Imaging God and His Kingdom:

Eastern Orthodoxy's Iconic

Political Ethic

David T. Koyzis

Though little understood in the Western world, the Eastern Orthodox tradi-
tion of Christianity has a distinctive approach to politics which might well be
labelled "iconic." Based on the belief that God's kingdom is capable of having an
earthly manifestation, and that the Christian empire is in some sense the image of
God's omnipotent rule in the heavens, this iconic ethic has often contributed to a
tradition of political absolutism in those countries shaped by Orthodox beliefs.
However, more recent reflection, which sees human society as image of the Triune
God himself, could serve to shape an approach which is conducive to more
participatory political arrangements.

Christ and Culture: Where Do the Orthodox Fit In?

Discussions concerning the various ways Christianity has

been or should be applied to the political realm often begin with H.
Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row,
1951). In the forty years since its publication this book has become
something of a classic and its typologies part of the landscape of
contemporary scholarship. The "Christ against culture" position is
held by Tertullian, Tolstoy and the Anabaptists. "Christ of culture"
describes the historic approaches of Abelard, Schleiermacher and
liberal protestantism. "Christ above culture" describes the posi-
tion of Clement of Alexandria, Thomas Aquinas and traditional
Roman Catholicism. Marcion, Luther and Kierkegaard fall into a

I would like to thank my colleague, Dr. James Payton, for his invaluable and
detailed comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks are also due to the late
Professor John Meyendorff of St. Vladimir's Seminary, who offered support and
helpful suggestions less than three weeks before his unexpected death. Thanks as
well to my other colleagues who nicely poked through the holes in my reasoning
while encouraging this project as a whole, and to Mr. Michael Morbey of Ottawa,
Ontario. Their input measurably improved this paper. Any remaining flaws are
my own.
267
268 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

"Christ and culture in paradox" category.1 And finally nearly

everyone else, including the heirs of Calvin and Wesley, as well as
F. D. Maurice and his Christian socialism, are placed under the
classification, "Christ transforming culture." This final category
comes closest to Niebuhr's own position.
Niebuhr's typologies have naturally come in for criticism over
the decades on various counts. After my first reading of his book
as a university undergraduate, I immediately noticed that two
rather significant Christian groupings seemed to defy classifica-
tion in his terms. These were North American evangelical
protestantism and traditional Eastern Orthodoxy. Since then I
have come to doubt whether evangelical protestantism is a suffi-
ciently unified and identifiable phenomenon in the way that, say,
Calvinism, Lutheranism and Wesleyanism are.2 This problem has
been taken up by a number of scholars and publicists over the last
number of years, and I shall not add my own voice to theirs.3
That leaves Eastern Orthodoxy,4 which is little understood by
most North Americans—indeed by most Westerners in general.
Any attempt to locate Orthodoxy within Niebuhr's categories is
likely to meet with frustration. However, several approaches are

1. Niebuhr's brother, Reinhold, with his Christian realism, could probably

also be placed in this category, as evidenced by his Moral Man and Immoral Society
(New York: Scribner's, 1932), The Children ofLight and the Children ofDarkness (New
York: Scribner's, 1944), and The Nature and Destiny ofMan (New York: Scribner's,
1941).
2. It is probably incorrect to generalize about North American evangelicalism,
which perhaps ought to be seen as a diverse coalition of conservative and
confessional Christians within the historically delineated traditions. Consequently
so-called evangelical Presbyterians are likely to have a different approach to
culture than that followed by one of the Scandinavian free-church denominations
which bear the unmistakable imprint of their Lutheran and pietist roots. Similarly,
self-styled "evangelicals" in the Mennonite and Anglican traditions would take
different attitudes towards issues of Christian political responsibility.
3. See, e.g., Donald Bloesch, The Evangelical Renaissance (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1973), and The Future of Evangelical Christianity: A Call for Unity Amid
Diversity (Colorado Springs: Helmers and Howard, 1988); David F. Wells and John
D. Woodbridge, ed., The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They
Are Changing (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1975); George Marsden, ed., Evan-
gelicalism and Modem America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984); and Mark A.
Noll and David F. Wells, ed., Christian Faith and Practice in the Modern World:
Theology from an Evangelical Point of View (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988).
4. Hereafter to be referred to as Orthodoxy or Orthodox Christianity.
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 269

possible. Those who are most put off by what seems like an
excessive subservience to the state or a too easy accommodation to
various ethnic nationalisms (e.g., Greek, Russian, or Serbian) are
likely to charge the Orthodox with falling into a "Christ of culture"
position.5 On the other hand, the Orthodox themselves might wish
to claim that they are "transformationists" insofar as they seek to
transform the earthly kingdom into an image, or icon, of the
heavenly kingdom.6 Alternatively, they might dismiss the whole
Niebuhrian enterprise as peculiarly Western and based on typi-
cally Western assumptions which they do not share.7
My own initial inclination was to try to create a new category
which would do justice to the distinctiveness of Orthodoxy while
keeping with Niebuhr's basic approach. This originally yielded
something along the lines of "Christ reflected in culture," which is
not entirely satisfactory, however, because it abstracts the Son
from the completeness of the Trinity. Perhaps then we must depart
from any attempted parallelism with Niebuhr's other categories
and articulate something along the lines of "Culture as icon of
God's kingdom," or perhaps "Culture as icon of the Triune God."

