The Witness of Alexei Navalny

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

I have taken these words of Alexei Navalny from a longer article found on the website Public Orthodoxy. These words of Navalny before the Russian judge who would sentence him to prison are introduced by a rather disquieting question by Inga Leonova. I am certain that everyone is aware of the that Alexei Navalny died recently while serving a sentence in a Siberian prison because of his sustained opposition to the repressive regime in Russia.

"What can we, the Orthodox, make of the fact that one of the strongest Christian sermons in recent years was delivered as the last word in the unjust trial of an opposition leader?"

__________

If you want, I’ll talk to you about God and salvation. I’ll turn up the volume of heartbreak to the maximum, so to speak. The fact is that I am a Christian, which usually rather sets me up as an example for constant ridicule in the Anti-Corruption Foundation, because mostly our people are atheists and I was once quite a militant atheist myself. But now I am a believer, and that helps me a lot in my activities, because everything becomes much, much easier. I think about things less. There are fewer dilemmas in my life, because there is a book in which, in general, it is more or less clearly written what action to take in every situation. It’s not always easy to follow this book, of course, but I am actually trying. And so, as I said, it’s easier for me, probably, than for many others, to engage in politics.

A man recently wrote to me, “Navalny, why does everyone write to you, ‘Hold on, don’t give up, be patient, grit your teeth?’ What do you have to tolerate? You kind of said in the interview that you believe in God. The Bible says, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.’ Well, that’s just great for you, isn’t it!” And I thought, how well this man understands me! Because it’s not that I’m fine, but I’ve always thought that this particular commandment is more or less an instruction to activity. And so, while certainly not really enjoying the place where I am, I have no regrets about coming back, or about what I’m doing. It’s fine, because I did the right thing. On the contrary, I feel a real kind of satisfaction. Because at some difficult moment I did as required by the instructions, and did not betray the commandment.

And there’s one more important thing. Without question, this whole Biblical passage—“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled”—comes across as overly theatrical to modern ears. It is assumed that people who say such things are crazy, not to put too fine a point on it—crazy oddbods who sit there alone in their rooms with disheveled hair, attempting to cheer themselves up by any means possible, because they are lonely and not needed by anyone. This is the key point. Our authorities and the system as a whole try to tell these people that they are pathetic loners.

The first priority is to intimidate people, and then to prove to them that they are loners, and to imply that no normal or sane person would adhere to teachings of this kind. This attempt to make people believe that they are loners is highly significant, since it represents one of the goals pursued by the authorities. Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter books was a remarkable philosopher who said something very wise about this topic. You might remember her saying to Harry Potter, in an attempt to give him courage in the face of adversity; “Well, if I were You-Know-Who… I’d want you to feel cut off from everyone else…” There can be no doubt that our own You-Know-Who in his palace would also want that.

These guards are great chaps, and the guards in my prison are also decent folk, but they don’t talk to me—they have apparently been forbidden to do so. They sometimes come out with stock phrases. This is also very important, because the aim is for me to feel unceasingly lonely. Yet this is not how I feel at all. And I will explain why. This teaching—“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied”—appears somehow esoteric and odd, but in fact it is the central political doctrine in modern Russia. Your Honor, what is it, this phrase or slogan, the most important political slogan in Russia? Where does power lie? Power lies in truth. That is what this teaching is saying. That is how it could be compressed into a Tweet, omitting the unnecessary words such as “for” and “thirst.” This is what it essentially means. And the whole country repeats in many different permutations that power lies in truth, and that whoever holds the truth will be victorious.

^{– Alexey Navalny’s closing remarks in Moscow City Court, February 20, 2021.}

 

The Death of Alexei Navalny

Photo: free.navalny.com

Dear Parish Faithful,

I am sure that most of you have heard that the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny died last Friday while languishing in a Siberian prison near the Arctic circle (a prison that was formerly part of the Soviet Gulag slave labor camps), the victim of an oppressive authoritarian system that is responsible for his death, regardless of what the final "medical" reason behind his death actually is. That is something we may never know. And only God knows what he suffered in that prison for the last three years. 

