Byzantium, Orthodoxy,and DemocracyAristotle Papanikolaou

Aristotle Papanikolaou is an assistant professor of theology at Fordham University, New York, NY, 10023.

I would like to express my thanks to William Schweiker and Charles T. Mathewes for their com-ments on an earlier version of this article. Responsibility for whatever mistakes, omissions, and defi-ciencies that may appear in the argument is clearly my own. I would be remiss if I did not also thankmy students in the “Orthodox Christian Social Ethics” class that I taught at Holy Cross Greek Ortho-dox School of Theology, in Brookline, MA, from 1997 to 2000. Their interest and insights, togetherwith their probing and incisive questions, did much to shape this article’s form and content.

Journal of the American Academy of Religion March 2003, Vol. 71, No. 1, pp. 75–98© 2003 The American Academy of Religion

This article addresses the question of the compatibility between EasternOrthodox Christianity and modern understandings of democracy. Re-cent images in the press suggest at worst hostility toward democracy andat best ambivalence on the part of the Orthodox churches. The source ofthis hostility and ambivalence lies in part with Orthodoxy’s Byzantineheritage. The influence of this heritage is especially evident in a recentdebate between two contemporary Orthodox ethicists, Stanley Harakasand Vigen Guroian, over the proper role of the Orthodox Church in re-lation to the American democratic state. Through an analysis of thisdebate this article argues that there does not exist a “clash of civiliza-tions” between Orthodoxy and democracy and that Orthodox supportof communitarian forms of democracy is warranted on inner theologi-cal grounds. This article also intends to offer a concrete response to aninevitable question regarding the relation of religion and empire: Are re-ligious traditions whose own thinking on political philosophy was shapedwithin the context of an empire inherently incompatible with moderndemocratic principles of church–state separation, multiculturalism, andreligious pluralism?

The church’s ideology is common to that of all authoritarian ideologies.. . . It was because of the Orthodox Church that this society was easily con-vinced that it had to become obedient followers of the Communist Party.

—Miladin Zivotic, former philosophy professorat Belgrade University (in Hedges 1997)

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The Roman Catholic Church announced in the Second Vatican Councilthat it was the duty of believers to support democracy and human rights.. . . But the church in the east has never addressed these issues and founditself unprepared with the fall of Communism.

—Mirko Djordjevic, retired literature professor (in Hedges 1997)

THE ABOVE QUOTATIONS shape one of the questions that this ar-ticle hopes to address: Are Eastern Orthodox Christianity and democracyincompatible? Recent images within the press might suggest a positiveresponse to this question.1 Recent writings by Orthodox theologians ex-press a more ambivalent view of the relation between Orthodoxy and de-mocracy. In the early part of the century the Russian theologian SergiusBulgakov, known for his political writings, argued that there “is no dog-matic bond between Orthodoxy and any particular political system” (inHarakas 1976: 408).2 Such a statement gives the impression that the Or-thodox Church gives tacit approval even to the worst forms of totalitar-ian and oppressive governments. More recently, Thomas Hopko, former

1 See, for example, the, by now infamous, “Russian Law on the Freedom of Conscience and Reli-gious Association.” For discussion on the law, see Witte and Bourdeaux. There is also the recent ses-sion of the Joint Russian–Iranian Commission on the “Islam–Orthodoxy” Dialogue held in Moscowin June 1999: Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, the chairman of the Department ofExternal Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate and considered the number two person in the Rus-sian Orthodox Church, and Aya Mohammed Ali Tashkiri, the president of Iran’s Culture and IslamicRelations Organization, expressed their unified stance in protecting their traditions against what theyperceived as an attack from western liberal values (reported by Andrei Zolotov Jr. in “Moslems, Ortho-dox Find Common Foe?” The Moscow Times, 8 June 1999; available at www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/1999/06/08/008.html; accessed 18 December 2002; for the communiqué issued at the end of the session,see www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/9906a.html; accessed 18 December 2002). Some might also pointto the response by the hierarchs and clergy of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) during the wars inBosnia and Kosovo. During the Bosnian war the responses by members of the hierarchy and clergy ofthe Orthodox churches in Bosnia and Serbia were confused and contradictory. For such responses, seeSells and Mojzes. Since the publication of these writings, and in the midst of revising this article, theSOC has more consistently declared publicly its opposition to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošovicand its support for the implementation of democratic reforms and structures in Serbia itself and through-out Bosnia and Kosovo (see Gall). The SOC’s (2000a, 2000b) recent position culminated in its immedi-ate acceptance of Vojislav Kostunica as the legitimate president of Yugoslavia (for the statement of sup-port for Kostunica issued by the Holy Synod of the SOC, visit www.orthodoxnews.com). Although thereexist extreme nationalist and fanatical elements within the SOC, the conflict in the Balkans during thepast decade is a manifestation of an Orthodox Church being “unprepared” to deal with the consequencesof the fall of communism and of a church in search for an understanding of its proper role in relation toa state and culture whose identity it has played a constitutive role in forming. This article hopes in partto give the SOC’s more recent pro-democracy stance theological grounding.

2 The Russian Orthodox Church took a similar position in August 2000 in the publication of itscomprehensive social document, The Orthodox Church and Society: The Basis of the Social Conceptof the Russian Orthodox Church. The document reaffirms a 1994 Bishops’ Council of the RussianOrthodox Church, which declared that “the Church does not give preference to any social systemor any of the existing political doctrines” (3.7). This article argues that on inner theological groundsOrthodox churches can and must give “preference” to existing political philosophies.

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dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, has written, “Asthe grandson of Carpatho-Russian immigrants to the United States, Icannot imagine my life in any other society except with gratitude for mypersonal destiny. As an Orthodox Christian . . . I also cannot imagine away of life more insidious to Christian Orthodoxy and more potentiallydangerous to human being and life” (364).

The source of this ambivalence is, in part, Orthodoxy’s past and, morespecifically, the Orthodox Church’s self-avowedly proud link to the heri-tage of the Byzantine Empire. For the Orthodox Church, the ByzantineEmpire is not a passing moment in its history but, rather, a formativeperiod for its thought and practices. Within the empire itself, OrthodoxChristianity was culturally and politically dominant. The current andtimely question of Eastern Orthodoxy and democracy is also a questionof the lingering effects of a past in which a particular religious traditionwas the dominant cultural and political force within the context of anempire. At issue is the relation among religion, empire, a theology of thestate, and a theology of culture.

The first part of this article attempts to show that within the specificcontext of the Byzantine Empire, in which Orthodox Christianity wasthe established religion and the primary principle of unity within theByzantine culture, religion did not simply give theological support toimperial structures. The structures of the Byzantine Empire, with Or-thodox Christianity as the state-sponsored religion, also influenced theform and content that theologies of state and culture would assume inEastern Christianity. In the diverse manifestations of the relation be-tween religion and empire in human history, it is certainly not uniqueto the Byzantine Empire that religious beliefs shape and justify particu-lar conceptions of empire; what is unique is that with the conversion ofConstantine I, an inconsistent and undeveloped Christian theology ofstate and culture assumed definite form.

