| Nationalism is a form of collective individualism. In times such as ours, when this collective individualism is strong, we, Christians, should weaken it and incite, instead, feelings of humanity, of ecumenicity, of catholicity. What a pity it is that we, the Orthodox, cannot succeed in convoking an ecumenical council. Our Church, permeated by paganism and phyletism, has failed yet to create its own “Lambeth Conference.” 11 Moreover, we will not create such a conference given our fragmentation. We have not even succeeded in convoking a pan-Orthodox synod.’ – Panagiotis Bratsiotis, 1936 12 PEACE I.1.a. Freedom from, or cessation of, war or hostilities; that condition of a nation or community in which it is not at war with another. b. A ratification or treaty of peace between two powers previously at war. Also a temporary cessation of hostilities, a truce. Often defined by or with the name of the place at which it was ratified. 2 . Freedom from civil commotion and disorder; public order and security. 3 .a. Freedom from disturbance or perturbation; quiet, tranquility, undisturbed state. b. In and after Biblical use, in various expressions of well-wishing or salutation. Following Latin pax and Greek eirini ‘peace’ often represents Hebrew Shalom, properly safety, welfare, prosperity. 4 .a. Freedom from quarrels or dissension between individuals; a state of friendliness; concord, amity. 5 . Freedom from mental or spiritual disturbance or conflict arising from passion, sense of guilt, etc.; calmness; peace of mind, soul, or conscience. 15 .a. To make peace: to bring about a state of peace, in various senses: (a) to effect a reconciliation between persons or parties at variance; to conclude peace with a nation at the close of a war; (b) to enter into friendly relations with a person, as by a league of amity, or by submission; (c) to enforce public order; (d) to enforce silence. b. To make one’s, or a person’s, peace: to effect reconciliation for oneself or for someone else; to come, or bring someone, into friendly relations (with another). |
| Practice of the virtues (πρακτικ – praktiki): see Contemplation. Prepossession (πρληφις – prolipsis): see Temptation. Provocation (προσβολ – prosvoli): see Temptation. Reason, mind (δινοια – dianoia): the discursive, conceptualizing and logical faculty in man, the function of which is to draw conclusions or formulate concepts deriving from data provided either by revelation or spiritual knowledge (q.v.) or by senseobservation. The knowledge of the reason is consequently of a lower order than spiritual knowledge (q.v.) and does not imply any direct apprehension or perception of the inner essences or principles (q.v.) of created beings, still less of divine truth itself. Indeed, such apprehension or perception, which is the function of the intellect (q.v.), is beyond the scope of the reason. Rebuttal (αντιλογα – antilogia; ντρρησις – antirrisis): the repulsing of a demon or demonic thought at the moment of provocation (q.v.); or, in a more general sense, the bridling of evil thoughts. Remembrance of God (μνημη Θεον – mnimi Theou): not just calling God to mind, but the state of recollectedness or concentration in which attention is centred on God. As such it is the opposite of the state of self-indulgence and insensitivity. Repentance (μετνοια – metanoia): the Greek signifies primarily a ‘change of mind’ or ‘change of intellect’: not only sorrow, contrition or regret, but more positively and fundamentally the conversion or turning of our whole life towards God. Sensual pleasure (δονη – hidoni): according to the context the Greek term signifies either sensual pleasure (the most frequent meaning) or spiritual pleasure or delight. Sin (αμαρτα – hamartia): the primary meaning of the Greek word is ‘failure’ or, more specifically, ‘failure to hit the mark’ and so a ‘missing of the mark’, a ‘going astray’ or, ultimately, ‘failure to achieve the purpose for which one is created’. It is closely related, therefore, to illusion (q.v.). The translation ‘sin’ should be read with these connotations in mind. |
| 7. Additional Terms. " Additional permissions " are terms that supplement the terms of this License by making exceptions from one or more of its conditions. Additional permissions that are applicable to the entire Program shall be treated as though they were included in this License, to the extent that they are valid under applicable law. If additional permissions apply only to part of the Program, that part may be used separately under those permissions, but the entire Program remains governed by this License without regard to the additional permissions. When you convey a copy of a covered work, you may at your option remove any additional permissions from that copy, or from any part of it. (Additional permissions may be written to require their own removal in certain cases when you modify the work.) You may place additional permissions on material, added by you to a covered work, for which you have or can give appropriate copyright permission. Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, for material you add to a covered work, you may (if authorized by the copyright holders of that material) supplement the terms of this License with terms: a) Disclaiming warranty or limiting liability differently from the terms of sections 15 and 16 of this License; or b) Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it; or c) Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material, or requiring that modified versions of such material be marked in reasonable ways as different from the original version; or d) Limiting the use for publicity purposes of names of licensors or authors of the material; or e) Declining to grant rights under trademark law for use of some trade names, trademarks, or service marks; or f) Requiring indemnification of licensors and authors of that material by anyone who conveys the material (or modified versions of it) with contractual assumptions of liability to the recipient, for any liability that these contractual assumptions directly impose on those licensors and authors. |
| If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code. 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance. 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it. 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients " exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License. 7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. |
| Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the licenses of parties who have received copies or rights from you under this License. If your rights have been terminated and not permanently reinstated, you do not qualify to receive new licenses for the same material under section 10. 9. Acceptance Not Required for Having Copies. You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program. Ancillary propagation of a covered work occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission to receive a copy likewise does not require acceptance. However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so. 10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients. Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this License. An " entity transaction " is a transaction transferring control of an organization, or substantially all assets of one, or subdividing an organization, or merging organizations. If propagation of a covered work results from an entity transaction, each party to that transaction who receives a copy of the work also receives whatever licenses to the work the party " s predecessor in interest had or could give under the previous paragraph, plus a right to possession of the Corresponding Source of the work from the predecessor in interest, if the predecessor has it or can get it with reasonable efforts. You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it. |
| What do these metaphysics have in common with our Eastern Orthodox faith? Not much, on the surface. But in the eastern non-Christian spiritual traditions, knowledge is not primarily about the development or dissemination of metaphysical doctrine or theology. This is one of the problems western Christians have communicating with eastern seekers. Eastern religion is never theoretical or doctrinal. It’s about the struggle for liberation from suffering and death. This “existential” emphasis is the first connection Eastern Orthodoxy has with these traditions, because Orthodoxy is essentially transformative in emphasis. The second thing we agree on with Buddhists and Hindus is the corrupted state of humanity and human consciousness. The goal of the Christian life according to the Church Fathers is to move from the “sub-natural” or “fallen state” in which we find ourselves (subject to death), to the “natural” or the “according to nature state” after the Image (of God), and ultimately to the “supra-natural” or “beyond nature” state, after the Likeness (of God). According to the teaching of the holy fathers the stages of the spiritual life are purification ( metanoia ), illumination ( theoria ) and deification ( theosis ). This paradigm of spiritual formation and transformation is unique to Eastern Orthodox practice within Christendom. While we don’t agree with Buddhists or Hindus on what “illumination” or “deification” is, we agree on the basic diagnosis of the fallen human condition. As I once said to a practicing Tibetan Buddhist: “We agree on the sickness (of the human condition). Where we disagree is on the cure”. Eastern Orthodoxy – especially the hesychasm (contemplative) tradition – teaches that true “spiritual knowledge” presupposes a “purified” and “awakened” nous (Greek) , which is the “Inner ‘I’” of the soul. For Eastern Orthodox the true theologian isn’t one who simply knows doctrine intellectually or academically, but one “who knows God, or the inner essences or principles of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception. ” As a well-known Orthodox theologian explains, “When the nous is illuminated, it means that it is receiving the energy of God which illuminates it… ” This idea resonates with eastern seekers who struggle to experience – through non-Christian ascesis and/or occult methods – spiritual illumination. Most eastern spiritual seekers are not aware that the opportunity for profound spiritual illumination, which our hesychasm tradition calls “theoria” , exists within a Christian context. |
| A product is a consumer product regardless of whether the product has substantial commercial, industrial or non-consumer uses, unless such uses represent the only significant mode of use of the product. " Installation Information " for a User Product means any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source. The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made. If you convey an object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in perpetuity or for a fixed term (regardless of how the transaction is characterized), the Corresponding Source conveyed under this section must be accompanied by the Installation Information. But this requirement does not apply if neither you nor any third party retains the ability to install modified object code on the User Product (for example, the work has been installed in ROM). The requirement to provide Installation Information does not include a requirement to continue to provide support service, warranty, or updates for a work that has been modified or installed by the recipient, or for the User Product in which it has been modified or installed. Access to a network may be denied when the modification itself materially and adversely affects the operation of the network or violates the rules and protocols for communication across the network. Corresponding Source conveyed, and Installation Information provided, in accord with this section must be in a format that is publicly documented (and with an implementation available to the public in source code form), and must require no special password or key for unpacking, reading or copying. |
| Monarchy is an icon of Christ. No other form of government images this: “God has placed a king on earth in the image of His Heavenly single rule, an autocratic king in the image of His almighty power, an autocratic king and a hereditary king in the image of His Kingdom that does not pass away.”—Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow In summary, here are just a few of the reasons, from both a consideration of political theory and practical application, that monarchy is a more moral, stable, and overall better and ontologically higher form of government than any other system. I will not delve into the debate of whether or not absolute or autocratic monarchy is preferable to constitutional monarchy, but I will simply observe that, whether or not a monarchy exists constitutionally within a democratic political framework, its existence is still of great benefit to the broader political society and culture. 