Western Civilisation? An excellent idea.

Gandhi

Today in Russia, tomorrow in America.

Hieromonk Seraphim Rose

Introduction

At the Fourth All-Diaspora Russian Orthodox Council in San Francisco in 2006 the Church Outside Russia took the near-unanimous decision to enter into canonical communion with the Church inside Russia. Thus would be ended some eighty years of parallel existence for the two parts of the Russian Orthodox Church, which had been separated by the interfering atheist persecution by the Soviet State of the Church inside Russia. The reason for the decision was the long-prayed for liberation of the Church inside Russia from atheism, as began to be manifested at the miraculous Jubilee Council in 2000. Since 2006, both parts of the Church have co-operated together as a common bastion against the forces of this world. And since 2006 the need for this bastion has become ever more obvious and important, as we can see from the example below.

Decivilisation

Even as recently as 2006 no-one foresaw that the Western world would in 2013 be legitimising homosexual ‘marriage’. Countries that only a few years ago decriminalised homosexuality now proclaim that marriage, a Latin word which means ‘taking a husband’, is possible between two men or two women, between people of the same sex. Not only have fourteen countries now instituted same-sex ‘marriage’, so redefining marriage, but they are also bullying other countries into doing the same. Insulting intolerance and arrogance is such that Western secularism is attempting to blackmail, intimidate and humiliate other cultures, especially those of the Russian Federation, Eastern Europe and Africa, into accepting its policies. These in fact censor free speech and decivilise spiritually superior civilisations, cultures with more Christian content than secularist Western culture.

The Orthodox attitude to homosexuality is defined, like everything else, by the words of the Gospel: ‘For there are some eunuchs, who were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, who were made eunuchs by men: and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake’ (Matt. 19, 12). In other words there are those very few who through genetic accident are (homosexual and so) called to be celibate, those who through psychological conditioning by others or by Western social conditioning and fashion since the 1960s are (homosexual and so) called to be celibate, and those who through monastic vocation are celibate. It is clear that homosexuality is an illness or handicap that deserves compassion, not propaganda. Here the popular law of the Russian Federation against propaganda in favour of homosexuality among minors merely reflects the Gospel.

Homosexuals who seek salvation and so strive to be celibate against all temptations are welcomed in the Church, just as heterosexuals who also seek salvation and so strive to be celibate against all temptations. Knowing the power of human sexual energy and its potential destructiveness, the Church has from the beginning been constructive and tried to channel heterosexuality into family life, thus creating marriage, and tried to channel homosexuality into friendship, thus creating community. It is most significant that ever since the 1960s, collapsing Western societies have denigrated and destroyed both family life and friendship, suicidally creating broken homes and enmity. Until that period, 99.9% of people lived without homosexual temptations and with friendship. The collapse of family life, marriage, friendship and community are the consequences of Western Decivilisation.

The root of the problem is in the abnormal and deChristianising social changes accepted by Western societies over the last fifty years. Today countries that were protected from that period’s suicidal follies do not suffer as collapsing Western societies do. The Western world is now trying to spread the self-justifying propaganda that results from its illness and infect others with it, forcing spiritually healthier cultures to accept its contaminating disease. This is like the decivilising Western disease of drug-taking or abortion (3,000 killed per day in the USA, 500 killed per day in the UK), which also began in the same period. Today’s phase of aggressive Decivilisation was unforeseen even in 2006, in the same way as no-one foresaw then that the Western world was about to support Islamist terrorists and destabilise Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, the Lebanon and Egypt, with millions of victims.

Conclusion

In 2006 no-one foresaw that Western secularism would embark on a campaign of further destabilisation of marriage, spreading aggressive propaganda in favour of homosexuality. If we had foreseen this, the urge for Russian Orthodox unity would have been even stronger then. Given the increasing tempo of Western Decivilisation, it is now clear that if Orthodox Christians are to keep their integrity in the Western world, and that world now includes weaker Orthodox countries like Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria bribed into joining the homosexualised EU, as well as the long ago Westernised Patriarchates of Constantinople and Antioch, we Orthodox of all nationalities, not just Russian, Serbian and Georgian, have to work together with the moral, political and spiritual protection offered by the Russian Federation and its Orthodox Civilisation in order to counter Western Decivilisation.