The present-day Orthodox churches are the inheritors of the Byzantinetheocratic legacy. The Orthodox Church’s encounter with modern democ-racy raises the broader question of how a religious tradition, whose owntheologies of state and culture were shaped within the context of an empirein which it was the state-sponsored religion and, hence, the primary prin-ciple of cultural unity, is able to accept democratic forms of government anda multicultural society. The Orthodox Church was unprepared to face is-sues of democracy and human rights because its own theologies of state andculture were formed within a context in which democracy had no meaning.The question is whether there are resources within its theological traditionthat would allow it to give unequivocal support to democracy and the demo-cratic principles of church–state separation and multiculturalism.

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Contemporary Orthodox thinkers are themselves divided on theissue of Orthodoxy and democracy. The second part of this article fo-cuses on a specific debate between two leading Orthodox ethicists,Stanley Harakas and Vigen Guroian, in part to illustrate how the cur-rent discussion is influenced by either positive or negative assessmentsof the Orthodox Church’s Byzantine past. Harakas, somewhat ironically,attempts to justify the separation of church and state within the contextof U.S. democracy through a reinterpretation of the constitutive “ele-ments” of the Byzantine theocratic notion of symphonia, harmony be-tween church and state. Guroian rejects both the notion of symphoniaand the notion of church–state separation, hence American democracy,seeing both as a betrayal of the Orthodox understanding of the churchand its mission to transform the world.3

My own position argues for an acceptance of Harakas’s conclusionsusing Guroian’s methods. Accepting Guroian’s interpretation of Orthodoxecclesiology, I argue that such an understanding of the church necessarilyleads to an acceptance of a communitarian form of democracy that includes,by definition, the notion of church–state separation and an affirmation ofmulticulturalism. I wish to show that in the end, despite its Byzantine pastand contrary to Miladin Zivotic’s assessment, Orthodox ecclesiology leadsto unequivocal support of communitarian forms of democracy as the pre-ferred option over other forms of political community.

The importance of addressing the question of the lingering effects ofthe Byzantine heritage on contemporary Orthodox theologies of state andculture, and the correlative question of the compatibility between Ortho-doxy and democracy, is threefold. First, this article intends to offer guidanceto an inevitable question regarding the relation of religion and empire: Howdoes a particular religious tradition, whose own theologies of state andculture have been shaped within the context of an empire in which it wasthe state-established religion and, hence, the main standard of culturalunity, confront the modern realities of democracy and the democraticnotions of church–state separation and multiculturalism? Do there existresources within its tradition that would allow it to embrace these mod-ern realities? In a broad sense, it is a question of whether a religious tradi-tion that enjoyed political and cultural dominance, and whose thought

3 H. Richard Niebuhr’s five “types” of relations that have existed between Christ and culturethrough the history of Christianity may be helpful to give some initial sense of Guroian’s position.Guroian would clearly see his social ethic along the lines of the type of “Christ the transformer ofculture,” though, as we shall see below, Harakas (1990: 80) has accused Guroian of assuming a“Christ against culture” stance. See Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture.

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and practices were shaped within a particular empire, is able to embracemodern political and cultural forms.4

Second, this article hopes to contribute toward demystifying and ex-plaining debates regarding Orthodox political theology to a non-Ortho-dox and primarily English-speaking audience for whom Orthodoxy isoften an exotic religion and who have become increasingly interested inOrthodoxy since the emergence of many of the world’s hot spots in ar-eas where the Orthodox Church has substantial influence. Finally, thesignificance of the question is also implied in Mirko Djordjevic’s judg-ment that, unlike the Vatican, Orthodoxy has not dealt with issues re-lating to democracy and human rights and is presently unprepared interms of a coherent vision to deal with the fall of communism that is adecade old. Whatever the reasons for this lack of preparedness, the Or-thodox churches are presently in a state of confusion, and at times con-tradiction, regarding church–state relations.5 Such confusion, however,

4 In raising this question, it appears that I have established an opposition between the totalitar-ian and imperialistic empires and the tolerant, diverse, and pluralistic democracies. The potentialfor imperialism and totalitarianism exists within all political systems. John Milbank reminds usthat the present “secular order” in western Europe and the United States did not inevitably evolve;nor is it seemingly a “neutral” space for pursuit of private good and the expression of ideas. Ac-cording to Milbank, “The space of the secular had to be invented as the space of ‘pure power’” (14).This “new, secular dominium could not, according to the totalizing logic of willful occupation whichnow mediated transcendence in the public realm, really tolerate a ‘political’ Church as a cohabi-tant” (Milbank: 17). For Stanley Hauerwas, the political philosophy of democratic pluralism is an“ideology,” whose presumption of a “common morality that we all share and that we all know howto work for” is nothing less than a “message of imperialism” (526). The irony, of course, is thatwhile religious convictions often contributed to the totalitarianism and imperialism of empire, inmodern western democracies religion becomes conquered and suppressed by being coercively priva-tized. While not ignoring the potential for, and perhaps the already existing, totalitarianism andimperialism of modern western democracies, in contrast to the popular impression, it need not bethe case that a “secular” cultural and political space requires the privatization of religion—a pointthat is explored in greater detail below. Furthermore, if in fact diversity and pluralism are valuedwithin a society, then strictly in pragmatic terms within a democratic polity there exists a greaterpossibility for a mechanism of subversion of totalitarian and imperialistic tendencies toward se-curing diversity and pluralism. The recent debate on religion and public life is but one example ofsuch a mechanism. Subversion within the context of an empire can have no greater hope than toreplace one form of totalitarianism with another.

