{"id":300,"date":"2017-10-28T22:34:27","date_gmt":"2017-10-28T19:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/?p=300"},"modified":"2018-02-21T11:59:17","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T08:59:17","slug":"the-fall-of-byzantium-iii-the-future-of-byzantium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/300\/the-fall-of-byzantium-iii-the-future-of-byzantium\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fall of Byzantium, III – The Future of Byzantium"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first post<\/a> of this series we saw the Byzantine identity as is described in a new Russian documentary. In the second post<\/a> there was explained the reason of a fall that was described as political, with Byzantium as a culture remaining alive, in the secularization of the Orthodox peoples suffering its final, spiritual, fall.<\/p>\n

A question was left open, which nation bears the greatest responsibility for the current spiritual\u00a0fall of Byzantium, which means also, which nation has the greatest responsibility to help avoiding the spiritual decline of Orthodoxy. I will be clear from the start and say that this nation is (and cannot be but) Russia.<\/p>\n

Already after the political fall of Byzantium, Russia started to develop the theory of the \u201cthird Rome\u201d seeing itself as the successor of Constantinople. This was a mistake, a misconception of the whole history of the Christian world, and it was followed by more mistakes, most important among them being the servile indiscriminate westernization of Russia and the inhuman government of the czars, that led to the famous Russian nihilism and the recent establishment of the soviet communism, of one of the most cruel totalitarian and anti-spiritual regimes in history.<\/p>\n

A third Rome immediately implies the possibility of a fourth Rome, a fifth, etc. Constantinople<\/a> was never named second, but New<\/strong> Rome. Even today the Patriarch signs as \u201cArchbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch\u201d. Moscow could see anywhere that Constantinople is named \u201cNew Rome\u201d, and yet the third Rome narrative was not avoided.<\/p>\n

This deviation is important, because in numerical succession the nature of Constantinople vanishes. New Rome is not a successor (as a \u201csecond\u201d would be) but a new self of the old Rome, i.e. Rome itself having now a new orientation, a new will and character, exactly as it happens when a person is baptized.<\/p>\n

The first problem is that Moscow wanted to be differentiated from Constantinople, which was conquered but not vaporized. On the contrary, Constantinople was still the place of the Patriarch, spiritual leader of all the enslaved nations according to the role Mohammed recognized and assigned to the Patriarch. Moscow could not be named or see herself as the \u201cNew Rome\u201d. Thus Moscow found a resort in the numerical way, and invented the \u201cthird\u201d Rome theory.<\/p>\n

The other problem is a most serious mistake, and is based on the previous. For a new Rome to exist, an old one is needed. That means, the new Rome can exist only if the old Rome decides so<\/strong>. Constantinople was not a city that decided one day to be called “New Rome”. Constantinople was born in the decision of the Roman empire to transfer the capital in the East and embrace the Christian faith.<\/p>\n

Instead of watching and understanding the historical motions, Moscow hurried to exploit the fall of Constantinople in order to promote her own strength. Moscow wanted the glory of Byzantium without the nature of Byzantium<\/em>, and it ended by founding the first openly, persistently and violently atheist regime in Europe. Even western Europeans, tormented by Papacy for centuries, did not end to such an achievement! Russia\u2019s disdain of history and will to self-power explain why she failed to support the enslaved Orthodox nations, at a time when all of them had their hope in God and in Russia! She could be their comfort and their leader, if she wasn\u2019t attracted only by a narrow and sad image of herself.<\/p>\n

A spiritual reality is alive and present even if only one person lives in it. For Byzantium to emerge again as a political entity this is not sufficient. We can have many saints, and no Byzantium. Of course, the task of any Orthodox state which doesn\u2019t exist in the world as a stranger, would be to support social cohesion in faith. Faith wants also freedom, thinking, justice…, and all of these can be supported by a state. Yet for Byzantium to emerge again as a political entity these are not enough. They can support the spiritual life of Byzantium, but not the political.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0was said above, the New Rome can not exist, unless the old Rome is baptized. This means that only the\u00a0European Union can become Byzantium<\/strong>. Helmut Schmidt once said that \u201cByzantium and Novgorod, Krakow and Prague have also contributed to our old common civilization. And our concept of Europe will one day have to once again encompass the whole intellectual and artistic life of our Eastern European neighbors if we do not wish to become impoverished\u201d (see H. Schmidt, Byzantium and the East Is Part of Europe and It Should Be<\/a>).<\/p>\n

If modern Europe realizes that all of the Eastern Europe, Russia included, should belong to a single union, and if, as happened in the fourth century with Constantine, the spiritual strength of this union, the source of its social cohesion, is understood to be in Orthodoxy, then the capital will be transferred to Moscow one way or another, provided that in the meantime Moscow will not have lost but on the contrary developed an Orthodox Ecumenical spirit.<\/p>\n

Russia is the main responsible for our common Byzantine heritage, since Russia is the most powerful by far Orthodox nation, and Russia can be not a ‘third’, but the very New Rome, if the old Rome decides so<\/strong>, no matter if Rome is called now Brussels or otherwise. Until that blessed day comes (if at all), and in order to give that day a chance to happen, Russia has the task of cooperating with the only existing New Rome, the reminder of\u00a0Rome’s older decision, that is with\u00a0Constantinople, in order to promote the Orthodox spirit in the life of the nations. At one time or another bishops as politicians can be incompetent. Awareness of the way is enough, and human frailties won\u2019t hinder, no matter how many obstacles may create.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the first post of this series we saw the Byzantine identity as is described in a new Russian documentary. In the second post there was explained the reason of a fall that was described as political, with Byzantium as a culture remaining alive, in the secularization of the Orthodox peoples suffering its final, spiritual, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_disable_autopaging":false},"categories":[5,9,13,10,6],"tags":[118,557,89,555,167,558,350,556,553,152,288,554],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-europe","category-greek-history","category-orthodox-christianity","category-politics","tag-byzantium","tag-constantine","tag-constantinople","tag-czars","tag-european-union","tag-helmut-schmidt","tag-new-rome","tag-nihilism","tag-old-rome","tag-russia","tag-secularization","tag-soviet-communism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}