It should go without saying that the current COVID-19 crisis combined with challenging social issues and a contentious political environment is a time for prayerful and meaningful pastoral guidance. We have seen many of our Orthodox hierarchs, leaders, and theologians engage with the challenging issues of our time, both with sincere and substantive reflection as well…
Continue readingA Reflection on the Church in the Political Arena
by Fr. Robert M. Arida Democracy and the separation of church and state are relatively new for the Orthodox Church. From both derive the many challenges the Church in America encounters as it stands unfettered in the political arena. Paraphrasing the British historian and theologian G.L. Prestige, the concept, let alone the reality, of a…
Continue readingMust Orthodoxy Be a Barrier to Liberal Democracy?
The Case of Serbia 1903-1914
It is obvious that the fall of communism made the Orthodox face issues regarding democratic secularism. By secularism, I mean not the decline-of-religion meaning, which has been completely discredited, but secularism understood as pluralism, according to Aristotle Papanikolaou, as he defined it recently at his keynote lecture, “A Christian Secularism,” at the conference, “Religion in…
Continue reading