5 Among other places the contradiction is evident, on one hand, in the well-known condemna-tion of NATO bombing of Serbia by Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and, on the other hand, in thesame patriarch’s adamant defense of Russian aggression in Chechnya. Such actions by the patri-arch of Moscow reflect the contradictions and incoherencies in the social document of the RussianOrthodox Church, The Orthodox Church and Society, especially the section “Church and State.”There is also the Serbian Orthodox Church’s support of democratic reforms in Serbia while attempt-ing to make the teaching of religion compulsory in Yugoslav schools (see Branko, Keston NewsService, available at www.keston.org/knsframe.htm; accessed 18 December 2002.). The confusionis also evident in the Church of Greece’s recent support of a ban of a controversial book that makessuggestions of sexual encounters experienced by Christ and its role in the recent debate in Greece

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is potentially disastrous especially for those in the former communistcountries where the Orthodox Church is an integral, if not formative, partof the historical and cultural identity of the particular country and a pow-erful voice in shaping its political future.6 By participating in a debate thatwill influence how a tradition will affect the consciousness of its adher-ents, this article hopes to make a modest attempt toward supporting theformation of democratic institutions in many of the former communistcountries in which the Orthodox Church continues to be, among otherthings, an inevitable political and cultural institution.7

RELIGION, EMPIRE, THEOCRACY, ANDMULTICULTURALISM: THE BYZANTINE MODEL

The earliest Christian documents give no clear or consistent statementsof Christian theologies of state or culture. Christianity was an emergingreligion within the Roman Empire, whose official religion it would rejectand against which it would define itself. Although it would reject its reli-gion, Christians expressed a more ambiguous attitude toward the politi-cal institutions of the Roman Empire. Jesus’ own proclamation to “renderunto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that areGod’s” (Mt. 22:21), although not condemning political institutions asinherently evil, does not seem to give them divine sanction, as Paul wouldlater do: “and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God”(Rom. 13:1). The fall of Babylon in the book of Revelation (Rev. 17:1–

over the removal of the category of religious affiliation from state-issued identification papers. Itshould be clear that the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece did not object to the removal per sebut, rather, argued that it should be made optional. It also objected to the fact that the state did notdiscuss the issue with the church before deciding on the removal. Many Orthodox hierarchs, bothwithin Greece and outside Greece, did not agree with the official position of the synod, claimingthat the church should have nothing to do with a matter for which the state alone is responsible.For a fuller account of Orthodox responses to the modern state and the lack of consistency in suchresponses, see Ramet.

6 These countries include Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia,Armenia, and Macedonia. Although never communist, Greece should not be excluded from thislist. Orthodox influence is also evident in such countries as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia,and Albania.

7 There are obvious parallels with this project and other current attempts to explore the compatibil-ity/incompatibility of a particular religious tradition with democracy. World events have focused atten-tion particularly on Islam. For a recent discussion on the relation between Islam and democracy, seeSachedina. My own argument is similar to Sachedina’s in showing that there need not necessarily be a“clash of civilizations” between a particular religious tradition and democratic polity and that it is pos-sible for religious language to articulate democratic principles. I would add that the sense of urgency fordiscussions of the relation between Islam and democracy resulting from the ongoing and ever changingcircumstances of the Middle East and the western and eastern areas of South Asia should be expandedto the tenuous political situation within the eastern European Orthodox countries.

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18:24), the rejection of the “world” in the letters of John (1 Jn. 2:15), andthe metaphor of the “two ways” in the early Christian document Didacheall suggest a harsher assessment of the political institutions of the empire.These three options—necessity, divine sanction, and condemnation—areprevalent throughout early Christian literature.

This ambivalence toward political institutions would change within theeastern part of the empire in the early fourth century C.E. with the ascen-dancy of Constantine I (324–337) to the throne. In 313 C.E. Constantineissued the Edict of Milan, which granted religious freedom within the em-pire but was also the first step toward Christianity becoming the establishedreligion of the empire (Frend: 483). It became the first step because ofConstantine’s “conversion” to Christianity. Although scholarly debate con-tinues on the question of the authenticity of Constantine’s conversion, thereis no disputing the popular belief in his conversion and the patronage Con-stantine bestowed on Christian institutions and churches, which seemedto support the perception of conversion. Christianity was not declared theofficial state religion until 380, under Theodosius I (379–395), but a par-ticular understanding of the Christian state, a Christian theocracy, startedto take shape under Constantine, especially in the person of Eusebius ofCaesarea.

Although Christianity was still in the minority during Eusebius’s time,this did not stop him from describing the Emperor Constantine as the“Viceroy of God” or the empire itself as an image of the heavenly king-dom (Baynes: 48–51; Runciman 1977: 22). The theological horizon forEusebius’s theocracy is strict Christian monotheism: the one emperorand his empire are the imitation of the one God and God’s sovereignty(Fowden: 85–90). Eusebius provided the language for describing theChristian emperor and the Christian empire that would become com-mon in later Byzantine political theory, especially after Christianity wouldbecome the state-sponsored religion. The emperor as the Christian rulerof a Christian empire was eventually seen not as one option among di-verse theologies of state but, rather, as the particular constitutional form“willed by God and sustained by Him” (Baynes: 48).

The formation of this Byzantine notion of a Christian theocracy is aclassic case of religious influence on the understanding of the imperialauthority; the emperor’s authority was justified in terms of a Christiantheological framework and with Christian theological categories. But itis also evidence of the contextuality of theologies of state. An inconsis-tent Christian understanding of the state, as seen in the Christian lit-erature of the first three centuries, took definite shape within an empirewhose emperor converted to Christianity and whose subsequent emper-ors, with the exception of Julian, were all Christian. A Christian emperor

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challenged Christians to rethink and justify the newly emerging and fa-vorable structures. Eusebius and later Byzantine political theology wouldunderstand the new Christian emperor as a vehicle for the one God’ssovereign power; the empire was a means for universalizing Christianity,understood as the true message of the one true God. Eusebius, in effect,accomplished the “sacralization of empire” (Fowden: 89) by describingthe empire as the divinely willed society of the one true God, but he didso only after Christianity itself had infiltrated the imperial court.8

The understanding of the emperor as God’s representative on earthwould inevitably raise the question of the role of the bishop within thistheocracy. There was little ecclesial opposition to the newly emergingunderstanding of the Christian emperor. It was given initial expressionby Eusebius, who was a bishop of Caesarea. Although distinctive institu-tions, the roles of the emperor and the bishop were understood and jus-tified within the same Christian framework. The Byzantine theocracycalled for the emperor and the bishop to cooperate for the sake of the unityof the Christian empire, the image of the heavenly kingdom, and the unityof the faith.

Justinian I (527–565) gave classical expression to this understanding ofharmony, or symphonia, between the emperor and the bishop, in particu-lar the patriarch of Constantinople. Justinian continued the theocratic tra-dition of Eusebius, as seen by such phrases attributed to him: “‘By the willof God we govern an Empire that has come to us from His Divine Majesty,’or ‘God alone, and the Emperor who follows God, can rule the world withjustice’” (Runciman 1977: 46). Justinian makes a distinction between theimperium and the sacerdotium; the former refers to the emperor and is re-sponsible for “human affairs,” whereas the later refers to the priesthood,symbolized in the person of the bishop, and “serves divine things” (Meyen-dorff: 48; Runciman 1977: 46). In his sixth Novella Justinian declaresthat “for if the priesthood is in every way free from blame and possessesaccess to God, and if the emperors administer equitably and judiciouslythe state entrusted to their care, general harmony (symphonia tes agathe)will result and whatever is beneficial will be bestowed upon the human

8 There is some evidence that Lanctantius, who in his Divine Institutes gives a theological justifi-cation for religious freedom, may have influenced Constantine. This influence may extend to theEdict of Milan, which one could argue stands in tension with the Eusebian understanding of Con-stantine and the empire. It is clear, however, that the Eusebian model did serve to justify variousforms of religious coercion during and well after Constantine’s reign, as Byzantine emperors wereattempting to forge a Christian society. To argue that religious freedom or tolerance is a theologi-cal matter whereas coercion is a political concern is to forget that a particular understanding ofGod’s relation to the world informs the Eusebian model. The Eusebian model does not inevitablylead to but does allow for the possibility of justifying religious intolerance in a way that Lactantius’sDivine Institutes does not. For Lanctantius, see Digeser.

