St. Justin Popovic
What is the objective of Orthodox culture? It is to introduce and to
realize, to the greatest extent possible, the Divine in man and in the
world around him; to incarnate God in man and in the world, wherefore
Orthodox culture is an incessant service to Christ our God, an incessant
divine service. Man serves God by means of all creation; all around
himself he systematically and regularly introduces that which is of God
into his every effort, into his creativity. He awakens everything divine
in nature around him, in order that all of nature, under man’s
guidance, might serve God, and thus does all creation participate in a
general and mutual divine service, for nature serves that man who serves
God.
Theanthropic culture transfigures man from within, and thereby
likewise influences his external condition, – it transfigures the soul,
and by way of the soul, it transfigures the body. For this culture, the
body is the temple of the soul, which lives, moves and has its being
through the soul. Take away the soul from the body-and what will remain,
if not a stinking corpse? The God-man first of all transfigures the
soul-and, subsequently, the body as well. The transfigured soul
transfigures the body; it transfigures matter.
The goal of Theanthropic culture is to transfigure not only man and
humanity, but also all of nature through them. But how is this goal to
be attained? Only by Theanthropic means: through the evangelic virtues
of faith and love, hope and prayer, fasting and humility, meekness and
compassion, love of God and neighbour. It is by means of these virtues
that Theanthropic Orthodox culture is fashioned. Pursuing these virtues,
man transfigures his deformed soul, making it beautiful; it is
transformed from something dark into something light, something sinful
into something holy, something with a dark countenance into something
Godlike. And he transfigures his body into a temple that can accommodate
his Godlike soul.
It is through the podvig [= (spiritual) ordeal] of procuring the
evangelic virtues that man acquires power and authority over himself and
over nature around him. Banishing sin both from himself and from the
world that surrounds him, man likewise banishes its savage, destructive,
ruinous force; he fully transfigures himself and the world, and subdues
nature, both within and without and about himself. The finest examples
of this are the saints: having sanctified, having transfigured,
themselves through the podvig of attaining to the evangelic virtues,
they likewise sanctify and transform nature around about them. There are
many saints who were served by wild beasts and who, simply by the mere
fact of their appearance, could subdue and tame lions, bears and wolves.
They treated nature prayerfully, mildly, meekly, compassionately, and
gently; being neither harsh, nor stern, nor hostile, nor ferocious.
It is not an external, violent, mechanical imposition thereof, but an
inner, good-willed, personal assimilation of the Lord Jesus Christ
through the podvig of the Christian virtues that establishes the Tsardom
of God on earth, that establishes Orthodox culture-for the Tsardom of
God does not come externally or visibly, but internally, spiritually,
imperceptibly. The Saviour says: _”The Tsardom of God shall not come
perceptibly; And they shall not say: ‘lo, it is here,’ or: ‘lo, it is
there.’ For behold, the Tsardom of God is within you.”_ (Luke 17, 20-21)
– it is within the God-created and Godlike soul, sanctified by the Holy
Spirit, – for _”The Tsardom of God is not food nor drink, but
righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”_ (Rom. 14, 17) Yes,
in the Holy Spirit, and not in the spirit of man. It can be in the
spirit of man to the extent that man infills himself with the Holy
Spirit by means of the evangelic virtues. Wherefore the very first and
very greatest commandment of Orthodox culture is: _”Seek ye first the
Tsardom of God and of His righteousness, and all this shall be added
unto you.”_ (Matt. 6, 33), that is, everything will be added unto you
which is needful for supporting the life of the body: food, clothing,
shelter. (Matt. 6, 25-32) All these things are but the appurtenances of
the Tsardom of God, yet Western culture seeks these appurtenances first
of all. Therein is its paganism to be found; for, in the words of the
Saviour, it is the pagans who seek these appurtenances first of all.