5. For a discussion of the historical and ecclesiological factors behind the

emergence of ethnic nationalisms in the Orthodox world, see John Meyendorff,
The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's
Seminary Press, 1982), pp. 225 ff. See also his Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions:
The Church from 450-680 A.D. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press,
1989). For a treatment of the introduction of Hellenic nationalism among Orthodox
Christians in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, see Paschalis M. Kitromilides,
"Greek Irredentism in Asia Minor and Cyprus," Middle Eastern Studies 26 0anuary
1990): 3-17.
6. Georges Florovsky, in his essay, "Faith and Culture" (published as Chapter
I of his Christianity and Culture [Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Co., 1974]),
takes what might be considered a transformational approach, arguing against
varieties of Christian indifference towards culture and in favor of a more positive
approach which sees man as "redeemed in order to be re-instated in his original
rank and to resume his role and function in the Creation" (p. 21).
7. To the Orthodox all Western Christians, protestant or Catholic, look more
alike than different. So much is this the case that Alexis Khomiakov refers to
protestants as "Crypto-Papists." See Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963), pp. 9-10. Anthony Ugolnik similarly
draws attention to the inadequacy of Niebuhr's typically Western categories for
understanding Orthodoxy. See Ugolnik, The Illuminating Icon (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1989), p. xv.
270 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

In this article I shall argue that the distinctive approach of

Orthodoxy towards culture, society and the political order can
only be understood in terms of what might be labeled an "iconic"
ethic. I shall focus in particular on how this is manifested in the
political realm, exploring its theoretical foundations and touching
on its practical implications. I shall finally argue that, while an
iconic political ethic which sees the earthly kingdom reflecting
God's heavenly kingdom has contributed to a tradition of political
absolutism in Orthodox countries, a shift to a trinitarian approach
may provide a basis for a more participatory, and hence more
equitable, polity.8
The Theology of Icon and the Orthodox Worldview
Most Western Christians are aware of the role icons play in the
liturgical life of the Orthodox, if only from photographs of the
interiors of Greek and Russian (and the exteriors of Rumanian)
church buildings. Most are not aware that the concept of icon plays
a much larger role in Orthodoxy and provides a basis for an all-
embracing worldview. Icon comes from the Greek word eikon,
meaning "image." When the Septuagint translation of Genesis 1:25
and 27 states that God created man in his own image, it uses the
word eikon. Orthodox interpretation has made much of this and
other similar passages,9 and builds upon them a worldview which
sees in created material reality the potential for becoming the
vehicle of a heavenly reality of some sort. Consequently when one
enters an Orthodox church, the worshipper is intended to catch a
glimpse of heaven where he is surrounded by the Pantokrator
(Christ, the ruler of all), the Theotokos (Mary, the Mother of God),
and innumerable saints.10

8.1 shall not in this article attempt a foundational critique of the iconic theory
itself but shall limit myself to attempting to analyze its traditional articulation from
within the tradition.
9. See, e.g., St. John of Damascus, Third Apology, 26, published in On the Divine
Images (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980), pp. 80 ff; and
Theodore of Studios, On the Holy Icons (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary
Press, 1981). See also Vladimir Lossky, "Image and Likeness" in both his Orthodox
Theology: An Introduction (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1978),
pp. 119-137 and The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St.
Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), pp. 114-34.
10. See, e.g., the Russian Primary Chronicle, which recounts how the emissaries
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 271

The definitive defence of icons took place at the Seventh

Ecumenical Council of 787 in response to the iconoclastic move-
ment of the eighth century. Along with such Orthodox theologians
as John of Damascus, the council justified the creation and venera-
tion of icons, especially those of Christ, on the basis of the Incarna-
tion. Although the second commandment does prohibit us from
attempting to portray the invisible, uncircumscribed God, the
Council admitted, the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ
(i.e., became visible and circumscribed) means that he can now be
portrayed in an icon. If we prohibit icons it is ultimately because we
doubt the Incarnation—that God in Christ became a real man
capable, like other men, of being portrayed in a work of art. And to
deny the Incarnation is nothing less than heresy.11
Obviously this had tremendous implications for ecclesiastical
art and architecture. But it goes beyond this to encompass the ways
in which the worlds of spirit and matter coexist and interrelate in
general, especially in man.12 Iconoclasm went farther than merely
to proscribe painted images and embraced a generally negative
view of the human cultural endeavor itself.13 This denial of culture
led to a concomitant denial of the goodness of the physical world
as created by God. By contrast the Orthodox affirm that the world

of Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev, experienced the worship at Hagia Sophia in

Constantinople: "Then we went to Greece, and the Greeks led us to the edifices
where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on
earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss
how to describe it. We only know that God dwells there among m e n . . . " (Thomas
Riha, ed., Readings in Russian Civilization [Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1964], 1: 27-28).
11. For accounts of the iconoclastic controversies and the Seventh Ecumenical
Council, see Alexander Schmemann, Historical Road ofEastern Orthodoxy (Crestwood,
NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1977), pp. 198 ff; and Ware, The Orthodox
Church, pp. 38 ff. For the theology behind the use of icons, see L&mide Ouspensky,
Theology of the Icon (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1978); and Ernst
Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church: Its Thought and Life (New York: Anchor
Doubleday, 1963), especially chap. 2, "The Orthodox Icon."
12. See Stanley S. Harakas, "The Integrity of Creation: Ethical Issues," in
Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation: Insights from Orthodoxy, ed. Gennadios
Limouris (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1990), pp. 70-82, for a discussion of the
relation between spirit and matter, the role of man as mediator between Creator
and the rest of creation, and the implication of these themes for the ecological crisis.
13. Florovsky, "Faith and Culture," p. 24.
272 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

itself has a sacramental character.14 The physical world is the good

creation of God, and the subsequent fall into sin cannot alter, much
less abolish, this fundamental reality. But sin does tear apart the
unity of life in the world, causing us to see much of it as "secular
and profane" and religion as "separate, private, remote and 'spiri-
tual.'"15
Redemption restores this sacramental character to the world
and to human life. For the Orthodox the Incarnation is perhaps the
key event in the accomplishment of this redemption. While other
Christian traditions are likely to speak of the sacrifice of Christ on
the cross or his Resurrection from the dead as the specific acts that
effect the salvation of humanity, the Orthodox stress that already
in the Incarnation has God begun the process of redemption. By
taking on flesh, that is, biological material accessible to our senses,
God has restored the sacramentality of the physical creation—"the
original pattern of things."16 This involves what is variously la-
beled a transformation, a transfiguration, a sanctification, or even a
deification of the material world, including the human body. The
whole man, and not just the soul, is redeemed in Jesus Christ. The
icon is a signpost to this redemption insofar as it portrays "trans-
figured flesh, illuminated by grace, the flesh of the world to
come."17
Understanding the character of icons is important because the
Orthodox are often accused by Western, and especially Reformed,
Christians of harboring a sympathy for, or at least of being influ-
enced by, Platonism.18 There are to some extent grounds for com-

