C. S. Lewis once said of the pagans that they were ‘pre-Christians’ (http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/biblesnarrative/the_temple_as_myth); that is, peoples who had been made ready to receive the Gospel.
What may one say, then, of Southerners, with their unique mix of evangelical Protestant Christianity, pre-modern tilth-mindedness (agrarianism), hierarchy, love of classical Greek and Roman literature, etc.?
For there are many points of agreement between Orthodox teaching and the Southern way of life. He needs only to step into the Holy Orthodox Church to experience the fulness of what he has known but in part (and he has done well to know that much in this age of confusion).
Below we will see two other ensamples of their agreeing, with respect to the view of the natural world as being full of God’s presence and with respect to the need to purify one’s passions before he may see this presence of God in His creation.
7. Those who 'cleave to the Spirit' (Gal. 5:25) and are totally committed to the spiritual life live in accordance with God's will, dedicated to Him as were the Nazirites (cf. Num. 6:2-8; Judg. 13:5). At all times they labor to purify their soul and to keep the Lord's commandments, expending their blood in their love for Him. They purify the flesh through fasts and vigils; they refine the heart's dross with tears; they mortify their materialistic tendencies through ascetic hardship; they fill the intellect with light through prayer and meditation, making it translucid; and by renouncing their own wills they sunder themselves from passionate attachment to the body and adhere solely to the Spirit. As a result everyone recognizes them as spiritual, and rightly refers to them as such. As they approach the state of dispassion and love, they ascend to the contemplation of the inner essences of created things; and from this they acquire the knowledge of created being that is bestowed by the hidden wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor. 2:7) and given only to those who have risen above the body's low estate. Thus it is that when they have passed beyond all sensory experience of this world and have entered with an illumined mind into the realms that are above senseperception, their intelligence is enlightened and they utter righteous words from a pure heart in the midst of the Church of God and the great congregation of the faithful (cf. Ps. 40 : 9-10). For other people they are salt and light, as the Lord says of them: 'You are the light of the world and the salt of (he earth' (cf. Matt. 5:13-14).
87. 'Open my eyes and I will perceive the wonders of Thy law' (Ps. 119:18). So he who is still bedarkened by his earth-bound will cries out to God. For the ignorance of the worldly mind, all murk and obscurity, blots out the soul's vision, so that it cannot grasp things either divine or human; it cannot perceive the rays of divine light or enjoy the blessings that 'the eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard, and man's heart has not grasped' (1 Cor. 2:9). But when through repentance its vision has been restored, it sees these things clearly, hears them with understanding and intuits them intellectually. Not only this, but it also assimilates more exalted things which, prompted by these intellections, arise in its heart; and, having tasted their sweetness, its knowledge grows more lurid. It can then, in the light of God's wisdom, explain to all the nature of the divine blessings 'that God has prepared for those who love Him' (1 Cor. 2:9); and it exhorts all to follow the path of struggle and tears in order to share in them.
Measure its vast bulk on the greensward lone.
Called on his slaves, and bade them prop the tree.
When vesper winds are fluting solemnly.
Hath warmed my veins like Hebe's heavenly wine.
That wept its soul out on my bosom fair.
Of Cupids fluttering through the oak-boughs hoar.
All this I owe thee, Glaucus,--all, and more!
Ask what thou wilt!--thou shalt not ask in vain!"
"O fairest vision! be my love,--my bride!"
Stirred the dim silence in its trancèd hush.
Like alone cloudlet o'er a lake that's fair.
Shall bid thee come to that pure tryst of ours."
Who now so proud is Glaucus? "I have won,"
Of all its rare, ethereal ravishment.
Struck at the wingèd torment testily.
Back to its home amid the foliaged bloom.
Of new sestertii. "Ay! 'tis e'er the same,"
He muttered; "dice or women, I must win!
What dost thou here? Thine hour has past for aye!"
Flashed through the half-closed lids of weary Day.
Searched the dense thickets, it was all in vain.
Hath come between me and thy darkening eyes.