Therein is its tragedy, for it has starved the soul in its concern for
material things, whereas the sinless Lord has stated once and for all:
_”Do not be concerned for your life, for what ye shall eat or drink, nor
for your body, what ye shall wear… Because it is the pagans who seek
all these things, and because your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have
need of all this. Seek ye first the Tsardom of God and His
righteousness, and all this shall be added unto you.” (Matt. 6, 25,
32-33; Luke 12, 22-31)
Great is the extent of those necessities which modern man
passionately creates in his imagination. In order to satisfy these
senseless needs men have turned our wondrous Divine planet into a
slaughterhouse. But our philanthropic Lord has long since revealed what
is “the one thing needful” for each man and for all of humanity. And
what is this? – the God-man Jesus Christ and everything that He brings
with Him: divine truth, divine justice, divine love, divine goodness,
divine holiness, divine immortality and eternity, and all the other
divine perfections. That is “the one thing needful” for man and for
humanity, and all the rest of man’s necessities, in comparison with
this, are so insignificant, that they are almost unneeded. (Luke 10, 42)
When man seriously, and in accordance with the Gospel, contemplates
the mystery of his own life and of the life around him, then he must, of
necessity, conclude that the most pressing need is to reject all
necessities and to follow decisively after the Lord Jesus Christ, to
unite with Him by way of perfecting the evangelic podvigs. Without
having done this, man remains spiritually unfruitful, senseless,
lifeless; his soul dries up, crumbles away, disintegrates, and he
gradually grows insensate, until such time as he finally dies
completely, for the Divine lips of Christ did say: “Abide ye in Me, and I
in you. As a branch cannot bring forth fruit of itself, unless it be on
the vine: so also you, unless ye be in Me. I am the vine and ye are the
branches, he who abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth
much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing. He who abideth not in Me
shall be cast out, like a branch, and shall wither up, but such branches
are gathered and cast into the fire, and they are consumed.” (John 15,
4-6)
It is only by means of a spiritually organic unity with the God-man
Christ that man can continue on his life into life eternal and his
being-into one of eternal existence. A man of Theanthropic culture is
never alone: when he thinks-he thinks through Christ, when he acts-he
acts through Christ, when he feels-he feels through Christ. In a word:
he incessantly lives through Christ-God, for what is man without God? –
at first, half a man, and in the end-no man at all. It is only in the
God-man that man finds the completeness and perfection of his own being,
his Prototype, his perpetuity, his immortality and eternity, his
absolute worth. The Lord Jesus Christ, alone among men and all beings,
proclaimed the human soul to be the greatest treasure of all worlds, of
those both above and below. “Therefore, fear them not: for there is
nothing concealed that shall not be revealed, nor secret which shall not
be made known.” (Matt. 10, 26)
All the stars and planets are not worth a single soul. If a man
wastes away his soul in sins and vices, he will not be able to redeem
it, even were he to become master of all the stellar systems. Here man
has but one way out-the God-man Christ-Who is the only One Who grants
immortality to the human soul. The soul is not freed from death by
material things, but enslaved; and it is only the God-man Who frees man
from their tyranny. Material things have no power over the man who
belongs to Christ; rather, he has power over them. He sets the true
value of all things, for he values them in the same way as did Christ.
And whereas the human soul, according to the Gospel of Christ, has an
incomparably greater worth than all the beings and all the things in the
world, Orthodox culture is therefore primarily a culture of the soul.
Man’s greatness is only in God-that is the motto of Theanthropic
culture. Man without God is 70 kg of bloody clay, a sepulchre prior to
the grave. European man has condemned to death both God and the soul,
but has he not thereby also condemned himself to that death following
which there is no resurrection? Try dispassionately to grasp the essence
of European philosophy, of European science, politics, culture,
civilization, and you will see that in European man they have killed God
and the immortality of the soul. And if one seriously ponders the
tragedy of human history, then it is possible to see that Deicide always
ends with suicide. Remember Judas: first he killed God, and then he
destroyed himself, such is the inevitable law of the history of our
planet.
The structure of European culture, erected without Christ, must
crumble away, crumble away very quickly-prophesied the insightful and
astute Dostoyevskii 100 years ago, and the mournful Gogol’ over 100
years ago. And before our very eyes are the prognostications of the
Slavonic prophets coming to pass. For 10 centuries has the European
Tower of Babel been a-building, and now a tragic picture meets our gaze:
what has been constructed is a huge-nothing! General perplexity and
confusion have begun: man cannot understand man, nor soul-soul, nor
nation-nation. Man has risen up against man, kingdom against kingdom,
nation against nation, and even continent against continent.
European man has reached his destiny-determining and head-spinning
heights. He has set the superman at the summit of his Tower of Babel,
seeking therewith to crown his structure, but the superman went mad just
short of the apex and fell from the tower, which is crumbling away and
collapsing, in his wake, and being broken down by wars and revolutions.
