01-05-2008 - Traces, n. 5

Ecumenism

Pope Benedict’s Hope Is Ours, too
Spe Salvi is fundamental for us Orthodox, because it speaks of a certainty, which life in Christ is full of happiness to share.” These are the words of the Vice-Rector of Moscow’s Theological Academy, who, on March 25th, made a presentation of the encyclical, alongside Archbishop Paolo Pezzi. Now he explains to Traces why this document is a step forward together

edited by Giovanna Parravicini

On March 25th, at the Library of the Spirit, Fr. Vladimir Šmalij, Vice-Rector of Moscow’s Theological Academy and Secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Synodal Theological Commission, presented the encyclical Spe Salvi, along with Archbishop Paolo Pezzi. We asked him to follow up on this very fruitful evening by taking up his talk again and developing it further in the light of the encyclical, in the context of the Church and society in Russia.

The encyclical Spe Salvi deals with a theological virtue, but also with a profound need for men of all times. As you stressed in your presentation, the Pope tries to bring together Christianity’s answers to the question “why live?” with the world’s research into the meaning of life. It is a great opening to dialogue, and at the same time a powerful acknowledgment that the faith, the Christ event, is able to answer not only the circle of believers, but man as such. Is not this exactly what secular culture today disputes, that is, the Church’s demand to come out of the ghetto, albeit gilded, inside which it is enclosed?
As I see it, the encyclical touches a theme very relevant–indeed, crucial–today, because the theme of the collapse of hope seems to be the distinctive trait of our civilization, which, though apparently so self-satisfied, really shows at every step its own despair and lack of perspective. The most significant index of this phenomenon is not even the record number of suicides, but the huge number of palliatives that people try to find to compensate for the spiritual vacuum–mass culture, consumerism… People try to keep going by shopping, filling their life with things. As a priest, I meet many people who knock on the Church’s door because they are lost, bewildered; often they don’t realize that the problems they find themselves in depend on the fact that they no longer hope in anything. Hope–it’s quite true what the Pope says–is the motor of the human person’s existence, not only for Christians, but for every person. So dialogue with society, with the world, on the basis of hope is fundamental.
I also think that hope is something very personal, intimate. In our world, on the contrary, each one tries to compensate through the exterior aspect for what he lacks within, and doesn’t let anyone cross the border that leads to the heart of the person, to which the Pope, instead, appeals. I was struck by Benedict XVI’s delicacy; he doesn’t set himself up as a severe judge, handing down tough teachings to people, but proposes answers extremely delicately to the individual person, at the same time showing great clarity and certainty in pointing out errors and misunderstandings into which we fall in the way of understanding hope. For example, he puts us on guard against the psychological reduction of hope–hope is a concrete, objective reality.

In this sense, Joseph Ratzinger makes clear the risks of a subjectivism which is a constant temptation in the West, penetrating even into the minds of Christians. He calls urgently for self-criticism in modern Christianity, which must return to its own roots. In your opinion, what does this mean for Christians today?
With the delicacy and respect for his listener that characterizes him, the Pope points out that Christians themselves have often brought about a subjectivist reduction, quoting significantly an example of interpretation born through Luther but also affirmed in Catholic exegesis. And it is interesting to observe the Pope’s method, as he uses this example in a constructive, ecumenical way, as if to invite Protestants, too, to return to the source of their own identity, to recover the certainty of being saved.

What aspects of the encyclical do you see as particularly interesting for the situation in Russia?
As I see it, there are no specific elements regarding Russia. Benedict XVI addresses man as man, Christians of all traditions and non-Christians. The contents of Spe Salvi are perhaps particularly important for us Orthodox in Russia, precisely for the fact that it speaks of hope as certainty, as an objective pledge of eternal life, from which derives an attitude of missionary commitment. In virtue of faith and of the certain hope that this arouses, we are called to witness that life in Christ is a life full of certainty, of happiness, which we have the duty to share. I was very struck by the passage on the sharing of suffering, which is proper of the saints. How many examples of suffering we have before our eyes; what a great duty of “com-passion” we have… We Christians cannot stand at the window and look, self-satisfied, at the world’s suffering, contenting ourselves with an individual, selfish salvation.

The saints are first and foremost witnesses…
Here, too, we have to go back to the single tradition of the undivided Church. St. Athanasius says that if someone does not believe in the Resurrection, we have to quote him the martyrs who gave no importance to life, but gave it up with simplicity, witnessing eloquently to their certainty in the new life brought by Christ. Today, too, how many witnesses do we have before our eyes! I am not referring to canonized “saints,” but to the many who live their vocation gladly, witnessing to their certainty in their daily trials. I am thinking of those who have the courage to set up a family and have no fear of a large family, of many who live their sickness as an offering, and of consecrated people. I have had the fortune to meet many people who live their hope in an objective, substantial way. We must learn to look, to notice the great number of witnesses that surrounds us; we must not be ashamed to quote them, to recall how the faith helps to live in hope the most varied circumstances in life.