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race” (Meyendorff: 49). Justinian, however, ultimately affirmed the emperoras responsible for the harmony between the sacerdotium and the imperium.As Meyendorff himself states, “The Church and the State . . . represent theinternal cohesion of one single human society, for whose welfare on earththe emperor alone is responsible” (49; Runciman 1977: 46).

The absolute authority of the emperor within the empire was neverquestioned. Such authority, however, did not stop the bishops, and in par-ticular the patriarch of Constantinople, from functioning as the “keeper ofthe Empire’s conscience. On matters of morals the Emperor must listen tothe priesthood” (Runciman 1977: 36). Not only on matters of morals butalso on matters of faith the patriarch of Constantinople and the monasticcommunity would often challenge the emperor. It is important to note,however, that there was little, if any, resistance to the notion of the Chris-tian theocracy within the ecclesial community. Challenge to the emperordid not mean a challenge to the system. The patriarch and the monkswanted a Christian monarch and empire; they just wanted to assure thatthe emperor was Orthodox in beliefs and a person of moral rectitude.Although tensions would often flare between the imperium and thesacerdotium throughout the history of the Byzantine Empire, and eventhough the authority and independence of the patriarch vis-à-vis theemperor increased as the empire declined (Runciman 1977: 146), thenotion of a Christian theocracy and empire was never questioned.

The theology of culture implied in the Byzantine theocracy is one thatdoes not value multiculturalism. With the conversion of the Roman em-perors to Christianity came the slow but sure conversion of the RomanEmpire from a pagan to a distinctively Christian empire. The principle ofcultural unity within the empire was Orthodox Christianity, with itssystem of beliefs, institutions, practices, literature, and art. The emperorssaw themselves as enforcers of both civil and religious laws. Canon lawgoverning ecclesial life was also enforced as civil law. Throughout the his-tory of the Byzantine Empire, the notion of a “Christian” culture, in whichthe constitutive aspects of ecclesial life formed constitutive aspects of theculture of the empire, was as unquestioned as the idea of a Christian the-ocracy. The latter implied the notion of a “Christian” culture. Althoughthe Byzantine Empire is often referred to as a “multinational” empire, itis clear that other “cultures” embodying Christian beliefs distinct fromthe reigning Orthodoxy in the empire or non-Christian beliefs did notenjoy the same privileges as the established Orthodox churches within theempire. There is also evidence of religious persecution during variousperiods within the empire (see Alexander).

The Byzantine theocracy was the model for theologies of state andculture throughout the Orthodox world. Most of the traditional Ortho-

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dox world after the fifteenth century fell to the Ottoman Empire, andOrthodox Christianity was a minority religion within an empire that em-braced Islam as its state-sponsored and culturally dominant religion. Thisoccupation shielded most Orthodox countries from confronting the po-litical philosophies and reforms of the Enlightenment. Russia is theexception, but the Russian ambivalence toward western European cultureand its rejection of Enlightenment political reforms are well known.After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, most Orthodox countries assumedthe form of the nation-state, in which the Orthodox Church was the es-tablished religion. The Byzantine theocracy provided the model for an“Orthodox Christian” society: the head of state was expected to be anOrthodox Christian, the church and the state were to coexist harmoni-ously for the good of the “Orthodox Christian” society, and the state wasexpected to support the preservation of an “Orthodox Christian” culture.After World War II, with the exception of Greece, most Orthodox coun-tries fell under communism, further delaying Orthodoxy’s confrontationwith modern democracy.9 Now that communism has fallen and the Greekmonarchy has also fallen, the question becomes whether the Orthodoxchurches can embrace modern democratic institutions, together withdemocracy’s inherent notions of church-state separation and multicul-turalism, given that within Orthodoxy’s history its only frame of refer-ence for a theology of state is one that is theocratic and does not easilysupport the idea of multiculturalism. The Byzantine Christian theocracyfunctions as the primary frame of reference for contemporary Orthodoxdiscussions on democracy.

THE HARAKAS-GUROIAN DEBATE

The legacy of the Byzantine Christian theocracy and its influence as aframe of reference for contemporary Orthodox discussions on democ-racy are evident in the debate between two contemporary Orthodox ethi-cists, Stanley Harakas and Vigen Guroian, on Orthodox understandingsof church–state relations.10 Harakas’s own position is detailed in a 1976

9 For a brief history of church–state relations in the history of the Orthodox Church, see Papa-dakis. See also Runciman 1971.

10 Some conceptual clarity is required at this point. The main point of this article is to explorethe relation between Orthodoxy and democracy through an analysis of the debate between Harakasand Guroian over church-state relations. Recognizing the distinction between the notions of de-mocracy as “a distinctive political form defined by a conception of sovereignty (of the people) thatcan take a variety of ‘state’ forms” and that of the state as the “institutional structure always underthe question of its legitimation with the task of administrating the will of the body politic,” my intentis to address the question of Orthodoxy and democracy by participating in the Orthodox debateover church-state separation. The notion of church-state separation, however defined and what-

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article entitled “Orthodox Church-State Theory and American Democ-racy” (1976).11 Though the bicentennial that year probably played no smallpart in inspiring him to write the piece, the reflections themselves are thenatural result of the later generations of an immigrant church forced togive some understanding to a church-state relation that has no prece-dent in its own history. Although the Orthodox Church has not existedwithin a democratic society, the past for Harakas still holds the key forunderstanding the present situation of the Orthodox Church within theAmerican democratic society, particularly on the issue of the separationof church and state.

The past that Harakas refers to is the Byzantine past, especially themodel of church-state relations often referred to as symphonia or har-mony. For Harakas, the symphonia that existed between the church andthe monarchical state during the period of the Byzantine Empire consti-tutes the paradigm for Orthodox understandings of church-state rela-tions, whatever form the state may assume. In relations of symphonia “theChurch and State cooperate as parts of an organic whole in the fulfillmentof their purposes, each supporting and strengthening the other withoutthis causing subordination of the one to the other” (Harakas 1976: 399).Harakas adds that “the harmonious relationship of State and Church is aresult of the belief that both Church and State are creatures of one Lord”(1976: 399). The one God assigns to each institution, church and state, itsown sphere of influence: church is responsible for spiritual matters, whilethe state is responsible for worldly needs.