_Homo europaeicus_ had to become a suicide. His “Wille zur Macht” (lust
for Power) became “Wille zur Nacht” (longing for Night). And Night, a
burdensome Night, descended upon Europe. The idols of Europe are
crashing down, and not far distant is that day when not a stone will
remain upon a stone of European culture, that culture which builds
cities and destroys souls; which deifies creatures and casts away the
Creator…
The Russian thinker Herzen, enamoured of Europe, long lived there;
but, in the sunset of his life, 100 years ago, he wrote: “For quite some
time did we study the worm-eaten organism of Europe; in all its strata,
everywhere, we saw the signs of death… Europe is advancing toward a
frightful catastrophe… Political revolutions are collapsing beneath the
weight of their inadequacy. They have wrought great deeds, but have not
accomplished their task. They have destroyed faith, but have not secured
liberty. They have kindled in men’s hearts such desires as were not
fated to come to pass… Before all others, I turn deathly pale and am
affrighted of the impending night… Farewell, dying world! Farewell,
Europe!”
The heavens are empty, there is no God in them; the earth is empty,
there is no immortal soul upon it. European culture has turned all its
slaves into corpses and has itself become a graveyard. “I want to
journey to Europe,” says Dostoyevskii, “and I know that I am going to a
graveyard.” (F. M. Dostoyevskii. “Zimniya zametki o lyetnikh
vpechatlyeniyakh” ["Winter Notes On Summer Impressions"].)
Prior to the First World War, Europe’s impending perdition was sensed
and foretold only by melancholic Slavonic seers. Following it, some
Europeans also take notice of and sense this. The boldest and most
sincere of them, doubtless, was [Oswald] Spengler, who shook the world
with his book “Untergang des Abendlandes” (O. Spengler, vol. 1, [_"Obraz
i deystvityel'nost'"] “Image and Actuality,” M.- Pg., 1923) In it,
through all the means that European science, philosophy, politics,
technology, art, religion, etc., could provide him, he shows that the
West is perishing. Ever since the First World War, Europe is emitting
her pre-mortem death-rattle. Western or Faustian culture, which
according to Spengler had its origins in the X-th century, now is
passing away and crumbling down, and is destined to perish completely in
the XXII-nd century. (At present it would seem that this process has
become accelerated.) In the wake of European culture, Spengler foresees
the coming of the culture of Dostoyevskii, the culture of Orthodoxy.
With each new cultural discovery, European man grows ever more
mortified and dies. European man’s love affair with himself-that is the
grave from which he neither desires to-nor, consequently, can-be
resurrected. Its infatuation with its reason-that is the fatal passion
which desolates European humanity. The only salvation from this is
Christ, says Gogol;. But the world throughout which “are dispersed
millions of glittering objects that scatter one’s thoughts in all
directions, has not the strength to meet with Christ directly.”
The type of European man has capitulated before the fundamental
problem of life; the Orthodox God-man has solved all of them, each and
every one. European man has solved the problem of life through nihilism;
the God-man, through eternal life. For the Darwinian-Faustian man of
Europe, the main object of life is self-preservation; for the man of
Christ it is self-sacrifice. The first says: sacrifice others for
yourself! while the second says: sacrifice yourself for others! European
man has not resolved the pernicious problem of death; the God-man has
resolved it through Resurrection.
Doubtless, the principles of European culture and civilization are
theomachic. Long was the type of European man in his becoming what he
is, until such a time as he replaced the God-man Christ with his
philosophy and science, with his politics and technology, with his
religion and ethics. Europe made use of Christ “merely as a bridge from
uncultured barbarism to cultured barbarism; that is, from a guileless
barbarism into a sly barbarism.” (Bp. Nikolai [Velimirovich], “Slovo o
vsecheloveke” ["A Sermon On Everyman"], p. 334.)
In my conclusions about European culture there is much that is
catastrophic, but let this not astonish you, for we are speaking about
the most catastrophic period of human history-the apocalypse of Europe,
the body and spirit of which are being rent asunder by horrors. Without a
doubt, volcanic contradictions are implanted in Europe, the which, if
they are not removed, can be resolved only by the final destruction of
European culture.