Thy spirit backward into heaviness.
Art thou henceforth in heart, and hope, and mind!
Faint almost in the splendor large and clear?
Luring me up to Immortality.
Whisper the secrets of their happier sphere!
Worthy the gift! Alas! thou art not he!"
The voice died off toward the waning sun!
Seemed to close o'er him like a vault of stone.
"Just Gods!" he sighed, "I am indeed alone!"
Source: ‘The Story of Glaucus the Thessalian’, Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne: Electronic Edition, http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/hayne/hayne.html, 1999, accessed 23 Feb. 2016, pgs. 139-42. © This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.
Bringing Christianity to Africans, that is. For this had become quite a large part of Southern slavery by the time of the War (if ‘slavery’ is even the right word for it; Henry Hughes’s ‘warrenteeism’, or perhaps ‘paternalism’, might be better words, for Southern slavery differed greatly from the crushing, grinding slavery of the ancient heathen empires and of the modern sweatshops in places like Vietnam).
Þrough (Through) our prayers, almsgiving, and other actions, let us in Dixie and any other good-hearted folks help the Fraternity in Malawi and everywhere else they are active, as best we can.
Something more is going on with written constitutions in the [u]nited States and elsewhere in the West than simply a means to a better behaved government. Wheðer the public recognizes it or not, they and the political systems that grow out of them have become vehicles for the alchemical refining of mankind, a process for mankind to achieve Godlikeness without God, to become what He is by nature or Essence and not by participation in His Grace, His outgoing Energies.
The European Union is being quite open about this in the symbols shown on their flag and coins.
To mark the 30th anniversary of the decision by EU leaders to adopt the flag as an EU emblem, the 19 euro area countries are issuing a special commemorative coin. . . . It [the design of the coin--W.G.] comprises 12 stars that morph into human figures embracing the birth of a new Europe.
The symbol of the circle and its connection to rebirth is a well-known part of occult/alchemical lore. Its proper name is the ouroboros.
The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which [...] unquestionably stems from man's unconscious.
Whether in the E.U. or the [u]nited States or any other Western nation, then, it should be quite clear what is happening. The written constitutions pit opposing forces against one another: liberal and conservative, left and right, Republican and Democrat, Tory and Labour, rich and poor, man and woman, black and white, legislature and executive, elected and unelected officials, outsiders and incumbents, etc. ad infinitum. And from this ‘clash of opposites’ mankind in these lands is refined to prima materia: that is, it becomes more and more Godlike without the help of Christ the God-man and His Church, the fulfilment of the Devil’s promise made to Adam and Eve in the Garden.
One need only look at something like the Preamble of the [u]nited States Constitution to confirm this. For what is it but a statement that ‘the people’ will make themselves virtuous through the structures set up in their charter, and not through fellow-working with God the Holy Ghost?
Beware, Southron. Beware, Westerner, wherever you are. Understand what elections and constitutional government really mean for you. Distance yourself from them as seems prudent, and think of how we may return to a Christian way of conducting politics.
While many across the American Empire (and too many Southerners, we fear) were debauching themselves for the sake of a football game last Sunday, a very different celebration was being observed in Russia: the commemoration of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia who suffered under the Communist yoke.
When we in the West can bring ourselves to stop vilifying the Russians and begin learning from them and imitating their ensample; when we can join them in celebrating the holiness and bravery and the other virtues of their wonderful martyrs and precious confessors; when we can celebrate in a fitting way the martyrs and confessors of our own forebears of Orthodox Western Europe and Africa before schism and heresy set in; when holy men like Archimandrite John Krestiankin of Russia or St Eugenius of Carthage and Albi are more honored than Peyton Manning and Cam Newton, then things will begin to go better for us.
The Divine meaning of suffering can be understood only through the help of grace. For this, the Lord consoles His sorrowful disciples and all of us, sending us “the Comforter… even the Spirit of truth” Who “will guide you into all truth” (John 15:26, 16:13).