14. Schmemann, Church, World, Mission: Reflections on Orthodoxy in the West

(Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1979), pp. 217-27. Cf., Ware, "The
Value of the Material Creation," Sobornost, series 6, no. 3,1971, pp. 154-65.
15. Schmemann, Church, World, Mission, p. 223.
16. Ibid., p. 224. See also St. John of Damascus, First Apology, 16 (On the Divine
Images, p. 23).
17. Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, p. 191.
18. See, e.g., Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology (San Francisco: Harper
and Row, 1978,1979), especially vol. 1, pp. 133,155-56, and vol. 2, p. 242. Bloesch
is critical of Orthodox mysticism, deification, and the tendency of "Catholic
theology (Roman, Greek, and Anglo-Catholic)... to view the incarnation as a
cosmic principle working from the union of God and man apart from the cross of
humiliation" (1:133). See also Jaroslav Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom
(600-1700) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), especially pp. 242 ff.
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 273

ing to such a conclusion. Orthodox theology and philosophy seem

at least passively dependent on platonic epistemology. The notion
of something material and visible reflecting a higher reality bears
some resemblance to Plato's epistemology as laid out in book 6 of
the Republic. The icon can be understood as a visible, sensible
reflection of something (or someone) in the realm of the intelligible.
And through the icon the worshipper can to some degree have
knowledge of the person portrayed therein.19
Moreover the notion of theosis, or "deification," the Orthodox
answer to what other Christian traditions call "justification" and
"sanctification," appears to rest on a platonic hierarchical ontol-
ogy. And although Orthodox theologians insist that this term—so
foreign to Western sensibilities—does not mean that human be-
ings are actually assimilated into the Deity, thereby erasing the
boundary between Creator and creature, it may be that at least the
word, if not the concept it is intended to convey, is dependent on
platonic modes of thinking.20
But this is not the whole story. Once again the Orthodox church
is above all the church of the Incarnation. It hardly need be stated
that the notion of God assuming human flesh would not make
sense to the Platonist, who seeks to free the imperishable, rational
soul from the shackles of corporeality. The Platonist would also
take offence at the notion of sacrament, that is, a visible means of
invisible grace, and at the related concept of icon, or a material
image of a nonmaterial reality. Much as Plato deprecated the

19. See Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icons (Crestwood,
NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1982), for a classic treatment of the interpreta-
tion of icons themselves.
20. The notion of theosis, or deification, can be traced back to the early church
fathers, St. Irenaeus and St. Athanasius, and continues as an important theme in
Orthodox theology thereafter. See Ware, The Orthodox Church, pp. 236-42, for a
brief discussion of the concept and Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification ofMan:
St. Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's
Seminary Press, 1984), for a fuller treatment. Note that Ware is careful to empha-
size, first, that "the Orthodox Church, while speaking of deification and union
[with God], rejects all forms of pantheism" (The Orthodox Church, p. 237) and,
second, that deification is a process which involves the body, and not merely an
incorporeal platonic soul. But even Meyendorff admits that Platonism has been
"the greatest temptation for Eastern Christian thought from the time of Origen"
(Meyendorff, St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality [Crestwood, NY: St.
Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974], p. 126).
274 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

practice of imitation (as manifested, for example, in the theatrical

arts) in his ideal state, so also would he be likely to oppose the
veneration of a "mere" image—a pale imitation of the real thing. In
this respect the Orthodox approach is quite opposite the platonic.

The Implications of the Incarnation for Society and State

To sum up the Orthodox argument, the Incarnation brings

together matter and spirit in such a way that both are transfigured
by the grace of God. In opposition to platonic approaches, the
Orthodox affirm that matter is the good creation of God, and it has
been sanctified by the fact that God himself has taken flesh. And
since God has taken flesh and become truly human, he may be
portrayed in images, or icons.
What implications does this approach have for human society?
Primarily it means that the kingdom of God cannot be seen as
merely a transcendent or future reality. It is not something existing
only in the heavens, safely ensconced above the fray of human
activities and aspirations. Nor is it merely something we look
forward to in the distant eschatological future. Much as God
became man in Jesus Christ and much as an icon communicates
heavenly realities to the worshipper, so also is the kingdom of God
capable of having an earthly manifestation in the form of the
Christian empire. This is where the theology of icon intersects with
politics. Throughout the history of the Orthodox church two
political entities have claimed to be this Christian empire—the
Eastern Roman,21 or Byzantine, Empire centered in Constantinople
and the Russian Empire centered in Moscow.
According to traditional imperial theory, there could only be
one such Christian empire at any one time since the corpus
Christianum was but a single commonwealth. There could be a
multiplicity of rulers over as many realms, but all of these theoreti-
cally acknowledged the superiority of the emperor. This imperial

21. The Byzantines called themselves Romaioi, or Romans, and saw them-
selves as simply the continuation of the Roman Empire. See Ernest Barker, Social
and Political Thought in Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 27;
George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1957), p. 26; and Helene Ahrweiler, L'ideologie politique de VEmpire
byzantin (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1975), p. 12.
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 275

theory was accepted to greater and lesser degrees in both East and
West, and in the latter it was defended and elaborated by Dante
Alighieri in his De Monarchia. It explains why the coronation as
emperor of the Frankish king Charles the Great by Pope Leo III in
800 could only be seen as an affront to the already sitting Christian
empress in Constantinople. It also accounts for the significance of
the assumption by Ivan III the Great, Grand Prince of Muscovy, of
the title tsar, or emperor, after the fall of Constantinople to the
Ottoman Turks. In accordance with the theory advanced in 1510 by
Filofei (or Philotheos) of Pskov, Moscow had now become the
"Third Rome," the political and spiritual center of Orthodox
Christianity.22
According to Timothy (now Bishop Kallistos) Ware,
"Byzantium in fact was nothing less than an attempt to accept and
to apply the full implications of the Incarnation. " B The significance
of this statement is that, because God took flesh and became
incarnate in Jesus Christ, his kingdom is now capable of having an
earthly and material manifestation. God's kingdom is not, after all,
Plato's Republic, which is incapable of realization in the world and
remains merely an ideal to be emulated. It is rather a present
reality.

