8.

 What is the significance of the Byzantine Empire?

            Byzantium was a Christian society dedicated to Christ and His Holy Church, and it produced a great number of saints from every level of society. Moreover, its Christianization of the Balkans and the Slavo-Varangian state of Rus' stand as supreme missionary achievements in the spreading of the true faith.

            Sir Dimitry Obolensky, professor emeritus of Russian and Balkan history at Oxford University, explains in his many books that among the events that shaped the history of Europe, a notable one is the influence exerted by Byzantium on the society and culture of Eastern Europe. Through the relations established between the Eastern Roman Empire and the people of the extensive territories to the north of the Black Sea and in the Balkan Peninsula, entire nations accepted Orthodox Christianity and adopted many features of Byzantine civilization — its law, literature and art. As a result, these nations were able to share in, and eventually contribute to, a common cultural tradition — the Byzantine heritage, whose principal beneficiaries were the Greeks and Slavs.

            Although Byzantium was inspired by the great vision of establishing here on earth a living icon of God's government in Heaven, it was still a human society, one full of human weaknesses. The textbook describes those well known weaknesses — the duplicity, violence and cruelty. It additionally mentions the empire's falling into the error of identifying the earthly kingdom with the Kingdom of God, and the Greek people with God's people. There can be no doubt that Byzantium fell far short of the high ideal that it itself set. Although not mentioned in the textbook but explained in the prefatory notes, those failures were the result of human nature, for Byzantium was populated with poor, fallen and sinful people like ourselves.

            The prefatory notes to the course also explain that the purpose of the Byzantine Empire was to provide a calm, stable and relatively peaceful framework on earth in which each person might strive, in the Holy Church, for the salvation of his soul. As long as there was a genuine striving for the Christian ideal, the empire continued to exist, no matter how short it fell of the mark. On the other hand, the notes mention, when that striving ceased, the empire was overrun by its enemies.

            The same fundamental law is seen all throughout Old and New Testament history — sc., that the cyclical rise and fall of people and nations is connected with their fluctuating relationship with God. This principle began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

            The commandment not to eat from the one tree was given so that through its fulfillment man could express his freely-willed striving toward God and love for Him. Speaking of this matter, the holy martyr Eustratius, who was killed during the reign of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, spoke the following words to his tormentors:

The Lord... forbade [Adam] to touch the fruit of one tree to instill in him obedience. In giving this command, God's intention was to teach man submission to the divine ordinances and to ignore the enticements of the devil, who envied the honor in which man was held. If he kept the commandment, man would live forever, immortal and incorrupt; however, if he transgressed it, he would not be permitted to remain in Paradise, but would be expelled and come under the domination of death [St. Demetrius of Rostov, The Great Collection of the Lives of the Saints, vol. 4, p. 254].

After the first human sin, God came to Adam not to condemn him or banish him from Paradise, but to bring him to his senses, confess his sin, and repent. In His love for mankind, and in His complete lack of ill will, God could have immediately subjected Adam and Eve to punishment, but as St. John Chrysostom writes, “He is long-suffering, delays, asks and listens for the answer, and again asks, as if evoking the guilty one to justify himself in order that when the matter has been revealed, He might show him His love for mankind even after such a transgression [Homilies on Genesis, p. 140].

            Thus it cannot be stated that Adam and Eve sinned and then were condemned. Instead, they were given a chance to repent, although Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent. When it was finally revealed that they had neither repentance nor any true justification, only then were they condemned. St. Ephraim the Syrian states that had Adam and Eve repented, then, “even though they would not have restored to themselves what they had before the transgression of the commandment, at least they would have been delivered from the curses that were uttered to the earth and themselves” [Commentary on Genesis, p. 329]. Rassaphore Nun Maria goes on to add that “God therefore saw that if [Adam and Eve] remained in the paradise of delight where they received all good things without pain or toil, they would never come to a proper realization of their deed, but would on the contrary grow completely and irreversibly hardened like the fallen angels.” That is, the human race would turn into another race of demons.

            Even the act of condemnation itself was an act of mercy, for once being given over to illness and sufferings, man had these misfortunes acting on him like a bridle. As St. Cyril of Alexandria explains, these things gave man the opportunity to heal in himself the disease which came upon him in the midst of blessedness. Moreover, the same Father states that:

By death, the Giver of the Law stopped the spread of sin, and in the very chastisement reveals His love for mankind. Inasmuch as He, in giving the commandment, joined death to the transgression of it, and inasmuch as the criminal thus fell under the chastisement, so He arranged that the chastisement itself might serve for salvation. For death dissolves this animal nature of ours and thus, on the one hand, stops the activity of evil, and on the other delivers a man from illnesses, frees him from labors, puts an end to his sorrows and cares, and stops his bodily sufferings. With such a love for mankind has the Judge mixed the chastisement [Quoted in Fr. Seraphim Rose, Genesis, Creation and Early Man, p. 210].