In an age seemingly devoid of heroes, Navalny happens to be precisely that - a man of great courage and integrity. In short - a real hero. And these powerful virtues are in sharp contrast with the dictator who feared his principled opposition and then persecuted him. After nearly dying from an attempt to poison him, Navalny bravely returned to Russia to resume his role of opposition to the Putin regime. He was immensely popular. But he clearly understood the danger of returning to his home country and putting himself within the grasp of the authorities. As put in a new article in "Foreign Affairs" by the journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan:

For Russian society, confused, depressed, and constantly besieged by an ever more repressive regime, Navalny was a lone unifying figure. Although Russian authorities isolated him in increasingly restrictive layers of confinement since his arrest on his return to Russia in 2021, he continued to have that stature right up to the moment of his death. Navalny’s demise marks a dark new step in Putin’s ruthless pursuit of power. But it also raises a stark challenge for Russia’s opposition, which must now figure out how to sustain the unity he created and seize the movement he left behind.

I do believe that it is "meet and right" to acknowledge Alexei Navalny's tragic death so that we can think about what it means to stand up today for truth and honesty in a time when posturing and rhetoric are being rewarded by a great deal of public opinion. If the word martyrdom means "witness," we can say that Navalny was a martyr, for he was a witness who gave his life for the sake of defending justice and honesty - what we would call "righteousness" -  as did St. John the Forerunner. Like St. John, he boldly stood up to and spoke against a leader who ruled through fear and oppression. The Herods of old have been replaced all through history by latter-day tyrants exhibiting the same dreary traits of corruption and cowardice. They can only respond to strong morally-based opposition by repression and persecution. That is precisely why history judges them as "infamous." But their victims are deeply respected and remembered as heroes and "icons" of goodness and moral integrity. 

I would like to also share a couple of paragraphs from an article by the esteemed journalist and historian, Anne Applebaum, a scholar who has spent most of her professional life studying and writing about totalitarian regimes in which basic civility is cynically trampled on. The article from which this paragraphs is taken, was published on Friday in the Atlantic Monthly and is entitled "Why Russia Killed Navalny."

The enormous contrast between Navalny’s civic courage and the corruption of Putin’s regime will remain. Putin is fighting a bloody, lawless, unnecessary war, in which hundreds of thousands of ordinary Russians have been killed or wounded, for no reason other than to serve his own egotistical vision.

Even behind bars Navalny was a real threat to Putin, because he was living proof that courage is possible, that truth exists, that Russia could be a different kind of country. For a dictator who survives thanks to lies and violence, that kind of challenge was intolerable. Now Putin will be forced to fight against Navalny’s memory, and that is a battle he will never win.

Alexei Navalny was a man of great moral integrity. His untimely death is a tragedy. We hope that it was not in vain. As we exclaim in the Church: Memory Eternal!

 

The Threat of Dehumanization

 

 

I was recently reading an article concerning a current political and social issue by Peter Wehner, a Christian writer and leader of the Trinity Forum. In the middle of his article, I encountered this paragraph in which Peter Wehner calls the reader's attention to a process that is becoming more and more common in today's public discourse: The tendency to reduce the humanity of one's opponents and enemies. This process is called dehumanization. Here is the relevant paragraph from Peter Wehner's article:

"Dehumanizers view their targets as having “a human appearance but a subhuman essence,” according to David Livingstone Smith, a philosophy professor who has written on the history and complicated psychological roots of dehumanization. “It is the dehumanizer’s nagging awareness of the other’s humanity that gives dehumanization its distinctive psychological flavor,” he writes. “Ironically, it is our inability to regard other people as nothing but animals that leads to unimaginable cruelty and destructiveness.” Dehumanized people can be turned into something worse than animals; they can be turned into monsters. They aren’t just dangerous; they are metaphysically threatening. They are not just subhuman; they are irredeemably destructive."