Eusebius of Caesarea and the Christian Emperor

Many Western Christians find it strange that Orthodox

hagiography includes a number of princes, kings and emperors
whose saintliness is not entirely above question. There is of course
precedent in the West for ruler-saints, such as Louis IX of France
and Wenceslas of Bohemia. But more frequently the Western

22. See Dimitri Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe 500-
1453 (New York: Praeger, 1971). Obolensky argues that for close to a millennium
all of the Orthodox countries of Europe, and not merely the Byzantine Empire
proper, in effect constituted a supranational commonwealth which acknowledged
the emperor as its head. According to Byzantine political philosophy, "a nation,
having accepted the empire's Christian faith, became thereby subject to the
authority of the emperor, who was held to be the sole legitimate sovereign of the
Christian world" (p. 84). For a brief discussion of the "Third Rome" ideology in
Russia, see Nicolas Zernov, The Russians and their Church (London: Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1945), pp. 44 ff, especially p. 51.
23. Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 50.
276 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

church has chosen to canonize those, such as Francis of Assisi,

Thomas More and Thomas Becket, who have either spurned or
confronted political power in the name of the Gospel. Thus West-
erners are frequently bemused to come across Orthodox parishes
named for "Saint" Constantine, the Roman emperor whose con-
version to Christianity eventually led to that faith becoming the
state religion of the empire, or for St. Vladimir (Volodymyr in
Ukrainian), the Grand Prince of Kiev, whose own conversion in
988 led to the mass baptism of the people of Rus.
In the Orthodox world the person of the Christian emperor was
held in high esteem because he was deemed the ruler of the
kingdom of God on earth. Even after the establishment of the Holy
Roman Empire in the West, the Western emperor was not given the
same degree of reverence as his eastern counterpart. Ernst Benz
traces these divergent attitudes back to the fourth century, when
Augustine of Hippo and Eusebius of Caesarea argued for quite
different ways of assessing the Roman Empire and its ruler.24
Augustine's argument is familiar to Western Christians. Char-
acteristically, he ignored the existence of Christian Byzantium and
argued instead for a sharp division between the city of God and the
city of this world. The Christian, according to Augustine, is a
citizen of the earthly kingdom but does not put his ultimate
confidence in it. Earthly kingdoms rise and fall, while it is the
everlasting Church of Jesus Christ which remains the visible
manifestation of God's heavenly kingdom. Christians do of course
fulfil their responsibilities to the political authorities but with a
certain detachment born of the knowledge that the latter are
passing away.
By contrast, Eusebius was much more willing to invest his
hopes in the conversion of Constantine and the Christianization of
the empire. At the First Council of Nicaea Eusebius spoke in
glowing terms of Constantine's role. Benz sees the basis for such
praise in the persisting mindset of the old pagan emperor worship.
The empire was a theocracy at whose heart stood a Christian
emperor modeled on Constantine. "To Eusebius the Christian
emperor was the vicar of God on earth; God himself had made him

24. Benz, Eastern Orthodox Church, pp. 163 ff. See also Steven Runciman, The
Great Church in Captivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 57-
58.
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 277

'the image of his omnipotent autocracy.'"25 In setting forth the role

of this Christian emperor, Eusebius had "bestowed a virtual Chris-
tian baptism upon the old Roman idea of divine emperorship."26
While Benz evaluates this Eastern development in somewhat
negative terms, others see it as natural and to some extent even
justified by the circumstances of the times. Alexander Schmemann
places it in the context of the Christian affirmation that religion and
life cannot be separated and that "the whole man and all his life
belong wholly to the kingdom of Christ."27 After the conversion of
Constantine the church was faced with a dilemma. The entire
empire had been delivered up to Christ and now claimed to
recognize his sovereignty. The emperor, who now offered protec-
tion to the church, asked in return for the church's sanction. The
church found it impossible to refuse this, at least in part because it
affirmed with Athanasius that "in the Cross there is no harm, but
healing for creation."28

Justinian and the Doctrine of Sytnphonia

It fell to the Emperor Justinian I (527-565) to articulate the

typical doctrine of church-state relations which has come to as-
sume an "official" (insofar as there can be such) status in Orthodox
thought.29 To summarize, the Christian empire is the earthly icon

25. Benz, Eastern Orthodox Church, p. 164.

26. Ibid., pp. 164-65.
27. Schmemann, Historical Road, p. 97.
28. Ibid., p. 97. On the other hand, Schmemann is highly critical of the tendency
of fourth-century Christians simply to assimilate the ancient pagan theocratic
conception of the state into their own worldview. Cf., Meyendorff, Byzantine
Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University
Press, 1979), pp. 213-16. Meyendorff is critical of the notion that "the state, as such,
could become intrinsically Christian" (p. 213). Cf., Florovsky, "Faith and Culture,"
pp. 28-29.
29. According to Runciman, "Just as the Byzantines disliked hard and fast
doctrinal pronouncements unless a need arose or a tradition was challenged, so
they avoided a precise ruling on the relations between Church and State. These
were decided by a mixture of tradition, of popular sentiment and the personalities
of the protagonists" (Captivity, p. 63). Indeed, not all in the Byzantine tradition
accept the legitimacy of Justinian's approach. See, for example, Meyendorff's
comments in Imperial Unity (pp. 209-210; quoted below, p. 283), where he argues
that it is unbiblical.
278 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

of the kingdom of God, and the Christian emperor stands at its

center. But how then do the institutional church and state stand in
relation to each other? In the West there had evolved as early as
Pope Gelasius in the fifth century a conception of the dual alle-
giance of the Christian to the spiritual authority of the church and
the temporal political authority of the state.30 Furthermore, in the
West the institutional church came to assume a real temporal
power and often came into conflict with political rulers, as in the
cases of Thomas Becket and Henry II in England and Pope Gregory
VII and the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV.
Although the East certainly agreed with the West in distin-
guishing the respective responsibilities of church and state, it
nevertheless adhered to a more unitary conception of society than
that characteristic of the West. The Byzantine corpus Christianum
was a unified whole in which church and state cooperated and
together claimed the allegiance of the citizen. This cooperative
relationship came to be known as one of symphonia, or harmony,
between the two institutions and their respective rulers, patriarch
and emperor.31 According to Justinian,
The greatest blessings of mankind are the gifts of God which have been
granted us by the mercy on high—the priesthood and the imperial
authority. The priesthood ministers to things divine: the imperial author-
ity is set over, and shows diligence in, things human; but both proceed
from one and the same source, and both adorn the life of man.