Harakas identifies more precisely what he terms the “elements” thatconstituted the symphonic relationship for the church and the state dur-ing the Byzantine period. These elements are (1) the affirmation of Godas the source of both church and state; (2) the independence and suffi-ciency of both church and state; (3) the identity of the constituency, thatis, that the people of the church and the state are of one faith; (4) a reli-gious and political authority, that is, a patriarch and an emperor; and (5)what Harakas terms “methods of relationship,” by which he means thefulfillment of the respective functions of the church and the state, wherebythe church influences the state toward a more just society and the statedefends and protects the church (1976: 411–419). For Harakas, these

ever its limits, is inherent in modern understandings of democracy, regardless of the forms of “state”such a democracy assumes. The definitions of democracy and state cited here are those of WilliamSchweiker, and I am grateful to him for his assistance in clarifying some of the key terms of thisarticle.

11 For a more recently published discussion of American democracy, see Harakas 1999. In thisarticle, although the reflections are broader in scope, Harakas’s position remains relatively un-changed both methodologically and substantively.

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elements are normative for an Orthodox understanding of church-staterelations.

The central question that Harakas wishes to address is whether theOrthodox in America, who have traditionally understood church-staterelations on the model of symphonia, can accept the separation of churchand state within this country. Harakas provides an ironic response to thisquestion by suggesting that a reinterpreted understanding of the elementsof the symphonia model allows for an acceptance of the U.S. situation ofchurch-state separation. Put another way, what one sees in church-staterelations in America is symphonia, albeit in a different form from thatwhich existed in Byzantium. But how so?

Regarding the first element, Harakas argues that God is mentioned inthe founding documents as the source of the state and the foundation forhuman rights. The second principle, the independence and self-sufficiencyof church and state, is one on which the country itself was founded. Onemight expect Harakas to confront insurmountable hurdles with the nexttwo elements, the unity of the faith of the people and the coexistence of apatriarch and emperor. Harakas reinterprets the notion of the one faithin terms of the one common good. In other words, the Orthodox Churchexists in a society in which it shares not a specific religious faith but, rather,a common good that is included in though not exhaustive of the Ortho-dox understanding of the good. As Harakas puts it, “Orthodoxy can makethe adjustment if its own identity with the nation becomes sufficientlybroad and deep so that the concerns of the Church transcend its ownmembership and seek the welfare of the whole people” (1976: 414).12 Thenotion of the common good is contained in the Orthodox faith, and asthe one faith did during the Byzantine period, it serves as a focal point ofunity in the country.

Regarding the fourth element, there is neither emperor nor patriarchin this country. Instead of the latter, there is the church, which for Harakasmeans both the laity and the various degrees of clergy; instead of theformer, there is not the president as much as the people “who rule throughtheir elected representatives . . . the Church can now speak to the politi-cal authority by and through the people” (1976: 415). In the people of thechurch, church and state converge because the people of the church arethe people of the state. Finally, in terms of what Harakas calls the “meth-

12 Harakas adds, “Admittedly this is not the same as the identity of constituency as presupposedby the ‘symphonia’ theory. Yet, if Orthodox Christianity can learn to speak to the nation as a whole,to concern itself with the common problems of the people of this country, if it can seek to becomein some measure the ‘soul’ of the nation, it will have made great strides in overcoming that inap-plicability” (1976: 414).

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ods of relationship,” although the patriarch is no longer whispering in theemperor’s ear for social and legal reforms, the church exercises its influ-ence on legislation and public policy. The state offers protection to thevoice and integrity of the church, while the church, “through its example,its teaching and its preaching . . . points to a goal for the State and its so-ciety” (Harakas 1976: 415). Reinterpreted, each of the five elements con-stituting the Byzantine model of symphonia can be located in the Americancontext of church-state separation. For Harakas, this allows OrthodoxChristians to view the present arrangement not as strange but as consis-tent with their tradition. More importantly, it avoids sectarianism andencourages Orthodox participation in public life.

Vigen Guroian, an Armenian Orthodox ethicist, takes a position dia-metrically opposed to Harakas’s. He himself has no love lost for the Con-stantinian era, as the title of one of his books, Ethics after Christendom(1994), might suggest. In a chapter entitled “Orthodoxy and the AmericanOrder: Symphonia, Civil Religion or What?” Guroian confronts Harakas’spositions head-on: There “is a sense in which Harakas has merely pickedup where the Constantinian and Justinian synthesis of church and state leftoff” (1987: 147).13 For Guroian, the Byzantine model of symphonia is aninherently accommodationist approach to church-state relations in whichthe true nature of the church is sacrificed to the interests of the state.Guroian accuses Harakas of the same accommodationist attitude, claim-ing that Harakas is in “the same pit of cultural accommodation into whichthe mainline Protestant churches in America thrust themselves earlier inthis century” (1987: 148). He further criticizes Harakas for reducing thechurch’s role in relation to the American democratic state to the func-tionalist one of raising social consciousness and promoting the commongood. In this sense, for Guroian (1987: 145), the church becomes simplyanother interest group. Moreover, with Harakas’s model of symphonia, thechurch loses its critical and prophetic edge vis-à-vis the state. As Guroianputs it, Harakas “would have the Orthodox Church assume its place besidethe other mainline churches in America as contributor to and custodian ofa common American faith and identity” (1987: 147).

Underlying Guroian’s critique of Harakas is a particular understand-ing of the church or, to use a more technical theological term, an ec-clesiology. For Guroian (1987: 157), the Orthodox understand the church

13 For further reflections of Guroian’s understanding of the church’s relation to the state and toculture, see “The Americanization of Orthodoxy: Crisis and Challenge” in Incarnate Love (1987)and “The Struggle for the Soul of the Church: American Reflections” and “Church and ArmenianNationhood: A Bonhoefferian Reflection on the National Church” in Ethics after Christendom(1994).

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primarily as a worshiping community and more specifically as a eucha-ristic community.14 The church exists as church in and through the Eu-charist, in the event where the community gathers to praise God. TheEucharist, however, is more than an act of praise; it is also an offering, inwhich the community offers the world symbolized in the bread and wineto God for sanctification. In this sense, the Eucharist has cosmic dimen-sions, in that it is not an act for individual salvation but, rather, an eventof salvation for the whole cosmos. What is important to remember forthe purposes of our analysis is that this particular understanding of thechurch in the Orthodox tradition affirms that in the Eucharist the com-munity participates in the resurrected body of Christ and, thus, in the“eschaton.” The eucharistic community is fundamentally an eschatologicalcommunity, and it is only as such that it can exist as church.

