Cooking the Snake of Secularization

ARCHIMANDRITE CYRIL HOVORUN

The alter ego of the Orthodox churches is symphonic, which means their self-perception has been formed through a close relationship with a state. Most of these churches, which also identify themselves as “Byzantine,” have lived for most of their history in a relationship with the part of the Roman Empire that we now call “Byzantium.” This relationship made them indistinguishable from their political partner. It caused an atrophy of the theological capacity that enables the churches to reflect on themselves in their own terms. For this reason, separation from the state was, and continues to be, painful for the Orthodox churches. It is almost like separating Siamese twins, which affects not only their physical condition, but also their self-perception and identity. Such a separation is one of the original forms of secularization. The Orthodox churches experienced this form long before Modernity—as when, for example, they had lost support of the Christianized state on the territories of the Persian, Arabic, Mongolian, and Turkic empires.

After the excruciating pain of separation from the state, the churches of Byzantine origin, each in its own time, experienced catharsis and understood new things about themselves. Thus, following the collapse of Byzantium in the mid-fifteenth century, the Greek churches rediscovered communities. Hierarchs, after losing support of politicians, now could rely only on parishes. This created a momentum for pulling down the walls between hierarchy, clergy, and laity—several decades before a similar momentum in the West, during the Reformation. After the fall of the Russian empire—the largest modern incarnation of the Byzantine-like symphony-based statehood—the Orthodox Church was pushed to rediscover its ecclesial self. As a result, ecclesiology was born as a self-sufficient discipline. It flourished in the so-called diaspora in the works of Frs. Sergiy Bulgakov, Georges Florovsky, Nikolay Afanasiev, Alexander Schmemann, and others. Even before the Bolshevik revolution, the idea of the church as a self-sufficient value that trumps the value of any political entity or idea, emerged in the works of such theologians as Aleksey Khomyakov and Fr. Pavel Florensky. It is, therefore, possible to claim that modern Orthodox ecclesiology is a child of secularization understood as the emancipation of the ecclesial from the political. Such a secularization created a crack in the symphonic concrete, through which the idea of the church could grow like a flower.

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Separation between church and state became a norm in the period of Modernity. This separation is more radical than the ones practiced in pre-modern times. Most of us, especially in the United States, now perceive the differentiation between politics and religion as something natural. Before Modernity, however, such a differentiation was unthinkable. When a state distanced itself from the Christian church, it was because it was aligning with another religion, such as Zoroastrianism or Islam. In our times, the states tend to distance themselves from any religion. That is how secularization, initially understood as the process of separation between church and state, came to mean the process of desacralization in general. When the idea of society as distinct from the state emerged in the modern era, secularization applied to it as well. This came to mean that not only state institutions, but also civil society, can be desacralized.

The process of secularization as desacralization created a void, especially in relations between the church and society. In the pre-modern times, this void was filled by the church, which embraced both the state and society. In Modernity, the church no longer plays this role. Instead, the void has been filled with what has been called “ideology.” This word comprises two Greek words, whose meanings are very close: “idea” and “logos.” It is akin to saying “the buttery butter.” The clumsiness of this word reflects the peculiar motivation of the French encyclopedists who introduced it to the lexicon of Modernity. Their original motivation was polemically anti-religious. They wanted to replace the religious worldview with a non-religious one. They coined for the latter the word “ideology.” Thus, ideology was originally an anti-religious device constructed to replace religion as a partner for both the state and society. Ideology was promoted in the church’s stead as the main mechanism for securing social cohesion. From now on, ideology and not religion inspired and organized masses.

While anti-religious in its nature, ideology was designed in its appearance to resemble religion. Jean-Jacques Rousseau called it “civil religion.” Like religions, ideologies demand that people believe in them. They are also capable of mobilizing masses and leading them toward goals that are larger than individual interests. These goals are beyond the visible horizon of the present; they are eschatological, i.e., promised for the future. There is, however, a difference between religion and ideology. The former locates the purpose of human life beyond this world, while the latter confines it to this world. The latter feature makes ideology an intrinsically secular phenomenon: although it garnishes its goal as divine-like, this goal has to do nothing with God and humanity’s relationship with the divine. All ideologies, deep down, hold that God and his relationship to humanity are irrelevant. Some of them, such as Marxism or Communism, reject God altogether. Others, such as various forms of nationalism and conservatism, instrumentalize him. This makes any ideology a quasi-religion that is only superficially similar to proper religion.

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Ideology has substituted religion as the main driving force for human masses since the beginning of Modernity. In promoting ideologies, secularists hope they may help solve social problems that humanity experienced in the pre-modern era without fomenting the violence that, so they believe, religion had ignited. This hope has been revealed as false. Never in human history have wars, including religious ones, claimed as many lives as the two twentieth-century “great” wars that were waged under ideological banners. The Second World War was particularly marked by the violent clash of two major ideological programs: one based on excluding “inferior” classes—Marxism, especially in its Leninist-Stalinist interpretations, and the other based on excluding “inferior” nations—Nazism. That war was the highest point of the ideological era, and its ultimate fiasco.