Because of this common source in God's divine authority, the two

human authorities are closely related and intertwined. Conse-
quently the emperor is legitimately concerned to defend true

30. For a more detailed discussion of the history of church-state theories in the
West, see Edward A. Goerner, Peter and Caesar: The Catholic Church and Political
Authority (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965).
31. For a contemporary Orthodox reflection on the traditional symphonia
doctrine within the context of twentieth-century United States with its constitu-
tional doctrine of church-state separation, see Harakas, "Orthodox Church-State
Theory and American Democracy," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 21 (1976):
400-419; and "Church and State in Orthodox Thought," Greek Orthodox Theological
Review 27 (1982): 2-21.
32. Novella VI; as quoted in Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium, pp.
75-76. See also Meyendorff, Imperial Unity, pp. 207 ff, for a discussion of the
historical context of Justinian's approach.
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 279

doctrine and to maintain the "dignity and honor" of the clergy,

while the latter pray unceasingly for the emperor.
The success of symphonia depended on the preservation of a
careful balance between church and state, one which was not
always maintained in practice and even in theory was not always
well defined.33 Theoretically it implied, in the words of Panagiotis
Bratsiotis, that "the Church is free in respect of its own internal and
spiritual affairs and that the competence of the state is limited to
external and secular matters."34 However, history offers numerous
examples of the state interfering in the affairs of the institutional
church during both Byzantine and Russian imperial eras. For
example, each of the Seven Ecumenical Councils was summoned
by an emperor, although he could not necessarily control its
decisions. More than a millennium later, Peter the Great of Russia
effectively nationalized the church, replacing the vacant Moscow
Patriarchate with what was in effect a cabinet ministry, the Holy
Synod.35 And the example which Orthodox theologians are espe-
cially wont to cite is the iconoclastic movement itself—a movement
to purge a reluctant church of images by the zealous Isaurian
emperors.36
So often did this political interference in the life of the church
take place that many observers since the nineteenth century have
labeled the distinctive Byzantine conception of church and state
"caesaropapism." The implication of this term is that the emperor
claims to be a pope and thus head of the church. Not unexpectedly,

33. For example, Theodore Balsamon tipped the balance even further in the
emperor's direction, concluding that "the service of the Emperors includes the
enlightening and strengthening of both body and soul. The dignity of the Patri-
archs is limited to the benefit of souls, and that alone" (Opera, J.P. Migne, Patrologia
Cursus Completus, Series Graeco-Latina, CXXXVIII, coll. 93, 1017-18; quoted in
Runciman, Captivity, p. 61).
34. Bratsiotis, The Greek Orthodox Church (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1968), p. 75.
35. See Alexander V. Muller, ed. and trans., The Spiritual Regulation ofPeter the
Great (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972).
36. John of Damascus makes clear the jurisdictional boundaries between
church and emperor within the context of the iconoclastic controversy. "We will
not allow an imperial edict to overturn the body of teachings handed down from
the fathers. It is not for would-be pious kings to overthrow the boundaries of the
church" (Commentary on St. Sophronius, The Spiritual Garden [On the Divine
Images, p. 48]; cf. Second Apology, 16 [pp. 62-3]).
280 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

nearly all Orthodox theologians and a good number of non-

Orthodox scholars repudiate the term.37 Nevertheless, at least two
factors worked together to give the emperor a preeminent position
even within the church.
In the first place, because the empire was seen to be an icon of
God's heavenly kingdom, and because God's rule over this king-
dom is a benevolent autocracy, it followed that the empire must
have a single ruler who is in effect an icon of God himself.38 The
notion of the divided allegiance of Christians to two kingdoms
may have made sense in the West, where the idea of a single
Christian commonwealth was eclipsed by the political fragmenta-
tion wrought by feudalism, but not in the East, where the empire
had endured as a single political entity and where the well-being
of the Christian faith was understood to be bound up with its
survival. Moreover, the existence of more than one ruler of the
Christian commonwealth was not in accordance with its iconic
character.39

37. See, e.g., Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium, pp. 7-8;
Schmemann, Historical Road, p. 117: and Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 49. Sergei
Bulgakov admits that caesaropapism was often the reality, but it "was always an
abuse; never was it recognized, dogmatically or canonically" (The Orthodox Church
[Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1988], p. 157). Interestingly,
however, Roman Catholic philosopher Thomas Molnar, who is in many respects
typically Byzantine in his thinking, speaks of caesaropapism in positive terms and
even claims a biblical basis for it. See his Twin Powers: Politics and the Sacred (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988), p. 35. Ironically, according to G. P. Fedotov, the
reception of Orthodox Christianity by Kievan Rus did not immediately effect a
transplantation of the typical Byzantine imperial ideology into that local setting.
The political fragmentation of the medieval Russian principalities coupled with
the dependence of the metropolitan of Kiev on Constantinople together worked to
produce a more balanced church-state relationship than existed in Byzantium
itself and would exist later in Russia. See Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, vol.
I: Kievan Christianity: The Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1966), pp. 397 ff.
38. The emperor was described by Agapetos, deacon of Constantinople, as
"similar to God, who is over all, for he does not have anyone higher than himself
anywhere on earth" (Capita admonitoria 21; 63 [Patrologia graeca 86:1172; 1184],
quoted in Pelikan, Spirit of Eastern Christendom, p. 168).
39. There were sometimes co-emperors, but, as Runciman observes, "only one
Emperor exercised the power, the Autocrator Basileus" (Runciman, Byzantine
Civilization [New York: Meridian Books, The New American Library, 1956], pp. 53-
54).
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 281