This understanding of the church as an eschatological community inand through the Eucharist is what defines the church’s mission in theworld.15 Because of this understanding of church for Guroian, it would bea betrayal of the Orthodox Church’s true nature if it were reduced to a func-tionalist role vis-à-vis the state or another denomination alongside others.As he puts it, “The field of the Church’s mission is nothing less than thewhole fabric of human life, not just individuals, but the social, economic,and political relations, the institutions and values of human community”(1987: 143). Moreover, because of its eschatological identity, the churchmust exist in a permanent state of tension with the world. As Guroian (1987:143, 147) argues, there is a necessary antinomy between the church andworld that symphonia inevitably blurs. This antinomy must be maintainedif the church is not to lose is prophetic distance from the state. For Guroian,this distinction or antinomy between church and world/state does not meanseparation or sectarianism. “Sectarianism,” according to Guroian, “is im-permissible on Christological grounds” (1987: 162). The logic is that thechurch is distinct from the world, not to withdraw but to engage the worldin order to transform it. The missionary goal of the church, because of itsnature, is the transfiguration of the world to realize its divine destiny. ForGuroian, “It is not the business of the Church to impose a new, presum-ably more just ethic of power on the world. Rather it is the calling of the

14 For more on the Eastern Orthodox understanding of eucharistic ecclesiology, see Zizioulas,Schmemann, and the classic essay by Afanassieff.

15 It must be noted that world is a distinctively theological term that is not coterminous with ei-ther democracy or state. It is introduced here because, as will become clear below, it forms an es-sential part of Guroian’s understanding of church-state relations, for state is part of the “world”or unredeemed reality. For Guroian, how the church relates to the “world” is the basis for how itrelates to all forms of “state.”

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people of God to demonstrate his love for the world through their obedi-ent service to his Kingdom” (1987: 159).16

It is the basis of this understanding of the church that leads Guroianto reject, contrary to Harakas, the separation of church and state and evenreligious pluralism inherent in democratic forms of polity. For Guroian,“It is impossible to treat the arrangement [meaning the separation ofchurch and state] as normative, since it is not consistent with the truth ofits ecclesiology and soteriology” (1987: 157). In such an arrangement, ajuridical understanding of the church replaces an eschatological vision(Guroian 1987: 156). It “perpetrates the secular notion that the worldreally does not need the Church or God” (Guroian 1987: 157). It de-fines the church in privatistic and functionalist terms, contrary to its ownunderstanding of embodying a message of salvation for the whole world(Guroian 1987: 143). The religious pluralism that is secured and promotedunder the separation clause is also problematic for Guroian: “Further-more, an expanding religious pluralism within, somewhat paradoxically,an also increasingly secular society does not correspond with past Ortho-dox experience of the world, the Orthodox Church’s historic definitionof its relationship to the world, or its experience for the world” (1987: 142).The bottom line for Guroian is that the separation of church and stateforces the Orthodox Church into an understanding of itself that is con-trary to its nature. By accepting this definition, the church allows itselfand its mission to be defined by the state. The church accommodates it-self to the interests of the state, and for Guroian, “there is something in-herently contradictory about Orthodox Christians coming together inworship to declare that they have experienced such a thing and promis-ing that they will behave consistently with that truth and then going outinto the world to take their directives from a legal arrangement whichdeclares that none of this is really so” (1987: 159).

The Harakas-Guroian debate indicates in part how the OrthodoxChurch’s Byzantine legacy is ultimately shaping the debate over church-state relations within Orthodox thought. It is also interesting to note thatthe debate I have presented is between a Greek Orthodox and an Arme-nian Orthodox, members of two traditions that have different experiencesand assessments of the Byzantine past. In more practical terms, it is this

16 One must ask Guroian how it is possible for a eucharistic community, as an icon of theeschatological community, not to be concerned about a “more just ethic of power.” Even givenGuroian’s assumptions, if it is not concerned with relations of power in a political community, atthe very least, as an eschatological community, then it must give witness to a more just configura-tion of power. Such a statement by Guroian gives the impression that Orthodox thought is notconcerned with justice. But this does not cohere with Guroian’s own eucharistic presuppositions.

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legacy that the Orthodox churches, especially those in eastern Europe,must grapple with as many of these countries attempt to move towardmore democratic structures. How will the churches respond to such amovement given that church-state relations in the Orthodox Church havealways been shaped by symphonia?

ORTHODOXY AND DEMOCRACY

Any Orthodox assessment of the church’s relation to a political com-munity must agree on inner theological grounds with Guroian’s claim thatthe Byzantine model of symphonia is inherently accommodationist andcan only make sense in a theocratic context and not in a democratic one.The fundamental flaw with Harakas’s method is that it seems to imply thatbecause symphonia was the model in the Byzantine past it should exist asthe norm for Orthodox understandings of church-state relations in thepresent situation. There is no further attempt to justify symphonia asbeing theologically normative. In this sense, the past, as Guroian argues,is not sufficient justification for guiding the Orthodox today and mayeven lead the Orthodox to continue their mistakes. Guroian is also cor-rect in asserting that a proper understanding of church-state relations forthe Orthodox requires first and foremost an understanding of the natureof the church, that is, an ecclesiology. Most Orthodox would not disputehis definition of church as an eschatological community in and throughthe eucharistic worship, which embodies a message of salvation and whosemission is the transformation of the world. Such an understanding of thechurch, however, does not lead to Guroian’s conclusions.

The first criticism of Guroian’s position is that it is untenable. Hisrejection of accommodationism is fairly clear; but he also rejects sectari-anism as Christologically indefensible, together with any notion of a Chris-tian state or of a public morality.17 He has rejected, to my knowledge, the

17 The terms public morality and common good refer to the consensus or unity of a society aroundshared moral values. My own position agrees with those who affirm that democracy itself impliesa particular notion of the common good including freedom, equality, justice, fairness, inclusivity,participation, diversity, and otherness. More concretely, it includes those institutions and struc-tures designed to preserve and protect such goods and which provide the space for the conversa-tion of diverse opinions over further concrete determinations of democratic goods. Certain formsof diversity, such as religious, political, and cultural, are concrete expressions and embodiments ofthe common good of the democratic community. As will be clear below, this article favors an Or-thodox affirmation of a communitarian understanding of the common good, which rejects anyvision of public life as the space for simply fulfilling private interest, and sees one’s ties and respon-sibility to the community, as well as the social capital that emerges from such civic bonds, as partof the common good. For a communitarian understanding of the common good, see Bellah et al.:250–271, 335. For a helpful discussion of the notion of the common good, see Stiltner.

