Author: Rev. prof. Cristinel Ioja (Faculty of Orthodox Theology, “Aurel Vlaicu” University in Arad)
Keywords: Christianity, Orthodox Church, nation, ethnicity, unity, dogmas, secularization
Abstract:
The relationships between Church and state or between Church and nation or people were tested in our country, as well as in other Christian nations, during the interwar period. This happened especially because some imported Marxist or generally modernist ideologies appeared and they reiterated the enlightened philosophical conceptions of the French Revolution, promoting an atheistic or secularised nationalism. As a reaction to this assault, Orthodox theology, voiced by theologians like Father Dumitru Stăniloae or Nichifor Crainic, had to explain dogmatically the connection between nation and Church, because it became less and less implicit for various contemporary philosophers or intellectuals. Pointing out this relationship is important because the unity of the Church can only be maintained at a social level if it is understood in close connection with the unity of the nation. Although in a traditional society one cannot speak of two units or entities, but of just one organism, which is unitary, a separation appeared: religious versus secular or political versus social, as a consequence of these new ideologies. It has been repeatedly proven, until today, which the termination of this union puts the entire organism in jeopardy, as it moves towards deconstruction, extinction or alteration. This became more and more visible during the post and neo-communist globalization, when the tendency to separate the religious from the secular/ethnic elements lead to a complete meltdown of the latter in the globalist system, whereas the former was altered and was more and more excluded from the social horizon of expectations of the latter. The title of this chapter, in itself is a confession of the certainty that the unity of the Church is reflected in the unity of the nation, because each subsists completely only within the other, especially since in the case of Romania, they share the historical moment of foundation. At the same time, in the case of Europe, which is founded on Christian principles, one can witness a movement towards its own dismantling, as it gradually rejects them.
Pages: 53-66