Secondly, during the early Byzantine centuries the territory of

the empire encompassed the five historic patriarchates of Rome,
Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Constantinople. Although the
Orthodox accorded Rome a primacy of honor among the patriar-
chal sees, they did not consider that city's bishop an ecclesiastical
monarch with jurisdiction over his colleagues. Even after the
filioque controversy and Rome's increasing claims to supremacy
widened the distance between East and West, the Patriarch of
Constantinople—now assuming the title "Ecumenical Patriarch"—
was far from being the one unifying head of the church. If the
Christian commonwealth must have a single head, as the iconic
theory prescribed, then this responsibility could only fall to the
Christian emperor.40
However, instances of political interference in the life of the
church were not the only occasions when symphonia's equilibrium
was disturbed. Towards the end of the Byzantine era the balance
tipped in favor of the Ecumenical Patriarch as the emperor's
dominions dwindled and most Orthodox Christians found them-
selves outside his immediate jurisdiction. Now it was the patriarch
and not the emperor who was becoming "the symbol of Orthodox
unity."41 The church's enhanced position was further strengthened
during the Ottoman period by the sultan's practice of organizing
his diverse subjects into confessionally defined millets, or nations.42
Under this arrangement the religious leader of a particular com-
munity was expected to perform certain political functions and
generally act as intermediary between the Sublime Porte and the

40. See, e.g., the letter of Patriarch Antonios IV of Constantinople to Grand

Prince Vasily I of Muscovy near the end of the fourteenth century, wherein he
argues that "[i]t is not possible for Christians to have a church (ekkksia) and not to
have an empire (basileia). Church and empire have a great unity (henosis) and
community; nor is it possible for them to be separated from one another" (Barker,
Social and Political Thought in Byzantium, p. 195).
41. Runciman, Captivity, p. 65. See also Meyendorff, The Byzantine Legacy in the
Orthodox Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1982), pp. 246 ff.
Ironically, the decline of the Byzantine Empire and the consequent elevation of the
status of the Ecumenical Patriarch in some ways replicated the experience of the
Christian West nearly a thousand years earlier where the pope's increased eccle-
siastical authority had filled the vacuum left by the collapse of the Western Empire.
Nevertheless, the see of Constantinople never claimed for itself the universal
supremacy which the Roman see had earlier asserted (Ibid., pp. 220 ff).
42. Runciman, Captivity, pp. 165 ff; Meyendorff, Byzantine Legacy, p. 248.
282 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

community's members. Thus arose the institution of the ethnarchy,

which survived into the late twentieth century on the island nation
of Cyprus where the Orthodox archbishop, Makarios III, served as
the country's president from 1960 until his death in 1977. Given the
rather indistinct boundary between church and state already in-
herent in the Byzantine heritage, this peculiar twist to the symphonia
doctrine was by no means uncharacteristic, if not quite in accor-
dance with its original intention.43

An Iconic Political Ethic: Theory and Practice

For the Orthodox the concept of a religiously neutral state,

which relegates religion to the private sphere of the individual, is
utterly foreign. Enlightenment liberalism has been far less influen-
tial in the East than in the West, whose political institutions have
been shaped to a large extent by its assumptions. By contrast, the
Orthodox have always admitted that Christianity has public sig-
nificance. This follows from the fact that Christ has overcome the
world and the powers of darkness which once held it in captivity.
According to Ware, the Byzantines "believed that Christ, who
lived on earth as a man, has redeemed every aspect of human
existence." This redemption extends not only to individuals but to
"the whole spirit and organization of society." As a consequence of
this belief the Byzantines "strove to create a polity entirely Chris-
tian in its principles of government and in its daily life."44 Chris-
tians, in Schmemann's words once again, "do not separate religion
from life, but affirm that the whole man and all his life belong
wholly to the kingdom of Christ."45 This, of course, includes
political life.
All the same, this professed submission of the state to the
lordship of Christ has often looked rather different in practice, due,
in the first place, to a deficiency in the way the iconic theory has
been worked out and, in the second, to the enhanced power of the
emperor to which this theory contributed. Once again, if the

43. Sir Harry Luke discusses the millet system in Cyprus Under the Turks, 1571-
1878 (London, 1921), pp. 15-16, and The Old Turkey and the New (London, 1955), pp.
66-101.
44. Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 50.
45. Schmemann, Historical Road, p. 97.
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 283

empire was an icon of God's rule in the heavens, then it could only
be a benevolent autocracy. Of course, no one would seriously
consider that God's sovereignty would need to be limited in any
way by the institutions of a mixed constitution or by the checks and
balances of competing estates. But the emperor is not God and may
require precisely such measures to prevent him from becoming
tyrannical. These were frequently lacking in the Byzantine and
Russian empires.46
Orthodox Christians have themselves been among the first to
acknowledge the failings of their own political ethic in practice.
According to Schmemann, the truly Christian state is such only
to the extent that it does not claim to be everything for man—to define his
whole life—but enables him to be a member as well of another commu-
nity, another reality, which is alien to the state although not hostile to it.47

In similar fashion, John Meyendorff has argued that nothing in the

New Testament "can suggest that a static 'symphony' can ever
exist between the Kingdom of God and 'this world.'" Rather, there
will always be "a tension between the partial, inadequate and
incomplete achievements of human history, and the absolute hope
for a new world, where God will be 'all in all'."48
The iconic political ethic with its doctrine of sytnphonia might
have worked as it was intended to if the newly Christianized state
had, in Schmemann's words, "really re-evaluated itself in the light