The Holy New Martyrs of Russian are close to us in time and in spirit, the spirit in which we were raised, which we have assimilated to the best of our abilities. Today, the iconostasis of our church contains relics of the Holy Martyrs Elizabeth and Barbara, who are particularly close to us. Holy Grand Duchess Elizabeth was a princess of Darmstadt, who left her homeland and found a new one, both spiritual and physical. In the terrible years of persecution, her cell-attendant, the Russian novice Barbara, joined her, and they proceeded towards martyrdom together.
What sort of disciples would we then be, if we did not follow the footsteps of our Teacher? The Lord forewarned us that we should not be tempted if we are to suffer for Him. And we suffer, every one of us, in our own measure, it was not only the New Martyrs, to whom our church is dedicated, and the martyrs of all times, who suffered, but even we, for only then are we truly Christians.
On February 5, 2006, the elder known throughout Russia, Archimandrite John (Krestiankin), reposed in the Lord. That day in 2006 also happened to be the eve of the celebration of the Holy New Martyrs of Russia, and many saw the blessed elder’s repose as the culmination of an era of confessors for the Orthodox Faith in the much-suffering Russian land. Father John had been imprisoned and tortured for his steadfast confession of the faith, and even after his release lived a life under constant watch by the Soviet authorities. It was not a simple time, and great wisdom and spirituality were required to guide his spiritual children through this life. Fr. John goes down in people’s memory as having those gifts in abundance.
The following is from the recollection of one of his spiritual sons, Igumen Savvaty (Rudakov). Fr. Savvaty is also the builder and father confessor of a monastery for women, which was established with Fr. John’s blessing.
Fr. Savvaty was raised in a pious Orthodox family, and answered the call to become a priest. But his heart’s desire was to find a spiritual father, even though everyone would say that there are no elders like the ancients, who could lead a person through life. Fr. Savvaty prayed and hoped, and finally God led him to Fr. John in the Pskov Caves Monastery.
Writer Olga Rozhneva talks with Fr. Savvaty about his beloved spiritual father, Archimandrite John (Krestiankin).
The priest’s whole life turned around after meeting the elder. Fr. Savvatty came up to him and felt that he had no words, nothing to ask. He wanted just to stand next to him and feel the love radiating from this man. It was like a heavenly force coming from his soul. Fr. John poured out this heavenly love over everyone around him, and at first he couldn’t understand: How could Fr. John love everyone? Here is an evil man, there is a man with impure hands, while yet another is ashamed of himself for all the sins upon his soul. But the elder loved them all like a mother loves her sick children. This was Christ-like love.
The elder appointed a time to meet with Fr. Savatty. The young priest prepared himself a long time for this meeting. He prepared himself to ask important—in his opinion—and complicated questions. But when the discussion began he felt he was a spiritual infant. Fr. John did not answer the questions Fr. Savvatty asked, as if he didn’t even hear them. He began with simple words, but these simple words were somehow extraordinary. A spiritual depth revealed itself with each word, and one could think and ponder over each one.
“But if Fr. John would see a deeply rooted vice or a destructive passion he would as if perform a spiritual operation—and pray for that person. You would return home feeling a slight pain—the elder was healing you, and opened a spiritual wound. So the incision hurts as it’s healing. He cauterized your spiritual ailment, but he did it so subtly and gently that you didn’t notice how the operation even took place.
“When I returned home from seeing the elder I felt I was a lucky man. I had found a spiritual father. And I was happy simply because he exists in the world. I felt his love and prayers from a distance, because he received me as one of his spiritual children and immediately began praying. He knew and remembered thousands of people by name.
“Fr. John was a window into the Kingdom of Heaven. I saw the Lord through him, because he reflected God in himself. Our soul is Adam, who has lost God. And it searches for Him and will not settle for anything else. Not power, nor riches, nor any kind of earthly delights can quench this longing for God or give peace to the soul. This was when I understood what the apostles must have felt when they were near to Christ! Or how they could exclaim only, “It is good for us to be here!” There were no other words, only happiness.