In your view, what is most lacking, most needed today for the awareness of Christians to reawaken?
There is an aspect that strikes me and which I like in the figure of Benedict XVI: his attachment to and his appreciation of rationality, of reasonability, an aspect that is often lacking today in us Orthodox. Even in the West, its meaning and its importance is not understood, and we are told by Westerners (who believe they are praising us): “You see, for us, everything is reduced to rationalism; there is no space for feelings and emotions, while you Orthodox have mysticism.” The reality is that this “mystical” pretension is reduced to renouncing one’s own reason, one’s own responsibility, delegating choices in life that imply a personal decision to a “spiritual director.” No. Christians must rediscover that reason is a gift that we have received and a duty we have; we must live and transfigure life in the light of reason. It is not by chance that in the Orthodox liturgy Christ is defined as “the light of reason”! This is a truth common to both Christian traditions, East and West. The accent on a mysticism that is really renunciation of one’s reason is a phenomenon typical of Orthodoxy only in recent times. If we take, for example, St. John Damascene with his Aristotelianism, or the Cappadocian Fathers, we find an exaltation of human reason. So too Russian philosophical-religious thought at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century implies a return to the Fathers and an integral anthropological vision. It is no surprise that Fr. Georgij Florovskij invites people to read the medieval Catholic authors, as well as the Fathers, precisely because it is possible to rediscover the same roots, the same Christian impetus, identical in East and West, that is identified in the transfiguration of man as a whole, in all aspects of his being, including reason. The influence of ideologies, instead, lead to the idea that Christianity is not reasonable, but confined to the more peripheral spheres, emotions and feeling, a “palliative cure” for an existential unease for which, one can, in need, go to a priest, as you would to a psychotherapist.

So faith is a journey of cognition?
Certainly, as a reasonable being, I cannot but take reality into consideration, take account of it and give a moral judgment on it. If I renounce reason, then, in so doing, I renounce my conscience, my adult responsibility and freedom. It is interesting that the refusal of reason as a factor of Christian personality leads to two extremes that touch each other: in the East, the childishness of those who hand over all responsibility to the spiritual authority; in the West, the presumed autonomy of some spheres of the human person. In both cases, it is a question of dualism, of a contradiction that is unreasonable, anti-Christian, but, above all, inhuman, because it goes against the main characteristic of the human being, which is its reason. I think that here lies one of the fundamental educative tasks we have: to teach our people, our youngsters, to be responsible, and this responsibility cannot subsist unless in the light of reason. If reason does not govern and judge feelings and emotions, who would be able to persevere in his vocation, in his mission, in completing a work?

Why is the Church often seen as a place of prohibitions, of rules that tend to bridle desires, and not as a place of their realization?
This question is not easy to answer, but I believe that it needs the courage to acknowledge, first of all, that the greater part of the desires our society induces and cultivates turn out to be damaging for man. You just have to look at advertising, and the social stereotypes presented on television. We cannot avoid asking ourselves if this is what our heart really desires, or if it is what they want to inculcate in us and in the end is negative, harmful for us. What I say may seem harsh and unpopular, but it is a diagnosis necessary for healing us from our existential sickness. Even in the field of desire, we cannot do without reason; in the face of an immediate desire before me, I have to give a judgment, to examine it in the light of reason. It is not by chance, after all, that in Spe Salvi the Pope describes Christ as “Shepherd” and “Philosopher”–that is, teacher of life on the basis of His own experience, of His own example and of the human instrument par excellence.
It is interesting to follow the Pope’s reflection on how ideology has been superseded; this is another theme that is common for the West and for Russia. Take note that the Pope refers to ideology above all as a form of “social engineering,” faith in progress, and he quotes Marxism simply as an example. With the fall of Marxism, the ideology of faith in progress has not vanished and continues to show itself as dangerous for human civilization. Perhaps we in Russia are more “vaccinated” against certain ideological forms, but we are defenseless before others. The problem today, I repeat again, is the same, albeit in various forms and ways through which the phenomenon emerges.

Often social and charitable work is indicated as a privileged sphere for dialogue between Christians of different Churches, as it seems the most neutral sphere. Isn’t there the risk, though, of dissolving the specificity of the Christian fact, by reducing it to a doctrinal ethic? As you see it, on what can a real dialogue and a real collaboration between Christians be based, particularly between Catholics and Orthodox, so as to propose true hope to the world?
Monsignor Ilarion Alfeev, the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Vienna, has spoken many times of the need for Catholics and Orthodox to join together so as to try to propose common answers to problems of moral, social, and political character; but this inter-confessional discussion cannot but be accompanied by a broader debate, in the social field, on the role that Christianity must play within society as a whole. The Pope has made a delicate but clear formulation of the Church’s proposal to examine the problems afflicting today’s society, inviting society to partake in the discussion. The Christian communities must get to work, above all in the field of sharing suffering, witnessing to the world the alternative that Christianity offers to the despair of present-day society. Here we come again to the problem of education, which can happen only by means of an encounter, a witness. It cannot be just words, clichés that will convince young people. Only living witnesses of beauty are convincing. Christianity is a life, and it is up to us Christians to witness that hope is what we are living. Christianity has conquered the world as new life, not as an ideology. It is a “performative” truth, not just an “informative” one, as the Pope says. In our Church, too, today, we are facing the question of the witness of lay people, for the moment not fixed or codified as a doctrine as in the Catholic Church, but certainly it is a question of prime importance for the life of the Church in the future. As you say, “lay, that is Christian”–for the transfiguration of the world.