46. Theoretically the Byzantine emperor's power was limited by that of the
senate, the army and the people of Constantinople, all of whom in some sense
"elected" the emperor and invested him with their authority. Most importantly the
emperor was limited by the law itself. In reality, however, the three above-named
institutions gradually lost their remaining powers over the course of centuries,
although the army retained some influence. The senate, in particular, became
something like the present-day Queen's Privy Council in Canada or the United
Kingdom, that is, a largely honorary body made up of notables. Moreover, the
law's authority over the emperor was itself limited by the constitutional principle
that the emperor is the source of law. See Runciman, Byzantine Civilization, pp. 51-
65. See also Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, pp. 35 ff and 117-18 on the
diminished position of the Senate.
47. Schmemann, Historical Road, p. 152.
48. Imperial Unity, pp. 209-210. Note that Meyendorff appears in this state-
ment to identify the institutions of church and state with the kingdom of God and
the kingdom of this world respectively.
284 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

of Christian teachings about the world." Tragically, there never

was such a re-evaluation. "Justinian's theory was rooted in the
theocratic mind of pagan empires, for which the state was a sacred
and absolute form for the world—its meaning and justification."49
Under such a conception it was difficult for an independent church
institution to develop alongside the emperor.50
Yevgeny Barabanov, a Russian Orthodox Christian and former
dissident during the latter part of the Soviet era, sounds a similar
note in a remarkable essay, "The Schism Between the Church and
the World."51 Barabanov decries the too cozy relationship between
church and state which is a legacy of the Byzantine Empire:
[SJurely we shall be obliged to acknowledge that in Byzantium and
Russia ideas about the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar too
often merged and became interchangeable. The subjection of the Church
by the state is an old eastern tradition.52

Barabanov believes that the church needs to recapture the initia-

tive and see itself as standing over against the world. But this
standing over against the world means that Christians must also
transform the world:

We are too passive in our attitude to the world. We do not carry our own
religious will within ourselves, or our care for the world; we seem to have
forgotten that we have been entrusted with the great task of transforming
the world Christian activism must lead not to a reformation but to a
transformation of Christian consciousness and life, and through it to a
transformation of the world.53

These observations are in many ways extraordinary coming from

a Christian in the Orthodox tradition.54

49. Schmemann, Historical Road, p. 152. See also Bulgakov, Orthodox Church,
pp. 156 ff.
50. Benz, Eastern Orthodox Church, p. 166.
51. Alexander Solzhenitsyn et al., From Under the Rubble (Boston: Little, Brown
and Company, 1974), pp. 172-93.
52. Ibid., p. 178.
53. Ibid., pp. 192-93.
54. Although the official Orthodox Church in the former Soviet Union was
often subservient to the atheist state, individual Orthodox Christians and unoffi-
cial groups of Orthodox Christians did indeed challenge the political authorities
on the basis of their faith. For an account of such activities, especially during the
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 285

A Shift to a Trinitarian Political Ethic?

An iconic political ethic need not in itself, however, lead to

political absolutism, and this suggests that there may be a possibil-
ity for Orthodox political theorists to re-evaluate their Byzantine
past while maintaining the traditional iconic approach. But this
would require altering the latter to some extent. Recall once again
that Orthodox political theory has seen the Christian empire as an
icon of God's kingdom in the heavens. God's absolute sovereignty
has thus come to be emulated and reflected in the style of govern-
ing within Orthodox countries, most of which have known little
else but some form of authoritarianism or even totalitarianism.
But Vladimir Lossky's discussion of the image of God in man
contains the seeds of another type of iconic approach which has
been developed at some length by at least two non-Orthodox
theologians, Jurgen Moltmann and Leonardo Boff,55 and which
could provide an alternative for a renewed Orthodox political
theory. Writes Lossky:

last generation of the Soviet period, see Jane Ellis, The Russian Orthodox Church: A
Contemporary History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986). Elite's re-
search took place under the auspices of Keston College in the United Kingdom, a
Christian research institution founded by the Rev. Canon Michael Bourdeaux in
1969 to monitor the state of religion in the former communist countries.
55. See Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom (New York: Harper and Row,
1981), and History and the Triune God: Contributions to Trinitarian Theology (New
York: Crossroad, 1991); and Boff, Trinity and Society (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,
1988). Although Moltmann is a Lutheran and Boff a Roman Catholic, their iconic
reasoning is typically Orthodox in flavor, though not all of their conclusions are
likely to be acceptable to Orthodox Christians. For example, Moltmann argues that
the "doctrine of the social Trinity" which he espouses is more supportive of
"presbyterial and synodal church order" than of a hierarchical episcopal polity
(Trinity and the Kingdom, pp. 200-202). And Boff avers that a proper conception of
the Trinity does not exclude the "motherhood" of the Father or the feminine
dimension of the Son (pp. 170-71,182-83). But both draw the connection between
"monarchical monotheism" and political absolutism on the one hand, and be-
tween a social Trinity and a political order embodying human freedom and
equality on the other.
Surprisingly, there seems to have been little Orthodox interaction with either
Moltmann or Boff, as evidenced by a lack of reviews of their writings in Orthodox
journals. I am aware of only one such review, that of Boff's book by Jeffrey Gros,
FSC, in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 34 (summer 1989): 180-82.
286 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

"And God created man in His own image; He created him in the image
of God; He created them male and female." Thus the mystery of the
singular and plural in God: in the same way that the personal principle
in God demands that the one nature express itself in the diversity of
persons, likewise in man, created in the image of God. Human nature
cannot be the possession of a monad. It demands not solitude but
communion, the wholesome diversity of love.56

The significance of this passage is that it sees human society in

general (and hence by implication also the political community) as
icon of the Trinity itself rather than of God's absolute rule in the
heavens. And although Orthodox theology often speaks of the
monarchy of the Father within the Trinity (as opposed to the
filioque conception of the West, which begins with the one divine
essence in articulating the nature of the Trinity), it also acknowl-
edges the perfect communion and equality among the Persons, as
opposed to the Arian conception of the Son and Spirit's subordina-
tion to the Father.
And if, in Stanley Harakas's words, we are "created in the
image and likeness of a Trinity of Persons"57—that is, if human
society images the perfect intercommunion within the Trinity
itself—then the foundation perhaps exists for society's political
organization along more participatory and less authoritarian lines.58