Most by now have heard Donald Trump’s campaign slogan (‘Make America Great Again’), but what would this mean if it were really accomplished? Would it be a good thing? For 'America' (by which people usually mean simply the culture of New England-Yankeedom that has come to dominate in so many regions of the [u]nited States) has truly been great at only a few things: stirring up a lust for money and material things, starting unnecessary wars, and spawning heresies (from Unitarianism to Scientology).
No, if the South or any other State or region in thrall to the American Empire wants to be great in the Christian sense of the word (i.e., in acquiring humility and all the other virtues), they will need more than Donald Trump’s materialism, Ted Cruz’s shallow sermons, Marco Rubio’s militarism, and Bernie Sanders’s communism. What they will need is an Orthodox Christian king. We may take the life of St Davit the Builder (or sometimes, the Restorer), King of Georgia (+1125), as a sterling ensample of what we may gain by having Christian kings in our national lives again. Some material has been left out below for the sake of shortness; the reader is encouraged to read these parts as well, for they too are edifying and instructive.
At the end of the 11th century the Georgian Church underwent a trial of physically and spiritually catastrophic proportions.
The Seljuk sultan, Jalal al-Dawlah Malik Shah (1073–1092), captured the village of Samshvilde, imprisoned its leader, Ioane Orbeliani, son of Liparit, ravaged Kvemo (Lower) Kartli, and finally captured all of Georgia, despite the isolated victories of King Giorgi II (1072–1089). The fearful Georgians fled their homes to hide in the mountains and forests.
Tempted and deeply distressed by the difficult times, the nation that had once vowed its unconditional love for Christ began to fall into sin and corruption. People of all ages and temperaments sinned against God and turned to the path of perdition. God manifested His wrath toward the Georgian people by sending a terrible earthquake that devastated their Paschal celebrations.
In the year 1089, during this period of devastation and despair, King Giorgi II abdicated, designating his sixteen-year-old only son, Davit (later known as “the Restorer”), heir to the throne. It is written that the Heavenly Father said: I have found David My servant, with My holy oil have I annointed him (Ps. 88:19).
The newly crowned King Davit took upon himself enormous responsibility for the welfare of the Church. He supported the efforts of the Council of Ruisi-Urbnisi to restore and reinforce the authority of the Georgian Church and suppress the conceited feudal lords and unworthy clergymen. During King Davit’s reign, the government’s most significant activities were carried out for the benefit of the Church. At the same time, the Council of Ruisi-Urbnisi reasserted the vital role of the Orthodox Faith in rescuing the Georgian people from the godless mire into which they had sunk.
Foremost among King Davit’s goals at the beginning of his reign was the repatriation of those who had fled Georgia during the Turkish rule. The king summoned his noblemen and began to reunify the nation. The king’s efforts to reunify Georgia began in the eastern region of Kakheti-Hereti, but the Turks and traitorous feudal lords were unwilling to surrender the power they had gained in the area. Nevertheless, King Davit’s army was in God’s hands, and the Georgians fought valiantly against the massive Turkish army. King Davit himself fought like any other soldier: three of his horses were killed, but he mounted a fourth to finish the fight with a fantastic victory. The Turkish presence was eliminated from his country.
The king’s enormous army finally uprooted the Turkish presence in and around Georgia permanently. The defeated Turks returned in shame to their sultan in Baghdad, draped in black as a sign of grief and defeat. Nevertheless, the unyielding sultan Mahmud II (1118–1131) rallied a coalition of Muslim countries to attack Georgia. The sultan summoned the Arab leader Durbays bin Sadaka, commanded his own son Malik (1152–1153) to serve him, gathered an army of six hundred thousand men, and marched once more towards Georgia.
The battle at Didgori enfeebled the enemy for many years. The following year, in 1122, King Davit recaptured the capital city of Tbilisi, which had borne the yoke of slavery for four hundred years. The king returned the city to its mother country. In 1123 King Davit declared the village of Dmanisi a Georgian possession, and thus, at last, unification of the country was complete.
