduction. That is, when one leads astray or seduces his neighbor into unbelief or into a life of vice, and by this renders the soul of his neighbor liable to spiritual death. |
| And though these are far more numerous than the virtues are, yet if those eight principal sins, from which we know that these naturally proceed, are first overcome, all these at once sink down, and are destroyed together with them with a lasting destruction. For from gluttony proceed surfeiting and drunkenness. From fornication filthy conversation, scurrility, buffoonery and foolish talking. From covetousness, lying, deceit, theft, perjury, the desire of filthy lucre, false witness, violence, inhumanity, and greed. From anger, murders, clamour and indignation. From dejection, rancor, cowardice, bitterness, despair. From accidie, laziness, sleepiness, rudeness, restlessness, wandering about, instability both of mind and body, chattering, inquisitiveness. From vainglory, contention, heresies, boasting and confidence in novelties. From pride, contempt, envy, disobedience, blasphemy, murmuring, backbiting. And that all these plagues are stronger than we, we can tell very plainly from the way in which they attack us. For the delight in carnal passions wars more powerfully in our members than does the desire for virtue, which is only gained with the greatest contrition of heart and body. But if you will only gaze with the eyes of the spirit on those countless hosts of our foes, which the Apostle enumerates where he says: For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places, and this which we find of the righteous man in the nineteenth Psalm: A thousand shall fall beside you and ten thousand at your right hand, then you will clearly see that they are far more numerous and more powerful than are we, carnal and earthly creatures as we are, while to them is given a substance which is spiritual and incorporeal. Chapter 17. A question with regard to the comparison of nations with eight faults. But the reason why that nation in which the children of Israel were born, was bidden not to be utterly destroyed but only to have its land forsaken, while it was commanded that these seven nations were to be completely destroyed, is this: because however great may be the ardour of spirit, inspired by which we have entered on the desert of virtues, yet we cannot possibly free ourselves entirely from the neighbourhood of gluttony or from its service and, so to speak, from daily intercourse with it. |
| I’m aware that a rebuttal will note how it’s wrongfully inaccurate to lump a collective negativity on the Croat Catholic and Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches. Not everyone in these churches march to the same tune. How ironically repulsive it is to negatively caricature the Russian and Serb Orthodox churches. The neoliberal leaning New Republic finds common cause with pro-Ustasha and pro-Bandera advocates. Within reason, it’d be considered gratuitous to accentuate Poland’s pre-WW II discriminatory actions against non-Poles, as a basis to suggestively rationalize the ramifications of the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. Likewise, pre-Communist Yugoslavia never came close to the kind of brutal suppression exhibited by the Nazi allied Croat Ustasha. Prior to WW II, Pavelic was involved in political terrorism against the Yugoslav government, as was Bandera against the Polish government. The New Republic piece glosses over these and other particulars, coming in conflict with an anti-Serb and anti-Russian slant. From that New Republic article, this excerpt underscores the last observation: “The story begins in the early twentieth century, when the USSR and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia were established. In both cases, the metropolises of Russia and Serbia-both countries of eastern Orthodox religion that considered themselves alternative, non-Western civilizations-imposed their rule upon the Catholic and much more pro-Western Croatia and Ukraine.” This fault ridden perspective overlooks several realities. As a nation unto itself, Serbia was on the side of the Western powers during WW I, much unlike Croatia’s predicament. WW I saw Croat territory affiliated with Austria-Hungary. During this period, the future non-Serb (half-Croat, half-Slovene) Yugoslav Communist dictator Tito, was a corporal in the Austro-Hungarian army. It’s also true that before WW I and thereafter, the movement for a multiethnic south Slav state had support among Serbs and non-Serbs alike in the Balkans. In WW II, the Ustasha state of Croatia had a privileged standing in Nazi occupied Europe, much unlike Serbia. WW II Serb transgressions never came close to matching the anti-Serb Orthodox brutality of the Croat Ustasha, which included savagery against Jews, Roma and dissenting Croats. |