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three basic forms in which the church relates to culture in general: sec-tarianism, cultural accommodation (Christian state or national church),and denominationalism.18 Guroian himself anticipates that his positionmight be labeled as sectarian. But he resists such an identification, forsectarianism implies a withdrawal of the church from the world. Contraryto Hauerwas’s notions, the church is not, for Guroian, simply the redeemedcommunity distinct from the world. Guroian’s eucharistic understandingof the church defines the mission of the church as one of engagement withthe world. The church itself is a presence of salvation for the sake of theworld. Guroian’s rejection, however, of any notion of public morality ulti-mately leads him to sectarianism. In a democratic, pluralistic society thealternative to cultural accommodation and sectarianism is engagement ina public realm constituted through a plurality of voices. If the church’smessage within a pluralistic public realm, as in the American context, isone that does not take into consideration the diversity and the pluralitywithin this public realm, then its message will simply be excluded.19 Thenature of its message will prevent the church from having any impact ona democratic public realm. The church will become a community thatrelates simply to itself and, thus is a sect.20

Guroian will argue that the church is already excluded from havingany impact on public life by virtue of the church-state separation. Thisleads to the second problem in Guroian’s argument, which is a too mono-lithic understanding of the notion of church-state separation. Two schol-ars have argued recently that the idea of church-state separation, one that

18 By denominationalism is meant the existence of a plurality of religious expressions within apublic space in which religious association is voluntary and based on religious freedom.

19 Guroian would argue that the very acceptance on the part of the church of simply being onevoice among many in a public realm is itself a form of accommodation of the church to demo-cratic values. Though this kind of accommodation that Guroian fears is evident in American soci-ety, it need not necessarily be the case, especially if, as this article hopes to demonstrate in relationto the Orthodox Church, such a pluralistic, political community can be justified on inner theo-logical grounds.

20 Though for different reasons, here I am basically agreeing with Harakas (1990: 76), who in areview of Incarnate Love argues that Guroian’s understanding of the church in relation to society isin the end sectarian. Guroian’s attempt to weave a social ethic between the extremes of accom-modationism and sectarianism is also evident in his “The Americanization of Orthodoxy: Crisisand Challenge” in Incarnate Love (1987). The fact that he criticizes the Armenian community inAmerica, on the one hand, for prioritizing its ethnic identity over its religious identity and, on theother hand, for becoming more American “uncritically and at great cost to the Orthodox faith”suggests that his “ecclesial” ethics tends toward sectarianism. Again, he does not intend sectarian-ism, but he leaves unclear what it means to become “critically” more American and be true to one’sreligious identity. For further discussion on what Guroian perceives as the mutual exclusivity be-tween American culture and Orthodox Christian faith, see “The Struggle for the Soul of the Church:American Reflections” in Ethics after Christendom (1994) and his 1999 article in the Journal of Re-ligious Ethics.

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is inherent in democratic forms of government, need not necessarily leadto the privatization of religion and to its exclusion from the public realm,as Guroian suggests. Both Ronald Thiemann, in Religion in Public Life,and José Casanova, in Public Religion in the Modern World, reject the as-sumption that the principle of church-state separation that is inherent inthe secularization of the public realm entails the privatization of religion.21

They argue that religion can, as it has, have a public voice without threat-ening secular diversity. Thus, Guroian’s argument that church-state sepa-ration necessarily excludes religion from public life is based on a toonarrow understanding of this principle.

Given these arguments that church-state separation need not entailexclusion of religion from public life, Guroian may argue that the verynotion of public life, common good, and public morality based on demo-cratic principles involves the church in a compromise of its nature andits mission. The question is whether the affirmation of a public space thatpromotes diversity, religious pluralism, and public morality that is notexhaustive of the church’s morality is a betrayal of the church’s natureand its mission. Can the church preach a message of salvation for the wholeworld and accept a religiously diverse political community? AcceptingGuroian’s interpretation of the Orthodox understanding of church as aneschatological community in the eucharistic worship, I would answer,against Guroian, that the acceptance of such a community is not a betrayal.More than this, it is called for by the very nature of the church as aneschatological community.

The key principle at work here is that the church is church, that is, itis an eschatological community in the eucharistic worship through faithor persuasion and not coercion, a principle with which Guroian would

21 Thiemann writes: “Particular moral and religious beliefs can be developed with sufficient gen-erality to provide an overarching framework within which an overlapping consensus can be devel-oped. If that is the case, then it surely follows that religious beliefs should not be prohibited fromproviding public justifications within a democratic polity, as long as those beliefs genuinely con-tribute to the building of an overlapping consensus” (150).

Casanova argues mainly against those who interpret the contemporary cultural situation in termsof “desecularization” (see Berger’s edited work, The Desecularization of the World). For Casanova,deprivatization does not mean desecularization. Though religion may be emerging from the priva-tization it was slowly relegated to throughout the history of modernity, there is no evidence of“desecularization” in terms of the differentiation of secular spheres (state, economy, science, edu-cation, law, art, etc.) from religious principles and norms. Casanova makes the further claim thatsuch deprivatization is not necessarily inherent in the notion of secularization; nor does it neces-sarily threaten modern differentiation of institutions: “It is the major purpose and thrust of thisstudy to show both theoretically and empirically that privatization is not a modern structural trend.In other words, this study has tried to show that there can be and that there are public religions inthe modern world which do not need to endanger either modern individual freedoms or moderndifferentiated structures” (215).

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agree.22 The church’s mission is to call the world to the salvation offered inJesus Christ not by Christianizing the state but through persuading othersto freely join its eucharistic communion, that is, its communal praise, wor-ship, and offering to God. Such persuasion is the only legitimate way toexpand the boundaries of the church throughout the world.23 Until theworld is included in the church through persuasion, then the church mustconfront a political community that is distinct from itself but to which it isnecessarily related, together with the institution of the state that administers,symbolizes, and expresses the nature of such a political community. Thequestion becomes whether the Orthodox Church could support a demo-cratic form for the political community and the state or whether it simplydeems such structures necessary evils for the purposes of law and order.

The answer to such a question lies in the principle of persuasion thatis inherent in the church as a eucharistic and, hence, eschatological com-munity. If the church relates to the world through persuasion, then inorder to be consistent with itself, the church must accept a communitydistinct from its own that consists of religious, political, and cultural di-versity and a state that affirms and protects such diversity. The forms ofpolitical community and state that best express and affirm such diversityare democratic, for such diversity is what it means, in part, to be a de-mocracy. The logic of the eucharistic ecclesiology demands the existenceof a democratic state that is by definition that institution that is distinctfrom the church, in which a community of religious and political diver-sity is symbolized, and which is made necessary by the fact that all thepeople of the world are not members of the church’s worshiping com-munity. The important point here is that, contrary to Guroian’s position,the existence of a politically diverse community in which the church isone voice among others is not a betrayal of the church’s nature but, rather,the necessary result of the church as an eschatological community. Inso-far as the church has not fulfilled its mission to persuade others to be-come part of its eucharistic worship of God, then it must accept theexistence of political and religious diversity. The state as a politically di-

22 For a discussion on the relation of “freedom of conscience” and religious pluralism in Islam,see Sachedina: “The recognition of freedom of conscience in matters of faith is the cornerstone ofthe Koranic notion of religious pluralism, both interreligious and intrareligious” (25).