We should be aware of the fact that two of the most infamous tyrants of the 20th c. - Hitler and Mussolini - called their enemies "vermin." (Lenin and Stalin called them “enemies of the people”). Ominously, the reduction of human beings – perceived as the enemy – to the level of vermin has recently entered into our own public/political discourse. Has that term ever been used before? This is dehumanization in an extreme form, for vermin are simply not human (the word comes from the Middle English - borrowed from the Anglo-French - verm or worm). To describe human beings as "vermin" is to strip them of their humanity, to reduce human beings to people perceived as despicable and dangerous to humanity. This is the dangerous rhetoric, indeed. This supports the definition of dehumanization above by David Livingstone Smith. Vermin, in the words of a parishioner, can only be treated by “extermination.” Hence, violence against such “monsters” is legitimized. We know the horrid results of this dehumanization of living human beings in the ghastly reigns of Hitler and Mussolini. And, for good measure, we can add Lenin and Stalin.

Obviously and tragically, human beings dehumanize themselves through repeated acts of serious sin. This is true of tyrants, dictators and killers. This is why criminal justice and prison systems exist: Human beings can do horrible things that dehumanize themselves and the people that they victimize. It is our responsibility to recognize this when it happens. We call this discernment. Only in this way, can we struggle against the nefarious and even malignant spread of sin, systemic or personal. But Peter Wehner in the passage above is pointing to the troubling trend of dehumanizing the actually decent people who may oppose us ideologically - or even, simply, politically. It is easy to fall prey to this if we lack vigilance or simply allow ourselves to be swept up into such careless discourse. We can easily lose sight of the humanity of the "other side." Is this happening within our own country?

Our goal as Orthodox Christians is to ceaselessly affirm the true humanity of all persons. It is by this affirmation of the other that we acknowledge that each and every human being has been created in the image and likeness of God. We cannot resort to the rhetoric that degenerates to the level of calling other human beings "vermin." We must oppose it even when employed by a person that we tend to agree with or support. In fact, the use of this abusive language may just challenge our own discernment in supporting such a person. Our goal is to humanize, not dehumanize, our neighbor - even if we strongly disagree with such a neighbor. 

I would like to re-emphasize, that what I am writing is in no way promoting a relativistic tolerance of sinful behavior (as in: no matter what someone actually does, ultimately we are all fine so we shouldn’t criticize anyone or challenge their beliefs or motives); or even with the non-acknowledgment of how deep-rooted sin deprives a human being of his/her humanity - sin can indeed be dehumanizing. But I was struck by what the philosopher David Livingstone Smith has written on the topic, which serves as a warning to what can happen among decent and well-intentioned people. Is not this what happened under both Hitler and Mussolini in Germany and Italy respectively? Is not the resurgence today, within our own society, of the irrational and wholly unjustified rise of both antisemitism and Islamophobia following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, a warning sign of just how this can happen, even in a democratic society that prides itself on tolerance and civility? Once common civility – or basic deceny- is abandoned when responding to one’s ideological opponents, then the guardrails have been removed, and then, more-or-less, anything is permitted.

When we again celebrate the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, we commemorate His birth in the flesh, but also the renewal of human nature, the very human nature that the eternal Son of God assumed in the womb of His mother. We call this renewal of human nature the deification of that very human nature which had been estranged from God through sin and death. The healing of human nature begins with the Incarnation and subsequent passing of that human nature through death and into the light of the resurrection and its future glorification. That process is not “mechanical” or “magical.” It is given as a potential gift to those who consciously and freely accept that gift and then make an honest attempt to live according to the will of God. This is the noble challenge of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. To contend with our own ignoble tendencies may be equivalent to bearing a cross. But if we pursue that goal of reflecting the presence of Christin our lives honestly, we will always be able to see the humanity of other human beings, fallen and sinful though we and they may actually be.

It is true that we “dehumanize” ourselves through our sinful actions, words and thoughts. But we cannot allow ourselves to dehumanize our religious, ideological or political adversaries by the dangerous rhetoric that is becoming more and more widespread – and tolerated - in the current divisiveness of our contemporary world. And right here in our country. As Christians we can never align ourselves with referencing other human beings as “vermin.” Christians are responsible for opposing such a sinful breakdown of decent civil discourse, not for the sake of “good manners,” but in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who is truly philanthropos. 