One victory followed another, as the Lord defended the king who glorified his Creator.
In 1106 King Davit had begun construction of Gelati Monastery in western Georgia, and throughout his life this sacred complex was the focus of his efforts on behalf of the revival of the Georgian Church. Gelati Monastery was the most glorious of all the existing temples to God. To beautify the building, King Davit offered many of the great treasures he had acquired as spoils of war. Then he gathered all the wise, upright, generous, and pious people from among his kinsmen and from abroad and established the Gelati Theological Academy. King Davit helped many people in Georgian churches both inside and outside his kingdom. The benevolent king constructed a primitive ambulance for the sick and provided everything necessary for their recovery. He visited the infirm, encouraging them and caring for them like a father. The king always took with him a small pouch in which he carried alms for the poor.
King Davit was also an exemplary writer. His “Hymns of Repentance” are equal in merit to the works of the greatest writers of the Church.
This most valiant, powerful, and righteous Georgian king left his heirs with a brilliant confession when he died. It recalled all the sins he had committed with profound lamentation and beseeched the Almighty God for forgiveness.
King Davit completed his will in 1125, and in the same year he abdicated and designated his son Demetre to be his successor. He entrusted his son with a sword, blessed his future, and wished him many years in good health and service to the Lord. The king reposed peacefully at the age of fifty-three.
St. Davit the Restorer was buried at the entrance to Gelati Monastery. His final wish was carved in the stone of his grave: This is My rest for ever and ever; here I will dwell, for I have chosen her (Ps. 131:15).
Holy King Davit, pray for us sinners!
"Our course is righteous, and our aims are just!
Against the proud Bois Guilbert of debate!
This idea persists strongly today among Southerners. See, e.g., Prof Marshall DeRosa’s talk ‘The Confederate Rule of Law’ from 2015 (http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/media/the-confederate-rule-of-law/). But the truth is quite different from this. To understand why, we must look back through Western European history.
In the pagan Roman Empire, the emperor was the supreme authority in both political and religious matters (Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome, A. Nevill, trans., New York, Ny.: Routledge, 2001, pgs. 134-5). There was truly little to hinder the outworking of his will. But with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine and the Roman Empire along with him, this changed. The Christian Roman Emperor remained the highest political power, but his religious power he yielded to the Orthodox Church’s bishops, though as a dutiful child of the Church he nevertheless used his temporal power to aid her: calling Ecumenical Councils to settle theological controversies, passing laws to strengthen Christian morals in his realm, protecting the Church from physical attacks, using his own personal resources to build churches, monasteries, hospitals, and the like.
Once he [Emperor Theodosius--W.G.] was about to enact bloody punishment of the people of Antioch for a rebellion, but relented when St Placilla (September 14) and Patriarch Flavian enjoined him to be merciful.
Once the people of Antioch rioted and tore down a pair of statues of the Emperor Theodosius and his wife. Two generals came from Constantinople, planning to inflict a bloody punishment on the people. Saint Macedonian, learning of this, came to the city and sought out the generals, asking them to take a message to the Emperor: that he, being human and subject to weakness like all men, should not be immoderately angry with other men; and that he should not, in return for the destruction of lifeless images, destroy those who are the very image of God.
This, then, is the normative political experience of Christian peoples in both East and West, from Spain to Ethiopia to Russia, since the time of St Constantine: A Christian king - whether the High King over all the Christian Empire or the lesser kings who rule over the nations that are part of the Empire - who is the highest political power in his realm, but whose power is nonetheless limited by his love for God and for his people, by his yearning for their salvation and for his, and by his desire also for their earthly wellbeing. Because of these new circumstances introduced by Orthodox Christianity, many kings and queens placed the ultimate check on their own power, renouncing their thrones willingly to become monks (e.g., St Symeon the Myrrh Gusher of Serbia, Sts Ceolwulf of Northumbria and Sebbe of Essex, St Balthild of France, or St Peter of Bulgaria) or to become passion-bearers like Sts Boris and Gleb of Russia, for the sake of a better resurrection or for the welfare of their people (and sometimes both).