23 By persuasion is simply meant that Christian conviction and participation in a Christian com-munity cannot be established through force. If one were to convert to the Orthodox faith, or anyfaith, such a conversion would result from one being persuaded, through whatever means, thatOrthodox claims are true. Such conviction does not exclude the possibility of rethinking one’sconvictions, for faith itself is more often than not confronted with doubt and challenge. Such con-viction is itself a precondition for participating in the eucharistic community and, according toOrthodox theology of the Eucharist, for the reception of the gift of God’s presence offered in theEucharist.

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verse community is not contrary to but, rather, inherent in the very no-tion of the church as an eschatological community.

Nor is the support of democratic forms of public morality and a com-mon good a compromise of the church’s mission. Guroian cannot envi-sion an Orthodox Christian at one and the same time assuming a missionaryattitude vis-à-vis the world and accepting the limits placed on the church’svoice in the notion of a public morality. But insofar as the notion of apolitically and religiously diverse community is the necessary result of thechurch as an eschatological community in the world, it is not a contra-diction for the church to attempt to missionize the world and simulta-neously recognize the need for a common good around which diversegroups unite to form a community. As Harakas suggests, the commongood is included in, though not exhaustive of, Orthodox moral principles.As a necessary part of the political community, the church should have avoice in the construction of the common good. As an example, in its at-tempt to missionize the world the church may attempt to persuade oth-ers not to commit murder and to engage in fasting practices. In relationto a democratic form of the common good, the church must accept itsown limits and recognize that the goal is not the formation of a eucharis-tic community through persuasion but, rather, the construction of a com-munity in which diversity and multiculturalism are affirmed and protectedand in which the recognition of such diversity and multiculturalism mustbe enforced if they are not voluntarily accepted. In light of this particularend, the church can affirm that laws against murder must form a neces-sary part of the common good but not laws regulating fasting, for rules offasting presuppose a Christian community formed through persuasionand whose end is distinct from that of the political community.24 It is, then,

24 Thiemann notes: “Even if liberal societies cannot agree on the ultimate telos for all humanbeings, it does not follow that they are unable to generate a limited but still real consensus whichconcerns the common good such societies should pursue” (108). Guroian may object here, claim-ing that there can be no ends within the “world” other than that of union with God, which is theultimate telos for God’s creation. Although it may be true that a eucharistic ecclesiology impliesthat the sole telos for the whole world is union with God, the existence of a politically diverse com-munity is made necessary by virtue of the fact that such a telos is yet unfulfilled. Thus, until such afulfillment, the existence of a politically and religiously diverse community has a telos distinct fromthat of the church, which is, according to the logic of eucharistic ecclesiology, to form a commu-nity of diversity in which the integrity of life is affirmed and protected until such time that all areone with God. Theoretically, once all have become part of the eucharistic community, the com-munity of praise, worship, and offering to God, the existence of the state is no longer necessary.One could argue that this is consistent with Pauline theology, wherein the necessity of the state isaffirmed in Romans 13, though in 1 Corinthians (6:1–11) Christians, regarded as the body of Christ,are chastised for resorting to nonecclesial institutions for resolving disputes. My argument paral-lels that of William T. Cavanaugh, who in Torture and Eucharist argues that “ecclesia is neither polisnor oikos” (269) and also attempts to “develop a politics embedded in the liturgy” (221).

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not a contradiction for the church to simultaneously be engaged in mis-sionizing the world and be committed to supporting public discussionsof the common good.25 In the end, the understanding of “church” in theOrthodox tradition as an eschatological community through the eucha-ristic worship demands engagement in both types of activities. More ex-plicitly, it lends support to democratic forms of government as mostconsistent with its own theological principles.26

CONCLUSION

I have attempted in this article to explore the relationship betweenOrthodoxy and democracy, arguing that such an analysis is necessary givenboth the current state of confusion of political thought in Orthodox the-ology and the presence of the Orthodox Church in eastern Europe andwithin American society. I have attempted to show that the Byzantinelegacy has shaped the Orthodox debate over church-state relations, par-ticularly that between two Orthodox ethicists, Stanley Harakas and VigenGuroian. It has also led to confusing and contradictory responses of theOrthodox churches facing contemporary problems. Orthodox acceptanceof democracy, participation in democratic institutions, and commitmentto the common good are not contradictory to Guroian’s understandingof the church but, rather, are its natural result. This is not symphonia butsimply a positive theological justification of a particular form of govern-ment. Orthodox thought, particularly its eucharistic ecclesiology and its

25 This emphasis on the “common good” indicates that the understanding of democracy mostconsistent with the understanding of “church” in the Orthodox tradition is the communitarianform of democracy, with its emphasis on the “common good” and its understanding of the indi-vidual in relation to the community. The notion of person-in-relation in the Orthodox tradition,based on the understanding of God as Trinity, would give further support within the tradition tocommunitarian forms of government, though the limits of this article do not allow space for thedevelopment of this argument. Trinitarian language bears a striking affinity with the followingcommunitarian position: “We find ourselves not independently of other people and institutionsbut through them. . . . [I]ndividuality and society are not opposites but require each other” (Bellahet al.: 84). Elsewhere, it is noted that “absolute independence is a false ideal” (Bellah et al.: 246).Such an understanding of “individuality” should allay the fears of Orthodox thinkers that democ-racy is synonymous with extreme individualism.

26 The question may arise whether the church, which understands itself to be under the divinesovereignty of God, can accept the formation of a democratic community for which sovereigntyresides in the people. The issue is one of the nature of God’s sovereignty and whether such sover-eignty exists only where it is explicit in institutional structures. Common sense dictates that God isless sovereign in a Christian state that explicitly recognizes the sovereignty of God while enforcinganti-Semitic laws than in a democratic state in which the integrity of the human person in prin-ciple is affirmed and protected. The real issue is whether democratic values can be legitimized with-out reference to a personal God. For issues of divine sovereignty, see O’Donovan; for the questionof legitimating democracy and theism, see Gamwell.

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doctrine of the Trinity, has the greatest affinity with communitarianunderstandings of democracy. Insofar as both attempt to grapple withwhat it means to exist as a unity-in-diversity and how to give form to thesimultaneity of the one and the many, a fruitful and constructive conver-sation should ensue between these two streams of thought.

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