56. Lossky, Orthodox Theology, p. 67. The specific reference in this passage is
to the sexual differentiation of man. For other Orthodox thinkers who have
worked with a trinitarian social ethic see Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life: The
Theoria of Eastern Orthodox Ethics (Minneapolis: Light and Life Publishing Co.,
1983), especially pp. 25-27; DumitruStaniloae, Theology and the Church (Crestwood,
NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980), pp. 53 ff; and Ugolnik, pp. 110 ff, where
he draws out the social implications of Staniloae's trinitarian approach.
57. Harakas, Transfigured Life, p. 27.
58. Although a trinitarian modification of the traditional iconic approach may
provide a foundation for a polity based on greater citizen participation, it is
questionable whether it is able to address the issue of normative limits to politics
and the state. In other words, a polity conditioned by this trinitarian approach
could still perhaps see the democratic state overstep its competence in a potentially
totalitarian fashion. This suggests that there may already be limitations inherent
in the iconic approach. For attempts within two other Christian traditions to
discern such normative limits, see the works of Yves R. Simon, especially Philoso-
phy of Democratic Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 127
ff, where the French neo-Thomist political theorist discusses various institutional
checks on the "imperialistic" tendencies of government; and Herman Dooyeweerd,
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 287

Authority does indeed exist within such a polity and persons do

possess and exercise such authority, but there is no ontological
subordination of ruled to ruler. The ruler is simply primus inter
pares, a fellow citizen and compatriot to those under his authority.
No longer is the emperor alone seen to be the image of God; the
whole of society bears his image, and thus each person has an
essential role to play in its governance.59
Could an iconic political ethic rooted in the Trinity come to be
serviceable to the renewal of political life in the newly liberated
countries of the Orthodox world, where communism until recently
stifled not only normal political life but attempted to root out all
traditional religious expressions? It is perhaps too early to say for
certain. One of the more recent efforts by an Orthodox Christian,
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, to address the political future of his
native Russia is manifestly Christian in its approach, but contains
little that is distinctively Orthodox.60 It is, however, safe to say that,

A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed,

1953-1958), volume 3, where the Dutch neo-Calvinist philosopher establishes such
limits on the basis of an internal structural analysis of the state and other societal
communities rooted in the creation order.
59. The related concepts of the priesthood of all believers and political
democracy are in fact already present to some degree in Orthodoxy. The former is
present to the extent that a general council must ultimately be accepted by the
Orthodox faithful to be considered a genuine ecumenical council. The iconoclastic
Council of Constantinople of 754 was repudiated by the laity and eventually
superseded by the second Council of Nicaea, which came to be recognized as the
Seventh Ecumenical Council. Similarly, the Council of Florence of 1438-39, which
ostensibly reunited the Eastern and Western churches, was a dead letter because
the faithful refused to adhere to it. See Schmemann, Historical Road, pp. 204-208,
253-54. See also Ware, The Orthodox Church, pp. 252-58 on what makes an ecumeni-
cal council; and Bulgakov, Orthodox Church, pp. 54-86 concerning the notion of
sobornost' ("conciliarity") and the decisions of the councils. However, other ob-
servers play down what might be labelled "ecclesiastical democracy" in favor of
more objective criteria for determining Orthodoxy. See, e.g., Lawrence Cross,
Eastern Christianity: The Byzantine Tradition (Sydney, Australia: C.J. Dwyer, 1989),
pp. 50-52.
As for the democratic character of the empire, see Runciman, Byzantine
Civilization, where he observes that "deep down, there lingered the idea that
sovereignty was the people's, and the people had only delegated their power to the
Emperor" (p. 52).
60. Solzhenitsyn, Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals (New
York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1991). This essay was published in 1990 in two Soviet
newspapers and contains his proposals for renewing and in some cases restoring
288 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

as Christians in these countries come out from under some forty to

seventy years of Communist rule, they will be looking for re-
sources serviceable to the future. And this will prompt them to look
deeper into their own traditions.
I began this article with a reference to Niebuhr's "Christ and
culture" typologies and I shall end on a similar note. From the
beginning Christians of whatever tradition have sought in some
fashion to transform the world for Christ. The world has typically
responded in one of three possible ways. First, it has resisted
fiercely, in which case the church has often found itself suffering
persecution. This was the lot of most Christians in the first centu-
ries after Christ and of millions during the twentieth century.
Second, the world has embraced the Christian Gospel wholeheart-
edly and has allowed itself to be judged and redeemed by the
Christ of the Gospel. Obviously the world in its entirety has not
done this, but the continued existence of the church and of local
cultures influenced by Christian principles in different parts of the
world are testimony to the viability of this second option.
Third, the world has often responded by claiming to accept the
Christ of the Gospel but continuing to live in accordance with its
old ways. Both Schmemann and Barabanov believe that neither
Byzantium nor Russia ever adequately submitted itself to the
transforming power of the Gospel yet claimed, all the same, to be
the earthly manifestation of God's kingdom during its particular
historical moment. This often bred an unthinking conservatism
which was not astute enough to discern which elements in these
societies were genuinely Christian and which were merely hold-

the political institutions of what he calls a Russian Union (Rossiiskii Soyuz),

encompassing the three Slavic republics of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Although
he refers to a number of Russian thinkers, writers and statesmen unfamiliar in the
West (who are listed in an appendix), his logic is in many ways typically Burkean
and appears to owe much to the classic formulations of the "mixed constitution"
defended by Aristotle, Polybius, Thomas Aquinas, Montesquieu and others. See
also his earlier Letter to the Soviet Leaders (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), where
he touches on similar themes.
James F. Pontuso, Solzhenitsyn's Political Thought (Charlottesville: University
Press of Virginia, 1990), presents the most complete treatment to date of this
subject, although it was written before the publication of Rebuilding Russia. While
the author places Solzhenitsyn in the context of the larger Western philosophical
tradition, especially Marxism, he downplays the influence of his Christianity and
says little about Orthodoxy.
 IMAGING GOD AND HIS KINGDOM 289

overs from paganism. It may be that if Orthodox Christianity

comes once more to have an impact on the future development of
political life in Russia and Eastern Europe, it will be a chastened
Orthodoxy which has been strengthened by decades of suffering
and possesses a renewed conviction of the victory of Christ's
transforming power over the world and its idolatries.
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