1) Monarchy’s intrinsic end or aim is ontologically higher than the intrinsic end or aim of any other type of political authority. The underlying purpose of monarchy is the rendering to God by each monarch of a successful stewardship on behalf of his or her people. Each monarch is only a temporary steward, but he must give an eternal account of his or her stewardship to the King of Kings. This stewardship is best carried out by the monarch’s zealous maintenance of peace and good order, and therefore, the general protection of liberties and freedoms conducive to that peace and order. An elected leader who abuses his or her authority and violates the constitution he or she has sworn to defend understands himself or herself to face only earthly consequences (possible impeachment, criminal conviction, removal from office, enduring unpopularity, etc.). A monarch on the other hand understands himself or herself to be fundamentally accountable to God for how he or she discharges the duties of his or her office. 2) Monarchy is the most natural form of government known to mankind, and the most widely practiced form of political authority throughout human history. The fact that monarchies still exist today after thousands of years and numerous political revolutions is remarkable in and of itself, and all the more so given that most monarchies in the world today are seen as highly legitimate by most of their populations. History is replete with examples of bad monarchs and good monarchs, as well as bad presidents and good ones, yet the presidential and prime ministerial systems of government are, at most, three hundred years old in any part of the world, and in most countries, far more recent introductions. |
| Thus, when we speak of the crisis of culture, we usually imply a dis-integration in one of these two different, if related, systems, or rather in both of them. It may happen that some of the accepted or alleged values are discredited and compromised, i.e. cease to function and no longer appeal to men. Or, again, it happens sometimes that «civilized man» themselves degenerate or even disappear altogether, that cultural habits become unstable, and men lose interest in or concern for these habits, or are simply tired of them. Then an urge for «primitivism» may emerge, if still within the framework of a lingering civilization. A civilization declines when that creative impulse which originally brought it into existence loses its power and spontaneity. Then the question arises, whether «culture» is relevant to the fulfilment of man’s personality, or is no more than an external garb which may be needed on occasions, but which does not organically belong to the essence of human existence. It obviously does not belong to human nature, and we normally clearly distinguish between «nature» and «culture,» implying that «culture» is man’s «artificial» creation which he superimposes on «nature,» although it seems that in fact we do not know human nature apart from culture, from some kind of culture at least. It may be contended that «culture» is not actually «artificial,» that it is rather an extension of human nature, an extension by which human nature achieves its maturity and completion, so that an «under-cultural» existence is in fact a «sub-human» mode of existence. Is it not true that a «civilized» man is more human than a «primitive» or «natural» man? It is precisely at this point that our major difficulty sets in. It may be perfectly true, as I personally believe is the case, that our contemporary culture or civilization is «on trial.» But should Christians, as Christians, be concerned with this cultural crisis at all? If it is true, as we have just admitted, that the collapse or decline of culture is rooted in the loss of faith, in an «apostasy» or «retreat,» should not Christians be concerned, primarily if not exclusively, with the reconstruction of belief or a reconversion of the world, and not with the salvaging of a sinking civilization? If we are really passing in our days an «apocalyptic» test, should we not concentrate all our efforts on Evangelism, on the proclamation of the Gospel to an oblivious generation, on the preaching of penitence and conversion? The main question seems to be, whether the crisis can be resolved if we simply oppose to an outworn and disrupted civilization a new one, or whether, in order to overcome the crisis, we must go beyond civilization, to the very roots of human existence. |
| Such a formula which could hold valid not only for the region of Kosovo and Metohija but, mutatis mutandis, for every other region where there is or could be instigated some similar crisis. In their wishes and activities to help on the way of procuring a solution which brings peace, security, freedom and justice for all nations in Kosovo and Metohija, or somewhere else, the Churches, of course, will decide neither for the official standpoints of the governments of Yugoslavia and Serbia, nor for the standpoints of Albanian parties and organizations in Kosovo and Metohija, nor for the stand- points of the NATO alliance and European Union, but for an approach grounded on ageless and irreplaceable principles of Gospel anthropology and ethics. These principles take their point of departure from each human being as a supreme value: from such a being which is capable of love and worthy to be loved. We must not perceive our neighbor, particularly the one who suffers, either as Jew or Samaritan, or as Turk or Gypsy, or as Christian or Muslim, or as believer or non-believer. We should regard him as our brother or, in a more biblical spirit, as Christ Himself, the First and Greatest amongst ‘merciful Samaritans’: secretly present in every hungry, thirsty, naked, wounded, sick and endangered human being: Him who in his enemy embraces his neighbor, and in the heart of an officer of occupation (as the enemy of his people, foreigner by faith and language) is able to discern such faith which is not found in Israel, in his own people… By being understood in their existential dependency from this anthropological-ethical vision, the international juridical norms (related to human, civic arid national rights, and to the entire international interstate order) gain wider dimensions and more profound meaning. By the same token, there comes a reduced danger of their political instrumentalization or ideological misuse. And that, sadly, is still a common occurrence. I am personally convinced that, in this matter, an all-Christian and all-European consensus (not a political, but an existential, essential consensus) is wholly possible. And that, aided by certain spiritual efforts, we are not far from it. It is, probably, of least importance whether we shall name it as pluralism or open society, or some other term. |
|
|