| At the same time, Metropolitan Jonathan has already been sentenced by the court of first instance to a heavy punishment - imprisonment for five years. " Having conducted a legal examination of the charges brought against these religious leaders, as well as the materials of criminal cases, we have come to the conclusion that those criminal cases and charges are not justified and testify to organised discrimination against the UOC. In essence, the listed criminal cases are an example of a persecution for freedom of speech and for the protection of believers of the UOC, as well as for the expression of religious beliefs based on church canons and doctrine, " stressed the press release. It is noted that at the same time the state authorities refuse to prosecute the persons who publicly called to seize the churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and commit other acts of violence against the believers of this organization, which " is a vivid evidence of double standards of justice and confirms the existence of a political order to deprive the rights of believers of the UOC, which has actually become a victim religious structure in Ukraine " . Touching upon the topic of the session of the court of appeal on the case of Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchyn and Bratslav sentenced to imprisonment scheduled for 22 January 2024, members of the human rights association " The Church against xenophobia and religious discrimination " stated that there is a high risk of a political order for an unfair conviction in this case. " In case this happens, in our opinion, the Ukrainian government will show its complete inability to fulfil its international obligations to respect human rights in the sphere of religion " . The human rights activists also keep in focus the ongoing consideration of the criminal case on charges against Metropolitan Theodosius of Cherkassy and Kanev for allegedly using by him the rhetoric of hostility towards representatives of another religious organizations. " IIt should be taken into account that on October 9, 2023, Metropolitan Theodosius spoke before the UNHRC during the discussions over the report of the UN High Commissioner on Ukraine during the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Council. |
| He urged the Ukrainian authorities to think about the long-term effect of the discriminatory policy towards the Ukrainian Orthodox Church: " And if our state politicians continue to generate such a number of easily provable facts of hatred towards the believers of the UOC (and in fact towards their own people), it will be quite enough to form a mass of international processes against Ukrainian officials-offenders. According to my information these questions have already begun to be discussed, and if the UOC believers will continue to be persecuted in Ukraine, then in the near future there will be formed a large-scale response from individuals and foreign structures defending Orthodoxy at the international level " . In his opinion, among the minimally necessary steps that need to be urgently implemented by the state power of Ukraine is the cessation of discriminatory policy against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; closure of artificially fabricated criminal cases against hierarchs and priests on trumped-up charges, removal of personal sanctions from them; termination of mass illegal re-registrations by state registrars of religious communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the " OCU " based on forged protocols of meetings of outsiders; immediate reactions to any manifestations of violence against believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as well as to public calls for discrimination against them on religious grounds; refusal of the participation of state bodies in the seizure of historical religious structures and monuments of architecture from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. " Summarising all of the above, I would very much like to hope for the remnants of sobriety in the minds and hearts of our statesmen. I would like to believe that at least some of them still retain the ability to be guided in their actions not by immediate political gains and destructive emotions, but by the principles of inviolability of freedoms and human rights, the ideas of strategic state thinking for the good of our society. Stop and listen to the voice of the historical Church of your people - to the voice of the conscience of our people. Before it is finally too late, " Metropolitan Theodosy of Cherkasy and Kanev urged. |
| As he moves ahead, he has to prove that every single step of his is well-founded and absolutely flawless. Actually an outstanding and particularly gifted person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind hardly gets a chance to assert himself; from the very beginning, dozens of traps will be set out for him. Thus mediocrity triumphs with the excuse of restrictions imposed by democracy. It is feasible and easy everywhere to undermine administrative power and, in fact, it has been drastically weakened in all Western countries. The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations. Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people’s right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil. And what shall we say about the dark realm of criminality as such? Legal frames (especially in the United States) are broad enough to encourage not only individual freedom but also certain individual crimes. The culprit can go unpunished or obtain undeserved leniency with the support of thousands of public defenders. When a government starts an earnest fight against terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorists’ civil rights. There are many such cases. Such a tilt of freedom in the direction of evil has come about gradually but it was evidently born primarily out of a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which there is no evil inherent to human nature; the world belongs to mankind and all the defects of life are caused by wrong social systems which must be corrected. |
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