- Fr. Steven

 

A Reflection on our Latest Tragedy

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

"My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth." (Psalm 121:2)

Another Gun-Related Massacre - Only ten days ago, we were disheartened to hear of ten people being killed by a mass shooter in Buffalo, NY. Today, the news is even more sickening - if that is possible - because as many as nineteen children and three adults have been brutally massacred in a school by yet another mass shooter who, on his eighteenth birthday, was able to walk into a store and purchase two "assault rifles." As well-intentioned as it is, does anyone think that the parents of the dead children are consoled by our limp assurance that "you are in our prayers?" This time the shooter was killed at the scene. That will probably make discovering the motive more difficult, unless he left behind clear reasons behind his rampage. 

Be that as it may, here is yet another infamous event that once again forces us to face the fact that mass shootings in America are on such a scale that these shootings simply have no comparison with any other country. Not even close. More specifically, school shootings are almost exclusively an American phenomenon. We can no longer deny the connection between these mass shootings and the fact that America has the most permissive gun laws in the developed world. There is a certain fatalism in not addressing this madness. I understand that there are those who will disagree with that assessment, but there is ample data that supports this position.

This is from the journalist David Frum:

Every other democracy makes some considerable effort to keep guns away from dangerous people, and dangerous people away from guns. For many years—and especially since the massacre at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School almost a decade ago—the United States has put more and more guns into more and more hands: 120 guns per 100 people in this country. The years of the pandemic have been the years of the greatest gun sales in U.S. history: almost 20 million guns sold in 2020; another 18.5 million sold in 2021. No surprise, those two years also witnessed a surge in gun violence: the spectacular human butchery of our recurring mass slaughters; the surge of one-on-one lethal criminality; the unceasing tragic toll of carelessness as American gun owners hurt and kill their loved ones and themselves.

 

Here are some sobering words from Megan Ranney, described as "Dean of Brown University and emergency physician with public health expertise in gun safety." These passages were found in an article written yesterday in response to this horrific tragedy, entitled, "Backward and Downward," by the journalist Katherine J. Wu. Ranney stated the following about the effect of gun-related homicides on the families of such victims:

"There is almost no way to describe to someone not in health care what it is like to let a family member know that their loved one was lost to a gunshot,” Ranney told me. “The ripple effects on families, on health-care providers, and on the larger community is almost incalculable. Bullet wounds hurt not just the person who has been shot, but everyone who surrounds them. It creates fear; it creates division.

 

Yet, Ranney does not despair, but is convinced that these mass shootings can be at least reduced with proper attention and resolve: 

“We know that change is possible,” she said, if the country can reduce the availability of firearms to people who will misuse them. Ranney drew a parallel to the plunge in fatal motor-vehicle crashes that’s played out over the past half century. “We made a choice to not accept the car-crash deaths at the rate that they were at,” she told me. “We’ve done that through sustained effort on a federal, state, but also local level in terms of policy, education, and research. This is not an impossible problem. This is not hopeless. But it requires a commitment to do more than just talk about it in the wake of a mass shooting. It requires a commitment to address it every single day.”

 

This will take commitment and resolve. And that is something that we can and should pray for.

And, again, from David Frum:

Whether any particular killer proves to be a racist, a jihadist, a sexually frustrated incel, or a randomly malignant carrier of sorrow and grief, can Americans ever break the pattern of empty thoughts, meaningless prayers, and more and worse bloodshed to follow?

 

We call Christ the Prince of Peace. Christ taught us, "Blessed are the peacemakers ... " And we pray for the "peace of the whole world" in the Liturgy. There is no sentimental rhetoric in that title, in that teaching and in that petition. However, being immersed in a pattern of extreme violence can not only numb us to the horror of it all, but also weaken our commitment to peace, as "self-defense" becomes our default position in life. Not exactly a position that is found in the Gospel. Which is why, from a Christian perspective, there is something clearly incoherent in the bumper sticker formula "God and guns." Resisting that false formula in the context of American religious culture is an imperative first step toward resolving the terrible dilemma we find ourselves in.

 

Things Are Getting Scary

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

Politics are divisive, and that is eminently true this year as we approach the presidential election. There is even a sense of violence in the air. Of course, we condemn all violence, including the violence and looting that accompanied this last summer's massive peaceful protest demonstrations. Investigators are revealing that this unwanted violence came from both the "left" and from the "right." Yet, just last week we discovered ("in the nick of time?") an unprecedented conspiracy that changes the whole landscape of political discord surrounding us. And this, of course, was the arrest of members of a paramilitary group, described by authorities as "an anti-government, anti law-enforcement militia group." 