There were hopes after the Second World War that the ideologies had come to their end. Those hopes were vain, as the clash of ideologies continued during the Cold War. It has also continued since the fall of the Soviet Union, in the form of what is usually referred to as “culture war.” This war is particularly acute in the United States, where it is manifest as the clash between “liberals” and “conservatives.” Each group argues that its own program of arranging the matters of this world is better than the other’s. The paradox of this war is that the churches of various traditions often join in the fray. In other words, religion effectively allies with its enemy—ideology. Such alliances sometimes happen with the goal of fighting “secularism.” However, because of the secular nature of ideology, such fighting makes the churches secular, even though they target secularism as their main enemy. Sociologists of religion have described this phenomenon as the self-secularization of the churches. It happens not only to the churches aligning with liberal ideologies, but also those ferociously fighting them.

Does this mean the modern churches, including the Orthodox churches in the United States, have only two options: the so-called “accommodationist” one and the “Benedict” one? It seems this way only if we look at the matter through an ideological lens and allow ourselves to be entrenched on either side of the culture war. But there is a third way, and the Orthodox are equipped particularly well for it. In contrast to some other American denominations, which spearhead ideological programs, the Orthodox have the wisdom of the church Fathers, who can teach us how to avoid false dilemmas.

The early church faced false dilemmas that were not dissimilar from the ones we face now. For example, when the church rapidly expanded in the pagan Roman Empire, it did not know at first how to relate to this empire, together with its philosophies, traditions, and institutions. One possibility was to reject them altogether. This was the way propagated by Christian zealots, such as Titian and Tertullian. Some of them eventually ended up in various sects, and their example suggests that total rejection of the outside world is unhealthy. Another way was to embrace the empire without much discretion. This way was also criticized and eventually rejected. The third way, which was suggested by such church fathers as Basil of Caesarea and Maximus the Confessor, was based on a cautious and eclectic attitude toward the world outside the church. Gregory Palamas compared it to cooking a snake:

In the case of the secular wisdom, you must first kill the serpent, in other words, overcome the pride that arises from this philosophy. How difficult that is! “The arrogance of philosophy has nothing in common with humility,” as the saying goes. Having overcome it, then, you must separate and cast away the head and tail, for these things are evil in the highest degree… As to what lies in between the head and tail, that is, discourses on nature, you must separate out useless ideas by means of the faculties of examination and inspection possessed by the soul, just as pharmacists purify the flesh of serpents with fire and water. Even if you do all this, and make good use of what has been properly set aside, how much trouble and circumspection will be required for the task! Nonetheless, if you put to good use that part of the profane wisdom which has been well excised, no harm can result, for it will naturally have become an instrument for good. But even so, it cannot in the strict sense be called a gift of God and a spiritual thing, for it pertains to the order of nature and is not sent from on high. (Pro hesychastis I 1.21).

In application to our time, this advice may mean that the clashing agendas in the culture wars, underpinned by secular ideologies, should neither be rejected nor accepted in wholesale. Each one features both venomous and edible parts, which should be carefully separated from one another. There is something nutritious in both political conservatism and liberalism, as well as something poisonous. For example, the liberal idea of equality resonates with early Christian egalitarianism. The notion that human beings are created in the image of God and endowed with free will can be also discerned in the tenets of modern liberalism. At the same time, conservative adherence to absolute principles, also known as foundationalism, is not alien to the concept of orthodoxy.

One must have what Fr. Georges Florovsky called a “patristic mindset” to distinguish between the healthy and unhealthy parts of modern ideologies. The polemical fever demonstrated by each side’s support for one or the other ideological program contradicts such a mindset. Such fever is caused by an infection in the church’s body inflicted by ideology. Even in the post-secular era, after such European thinkers as Jürgen Habermas declared truce between ideologies and religion, ideology remains heterogeneous to religion. Their superficial similarity does not make them allies. On the contrary, such similarity should alert the church to be vigilant and not allow ideology to affect the church’s own agenda. In contrast to ideological agendas, which seek to promote particular social programs, the church’s agenda is one of salvation for one and all, regardless of their political or social credos. This does not mean the church’s focus on eternal salvation excludes any social awareness or activity. On the contrary, caring about the human soul is genuine when it translates into the care for humanity in its various social forms.

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In conclusion, it is possible to say that there are “good” and “bad” secularizations. “Good” ones liberate the church while “bad” ones enslave it. Separation of the church from the state is a “good secularization,” which gives the church a chance to empower itself and to be what its Founder intended to be. However, such a liberation is an opportunity, not an automatic process. The church can miss this chance by allying itself with unhealthy forms of secularization, such as ideology.

The early-fourth-century Syrian poet Aphrahat presented the church of Christ as a colored bird:

I have abandoned my house, 

I have abandoned my heritage; 

I have delivered the beloved of my soul 

into the hands of her enemies,

and a colored bird has become my heritage. (Demonstrationes 12).

In the centuries after Aphrahat, this bird lived mostly in cages. Although these cages were often golden, they remained cages. The modern process of secularization freed this bird to fly, but it had to learn how to do so anew. This was not easy, and sometimes the bird, instead of living on its own, would prefer to stay in the safety and comfort of a cage. There are still cages on offer—new ones that have replaced the old. But however comfortable they may be, none of them allow the bird to fly free—as it has been intended by the Lord.

Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun is Professor of Ecclesiology, International Relations and Ecumenism at Sankt Ignatios Theological Academy.