And these failing, there was the rebuke of the Church when needed, whether from bishops, monks, fools-for-Christ’s-sake, etc.
But in Western Europe, after the moving of the Imperial capitol to Constantinople, as conditions began to worsen because of the waves of barbarian invaders, and with the rise to prominence of St Augustine’s theological thought, a new order began to develop, or, rather, a return to the old order of pagan Rome. The bishops of Rome begat within their hearts the desire to be the sole religious and political authority of the Roman Empire, after the manner of the pagan Roman emperors. From about the ninth century on (Door to Paradise: Jesus Christ in Ancient Orthodoxy, Platina, Ca.: Saint Herman Press, p. 12), this lust grew, until in 1054 the final break with the Holy Orthodox Church came to pass (the Great Schism).
From this point forward, because of its new theology based on the absent Christ and His present vicar (i.e., the Pope of Rome), absolute divine simplicity, the double procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, the penal atonement theory of salvation, etc., the Roman Catholic Church (and later the Protestant churches, for they did not repent of enough of these theological innovations and in some cases worsened them) became a merely earthly institution, and thus a competitor with the other earthly kingdoms of the world for political dominion, rather than remaining the Holy, Divine-human Body of Christ, which works to unite all the earthly creation with God so it can be filled with His Light and life.
With this revolution in Christianity in the West, the churches were no longer able to sanctify and temper political power as in the days before the Great Schism, and became instead greedy to wield it themselves, and the exercise of power by the rulers, whether in church or state, became more and more harsh and brutal in nature. Finally sickening of the wars between the Roman Catholic and Protestant rulers, Papal armies, the Inquisition, and the like, Western Europeans turned away from the disfigured Christianity they had come to know and began devising heavily secular systems and schemes to reign in their out-of-control rulers and to bring peace and wellbeing to all the people. Thus was born the Enlightenment idea of the written constitution based mostly on human reason as the proper way to organize a government which would rule the people justly by preventing evil actions from being carried out by those in the government through the dispersion of powers and checks and balances among different office-holders, branches, and departments, lists of rights, and so forth.
The adoration of these paper constructs has reached absurd heights in the West, where ‘constitutional values and rights’ have become more important than the teachings of the churches in shaping morals and in forming political policies. The humanistic, secular constitution has become master of both state and church.
The South, not yet seeing this reality, still considers them a guardian of Christianity, but as we have seen (and as the news reports continue to affirm in the involuntary American and European Unions), they are nothing less than a replacement of the Orthodox Church’s check on the actions of the government (and society at large) either with a demon-like clashing of factions within the government or with the very unreliable restraint of ‘the will of the people’ (who are guided mostly by disordered passions and appetites, http://jaysanalysis.com/2016/01/20/half-jaysanalysis-republic-bk-8-the-pythagorean-city/), both of which bear bitter fruit for the nation-family.
Dixie was on much more solid footing when she was defending the ‘unconstitutional’ authority of her gentlemen-planters before the War, whose heavy labors of self-sacrifice on behalf of the spiritual and temporal good of their families, servants, slaves, and neighbors, guided by their pastors, bishops, and priests and the Holy Scriptures, was much akin to the pattern of Orthodox Christian kings in East and West before-mentioned.
Written constitutions can be helpful in clarifying the powers and duties of government officials and such like, but they are not the highest development in the art of politics. That place probably belongs to the Orthodox Christian king, whose powers are bound by his devotion to God, to the Church, and to his people (who are his extended family). For the Grace of God, whether partaken of during prayer or received through the holy oil used to anoint the king, the Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ eaten and drunk during the Divine Liturgy, and the other sacraments of the Orthodox Church, is stronger than even the mightiest chain forged in the fires of the constitutional furnace to forhold the evil designs of men.
The South and all of Western Europe have been beguiled long enough: It is the symphony of Church and state, bishop and king, that will bring about good government and a better future for the nations, not the abstractions of the fallen and worldly rational mind that fill so much of written constitutions.