Magisterial Orthodox Social Teaching
Some preliminary thoughts
The Heavy Cost of Liberty
One of the reasons for creating this blog is to explore how the Church thinks about issues that emerge within the context of American, democratic capitalism.1 Love it or hate it, at least for the Church in America, our pastoral context is one in which people are free to participate or not in the life of the Church and to do so as much or as little as they want. While it is easy to see this as the moral and social cost of liberalism, we cannot overlook that this freedom is intrinsic to the “blessings of liberty” for us “and our posterity” as we read in the preamble to U.S. Constitution.
To put the matter more bluntly, living in a free society means the Church cannot assume agreement or compliance with her moral teaching by the wider culture or even the faithful. Instead, the Church must learn to make winning arguments supported by tangible actions, about the truth of the Gospel and the moral tradition that has developed over the centuries as a consequence of the Church preaching “ to every creature” the Good News of Jesus Christ risen from the dead (see Mark 16:15, NKJV).
We cannot, however, minimize or forget any more than we can exaggerate or obsess over, that the cost of life in a free society is high. Freedom is not free, it is expensive, and this is across all the dimensions of human life.
And yet, as the Patriarchate of Constantinople makes clear in its 2020 document For the Life of the World: Towards an Orthodox Social Ethos our freedoms are not only a blessing but a welcome, historical exception to the rule.
In many countries in the world today, civil order, freedom, human rights, and democracy are realities in which citizens may trust; and, to a very real degree, these societies accord persons the fundamental dignity of the liberty to seek and pursue the good ends they desire for themselves, their families, and their communities. This is a very rare blessing indeed, viewed in relation to the entire course of human history, and it would be irrational and uncharitable of Christians not to feel a genuine gratitude for the special democratic genius of the modern age (emphasis added).2
Whatever the challenges, whatever our own or others’ missteps, we should be mindful that we who “enjoy the great advantages of living in such countries should not take such values for granted.”
Our gratitude must take the form of “actively support[ing]” and “work[ing] for the preservation and extension of democratic institutions and customs within the legal, cultural, and economic frameworks of their respective societies.” Essential to our vocation as citizens in a free society, we must be on guard against “a dangerous temptation among Orthodox Christians to surrender to a debilitating and in many respects fantastical nostalgia for some long-vanished golden era, and to imagine that it constituted something like the sole ideal Orthodox polity” (§10). Fidelity to the Christ and Gospel as well as the myriad demands of citizenship requires that we cultivate a spirit of epistemological humility rooted in gratitude for the blessings of liberty and for those who made this possible for both the Orthodox Church and for individual Orthodox Christians.3
Orthodox Social Thought: Evangelism Not Policy
This mix of humility and gratitude also plays a role in our embodying the evangelical character of Orthodox Social Thought. “The Church is the assembly of believers in Christ” and our Lord “calls everyone to join.”4 More than just the incorporation of individuals, the salvific mission of the Church includes “the creation ... deified and God’s original design for the world and [humanity] ... fulfilled by the power of the Holy Spirit.” This means that while morality—and so public policy—has a role to play in the Church’s mission, it is always secondary to the Church’s primary vocation as
...the unity of “the new humanity in Christ”, “the unity of God’s grace dwelling in the multitude of rational creatures who submit to grace” (A.S. Khomyakov). “Men, women, children, deeply divided as to race, nation, language, way of life, work, education, status, wealth… — all are restored by the Church in the Spirit… All receive from her one nature which is beyond corruption —the nature that is not affected by the numerous and profound differences by which people differ from one another… In her, no one is at all separated from the common, as everyone is as if dissolved in one another by the simple and indivisible power of faith” (St. Maxim the Confessor).5
Fidelity to the evangelical character of Orthodox Social Thought (hereafter, OST) means including the insights of not only those in other Christian traditions but also non-Christians and even non-believers. Especially in an American context, members of these communities have all played a key role in securing the blessings Orthodox Christians enjoy as members of a free society. For this reason, our conversation with those outside the Church cannot be merely a foil for Orthodox polemics and triumphalism; we must work to understand the positive contributions of non-Orthodox theological and secular thought to OST.
Nevertheless, since our concern here is Orthodox social ethics (albeit in a lightly ecumenical and interfaith key) we will structure our conversation around the two recent, magisterial documents in Orthodox social teaching I mentioned above: The Basis of Orthodox Social Thought by the Moscow Patriarchate and For the Life of the World: Toward an Orthodox Social Ethos written by a committee composed mostly of American academics. Both documents cover much the same ground in the Catholic Church’s Compendium of Social Teaching.6
The Orthodox Church’s primary concern in both these documents is not to offer policy prescriptions but to proclaim the Gospel. For this reason, as we read in FLOW, we are offered “general guidelines to difficult questions” rather than “clear-cut responses to social changes.”7 We find a similar sentiment in Basis where we are told that the document “gives a number of guidelines to be applied in this field by the episcopate, clergy and laity” (Basis, “Introduction”).
The Church’s primary concern in both these documents is not to offer policy prescriptions8 but to proclaim the Gospel. This cannot be done at the expense of “good works,” since “faith without works is dead” (James 2:17-26). If we should not minimize the philanthropic concerns of either document. We must likewise also resist the temptation to elevate these concerns to such a degree that they overshadow the evangelical character of OST. Our interest in social ethics is meant to service the Church’s mission to shape (and when needed, reshape) society according to the demands of the Gospel. We do this in fidelity to Christ’s command to “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).
One Faith, Many Practical Paths
In a democracy the Church institutionally and Christians personally have the freedom to influence not just society but the direction of the government. Exercising our role as citizens and advocating for public policies that conform to the Gospel is a good thing. Doing so in a manner that is not only just and prudent in the civil order but in a manner that advances rather than harms the evangelistic ministry of the Church or compromises the unity of faith is a delicate task. Few of us are up to the challenge. It is much easier for me to model myself after a cable tv pundit.
At a minimum, fidelity to the Gospel requires I understand 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. Like morality, public policy has its place in the Christian life. However, 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.”
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (Lanham ; New York: Madison Books, 1991).
For the Life of the World: Towards an Orthodox Social Ethos; After it was published, the original text was revised and expanded by the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
A similar point is made by Samuel Gregg, Tea Party Catholic: The Catholic Case for Limited Government, a Free Economy, and Human Flourishing (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2013).
Moscow Patriarchate, “Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,” orthodoxeurope.org, 2000, http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/3/14.aspx.
Ibid.
“Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,” Dicastero per la Comunicazione, accessed July 11, 2023, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html.
Archbishop Elpidophoros, FLOW, “Forward,” p. ix
Unfortunately, there are times in both documents when policy concerns overshadow evangelism to the detriment of both.