This group - The Wolverine Watchmen of Michigan - was seriously planning to kidnap the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. The immediate motive appears to be a highly-radicalized reaction in protest of Michigan's coronarvirus lockdown initiated back in April and May. Once kidnapped, there was talk of putting Gov. Whitmer on "trial." We can only assume that the "jury" would deliver a "guilty" verdict. The plot seemed ill-conceived, even amateurish, but it was a serious plot that included an armed storming of the Michigan state capitol, and perhaps the detonation of a distracting bomb. There was even wild talk of starting a "civil war." I believe that six militia men directly involved in the plot, and another seven, some from the East coast, were arrested. Some of the planning actually occurred in Dublin, OH.

A poll taken three years back by YouGuv revealed that eight per cent of Americans stated that they approve of violence as a necessary tool for promoting a political agenda. The same poll recently increased that number to about sixteen per cent. Still a low, but dangerous number, considered our overall population. Our two most powerful law enforcement agencies, Homeland Security and the FBI, have both released studies that claim that the greatest threat of domestic violence in America for 2021 is emanating precisely from these types of nationalistic militia groups. Just how "patriotic" does that sound? The strange irony here is that in a post-9/11 world, we anticipated our greatest threat to be from international (Islamic) terrorism. But that has not really materialized. Something to think about.

We thank God that this latest threat was exposed before anyone was hurt. From some of my reading, other militia groups in America were shaken up by these arrests. Is it too much to hope that they "get the message?" Or, are we facing more of this "voting by violence?" Violence from the "right" of from the "left" must be rejected as unethical and unsupportable. We have to trust the democratic process of voting our approval or disapproval of a particular candidate, platform or party, in a peaceful, civil and dignified manner. I am not aware of a different approach that would resonate with our Christian faith.

++++++++++

 

On the subject of voting, the following statement is from Archbishop Paul. It is a balanced approach to voting in this year's polarizing presidential election, coming up in about three weeks time. This is not a dogmatic statement, and Archbishop Paul is not here "rightly defining the word of truth." It is basically an "opinion piece," but written from a Christian perspective - a perspective that does not absolutize politics and which calls for mutual tolerance and civility.


This is taken from the Midwest Diocesan Website. If you would like to visit there: https://www.midwestfamily.org/reflections/archbishop-pauls-reflections/voting-ones-conscience/


Fr. Steven


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Voting One’s Conscience

Everyone is free to vote for either candidate for President and for other items on this year’s ballot. A person’s vote seems to revolve around the policies each candidate puts forward during the campaign and the party platforms passed at each convention before the election. Everyone should vote according to each candidate’s policies and values that are consistent with their own values and beliefs. Some people may decide to vote based on where the candidates stand on the issue of sanctity of life. Others may base their vote on how the candidates stand on other issues. They may even decide to vote for a candidate that doesn’t support the overturn of Roe vs. Wade. Yet they still accept the Church’s teaching that abortion is a sin. No one should be condemned or harshly criticized for how they vote. One’s vote should be exercised freely. A person can share whom they voted for, but there is no need to make an overly public display of it.

When it comes to our kids, I do have one question to ask: Do schools still stage mock elections using a ballot of items to vote on? I think it would be a great idea if parents could sit down with their children who are capable of looking at a ballot and making a choice. If they are willing to share how they voted, parents can walk their children through each ballot item. They could help them to articulate why they voted the way they did. What did they consider in their decision? This is where the question might be asked, is the vote consistent with what the Church teaches? Is that a fair question to ask? Voting should not be based on how one feels.

The issue that concerns me the most today is the mutual intolerance that exists between our political parties. Stories are being put forward about what will happen if a certain candidate doesn’t win, causing confusion and worry. Cable news and social media outlets seem to fan these tensions with talks of mass protests and riots. This is a problem. We should do nothing in family life that encourages this kind of behavior. There is no room for intolerance and hatred in determining how a person votes. To act in this manner is contrary to our faith. Parents, do all you can to foster a sober and serious attitude with your children when it comes to voting. Voting is to be based on what someone thinks and not what they feel.

The blessing of the Lord be upon you,

Archbishop Paul