Magisterial Orthodox Social Teaching: I

Identifying and Facing the Challenges of the Age

Here is the first in a series of posts based on a lecture I gave recently exploring some themes in contemporary, magisterial statements on Orthodox social teaching. As I explain below, the basis of the talk is two documents: The Basis of Orthodox Social Thought issued by the Synod of the Moscow Patriarchiate (2000) and the second For the Life of the World: Toward an Orthodox Social Ethos (2020) by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

The lecture was given as part of Acton University, a 4-day conference exploring the intellectual foundations of a free and virtuous society. AU is an annual event sponsored by the Acton Institute one of the world’s premier public policy think tanks “whose mission is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.”

My plan—or taking into account the demands placed on me as a parish priest, college chaplain, and seminary professor, what might more accurately be described as my hope—is to post this series on Monday and Wednesday. On Tuesday and Thursday, I will post a serialized version of another recent lecture on consumerism and the ascetical life.

Since these posts were originally delivered as lectures, I will include an audio of the text to help give the reader a feel for what they would have experienced at AU. I do so not only to offer a more interesting and compelling presentation but also to encourage you to consider attending a future Acton University.

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Identifying and Facing the Challenges of the Age

Emerging out of the challenges of the Enlightenment, the spread of democracy, and the Industrial Revolution, there arose different schools of Catholic and Protestant Christian social thought that sought to bring the light of the Gospel to the various moral and practical concerns of daily life. 

Orthodox social teaching is no different. How do I as Orthodox Christians respond in justice and love to the needs I see around me. This implies a more fundamental question: How do I even identify and understand these needs?

Recently, the Orthodox Church has issued two statements on social teaching: The Basis of Orthodox Social Thought (2000)¹ by the Moscow Patriarchate and For the Life of the World: Toward an Orthodox Social Ethos (2020)² written by a committee composed primarily of American academics. After its initial publication, the original text was revised and expanded by the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. 

The Basis covers much the same ground you’d find in the Catholic Church’s Compendium of Social Teaching. FLW covers similar themes and while it breaks some new ground (primarily in making specific—and in my view, ill-advised policy prescriptions), it is at least partly meant as a response to Basis. 

In broad terms, we can characterize the Basis as a politically and culturally “conservative” document to which FLW offers a more politically (though not necessarily culturally) “progressive” critique. And where the Basis is primarily concerned with responding to the emerging social problems facing Russia in the years immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, FLW takes a more theoretical approach. As one sympathetic critic writes, the authors set for themselves the task of exploring the relationship between “modern democratic values” and the tradition of the Orthodox Church.³

In what follows, I will look with you at 4 themes in Orthodox Social Teaching found in Basis and FLW:

1. An Orthodox Theological Anthropology of Ordered Freedom

2. The relationship between Church and State

3. Economic liberty

4. Self-emptying character of Orthodox social witness 

We should not minimize the philanthropic concerns of either document. At the same time, we must resist the temptation to elevate these concerns to such a degree that they overshadow the fundamentally evangelical character of OST as the Church seeks to shape society according to the demands of the Gospel.

The Church’s primary concern in both these documents is not to offer policy prescriptions but to proclaim the Gospel. As I explain more below, I think there are moments in each when policy overshadow evangelism to the detriment of both.

Especially in a democracy where the Church institutionally and Christians personally have the freedom to influence not just society as a whole but the direction of the government, is a morally good thing for Christians to advocate for public policy that conforms to the Gospel. But doing so in a manner that is not simply just and prudent but that doesn’t harm the evangelistic ministry of the Church or compromise the unity of faith is a delicate task. At a minimum, it requires a clear understanding and articulation that it is the rare policy prescription that can rightly be described as morally obligated by the Church’s teaching. Many practical paths are allowed, but very few are required. 

This is all to say that while policy, like morality, has its place as I will argue in my conclusion it must remain secondary to the proclamation of the Gospel that “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death and death.”

1. Hereafter Basis.

2. Hereafter FLW.

3.  Cyril Horovon, For the Life of the World and Orthodox Political Theology.