Tag Archives: Migrants

Racism and Otherness

by Nikolaos Asproulis | българскиქართულიRomână | РусскийСрпски

This essay was first published in Greek at Polymeros kai Polytropos, the blog of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies.

Artistic depiction of racism
Image: Archibald J. Motley Jr., “The First One Hundred Years: He Amongst You Who is Without Sin Shall Cast the First Stone: Forgive Them Father For They Know Not What They Do”

In our time, racism has many faces. Sometimes it manifests itself in a more visible way and other times in an invisible way. Whether it is racism of gender, race, religion or social class, of ethnic origin or sexual orientation, it is certain that the enemy is always the other. It does not matter if the other amounts to whole nations, social groups, or individuals, the other in this case becomes the “red cloth” of a blind ideology, which does not define people as unique and irreplaceable persons in the image of the Triune God, but primarily based on certain natural characteristics.

This is, one might say, the very source of racism and the rejection of otherness. Hostility towards the other, or rather hatred for the different is what defines our identity. This counterpoint is the cornerstone on which all kinds of ideological or religious justifications for discrimination between people are based. Not only each of us, but also entire nations form their collective identity in an oppositional way, in the name of a national, political, cultural, economic, but also religious superiority over others.

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Personhood as “Glocal Citizenship”: Its Christian Roots and the Challenge of the Immigrant Crisis
An Eastern Orthodox Political Theological Reflection

by Nikolaos Asproulis | български | ქართული | Ελληνικά | Русский | Српски

Interconnectedness of the world

In the midst of the dominant globalization process, as experienced in various areas of life (economy, politics, new modes of communication, technology, or common dangers such as terrorism, environmental catastrophes, continuous fragmentation of the world), an ongoing debate is taking place around the meaning and content of the concept of “global citizenship.” Although a concept deeply rooted in the history of philosophy (e.g., Diogenes of Sinope, Stoicism) with various cognates or synonyms (“world citizen,” “cosmopolitan,” etc.) that give nuances to its meaning, the definition of global citizenship is still under discussion and is quite often met with suspicion or skepticism, considered thus as a sort of “metaphor” that does not account for real life. Furthermore, while it is conceived as almost incoherent because it requires a somehow homogeneous universal political order, globalization, by modifying the very context of political action and the conditions and parameters of human life overall, leads to a new understanding of citizenship that seeks to go beyond particular, national, or cultural bonds. Based on its inherent tendency to voluntarily or involuntarily de-territorialize and de-historize the citizen’s ties, globalization provides the modern citizen with freedom from a specific place, highlighting the primary need for interdependence between people all around the world, without, however, necessarily denouncing altogether the importance of local, national identities. The concept of global citizenship then naturally emerges as a striving, initially at least, for a proper balance between the global community and a particular nation, between global and local, between the universal and the particular, between humanity in general and human beings in particular–albeit not always evidently, since it often gives a second place to the particular identity.

Given this perception, what does Eastern Orthodox Christianity have to contribute?

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In Defense of Compassion

by His Eminence Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias (Volos, Greece)

This piece was originally published in Greek in the newspaper “Τα Νέα” on Nov. 9, 2019. English translation courtesy of Soo Town. The Greek original is available here.

Migrants

History is filled with the abominations of humanity and the dismal fate of those peoples who embraced them. The Church has always, under all circumstances, stood in opposition, constantly proclaiming that, in the face of globalized problems, the only contribution which is consistent with its ideals is faith in the God of love and the directly proportional faith in and love for human beings, and especially the forgotten and discarded by the powerful of this world.

In the life of every organization there are fundamental values which enable it to endure over time and preserve its identity. The Church is a theanthropic organization, whose course through history is supported by the ethos and values revealed by God himself, through His incarnation in human form.

The uniqueness of the Christian faith lies in the fact that the central character in its worldview is not God, nor his desire to impose His authority and power on humanity. The central character in God’s historical activity is humankind, with the basic purpose of bringing out the value of human beings and the achievement of a life of high quality with fulfillment, emotional riches and the preconditions to enable them to release themselves from corruption and follow the founder of the Church, Jesus Christ, in eternity. Our people proceeded for centuries with these principles and values and it was this strong humanism—in essence “theohumanism”—which enabled them to survive against apparently superior worldly powers. Continue reading