The Holy Fathers state that death was not only a punishment, but that it was something good. From Hieromonk Seraphim Rose we learn that:

It was also a good, because once man fell, if he were to still be immortal, there would be no way out for him. Imagine being in a state of being unable to redeem yourself, unable to get to Paradise, and then living and living and living, with no hope of getting out of this state. Death puts and end to sin. The fact that we are afraid of death already wakes us up to begin to struggle. Even if we forget about Paradise, we will be afraid of death and begin to struggle, to overcome our fallen nature [Ibid].

Fr. Damascene Christensen comments further on the meaning of suffering. He states that:

Before the fall, there was no suffering in the world; there was only spiritual pleasure, only joy. After the fall, God allowed suffering to enter the world not as a chastisement — for He has no need to see people punished — but out of love. If God would not have allowed suffering, there would have been nothing to check the spread of evil in the world. Man would get further and further entrenched in love of himself, seeking sensual pleasure for himself, growing in massive pride just like the devil, and we would all be like demons. God allowed suffering because, if it is met in the right way, it can lead to redemption, it can purify us. Suffering reminds us that we're moving away from our original destination and from the knowledge of who we are.

If we're involved in some sin — whether it's a sensual pleasure or a resentment against someone — we can feel a certain exhilaration from it, which makes us feel better and not so guilty. But eventually, through suffering, we're led back to the awareness that something is deeply wrong. Without suffering, there's no way we could find that out; we'd be completely blinded.

God cherishes freedom. In order to love Him and each other, we must have freedom to love or not love. There is no love without freedom. That's why God has created us free like He is; that's why He allows us to ravage the earth and inflict suffering on our fellow human beings. But in the midst of this suffering He wants to deliver any who call upon Him and wish to turn away from their fallenness, to return to their true designation. He accomplishes this return without meddling with man's freedom. He lets man make a mess of things and then in His omnipotence He uses this very mess to help man return to Him. Only God can do that. The devil, even while seeming to gain victory over a man's soul, often loses in this very victory, for God can turn it around and use the mess the devil created to bring the soul to Him through suffering [Quoted in Fr. Paisius Altschul, An Unbroken Circle: Linking Ancient African Christianity to the African-American Experience, p. 91].

In the writings of St. Nikolai Velimirovich, one frequently encounters the theme of “corrective” or redemptive suffering. Moreover, he frequently writes about it in the context of chastisement that God sends at the hands of unbelievers. Referring to the Babylonian captivity of the Hebrews, the bishop asks how it is that God calls Nebuchadnezzar, a pagan and idolatrous king, My servant (Jer 25:9)? Because, the bishop explains:

... when he to whom God has given knowledge of Himself and His laws turns knowledge to ignorance: law to lawlessness, then God takes as His servant him who does not know Him, to punish the apostate. For an apostate from God is worse than a pagan.... And so, when the Christian people in the Balkans turned back from God and God's law, God took the Turks as His servants, to punish those in apostasy and bring them to their senses by this punishment [Prologue from Ochrid].

It is only in this light that the sufferings of the Orthodox under the Turks can be seen, contrary to the papacy's maintaining that this chastisement was sent to the Orthodox for their sin of refusing to submit to the “supremacy” of the pope.

            Still, the question remains — how is it that hardship and defeat so often fall upon Orthodox Christians, while unbelievers are left to prosper? Where is God's justice? The same St. Nikolai penned this answer from his place of imprisonment in the infamous Dachau concentration camp during World War II:

When Abraham asked God whether He would destroy the sinful city of Sodom if ten righteous men were found in it, God answered that He would not destroy it, but that He would save the whole city for the sake of these ten righteous men. You say there were more than ten righteous amongst the Serbian people, so why did God not spare us? That is the word of a tempter. AS if you do not know that Sodom was a pagan city, that it did not know one God, as the Israelite people did; and that it was not baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, nor did it partake of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ as the Serbian nation did. The difference is like that between Heaven and earth. That is why He Who judges in righteousness wanted to save Sodom because of ten righteous people, but would not save Israel on account of ten thousand, nor the Serbs for the sake of hundreds of thousands of righteous souls. The Sodomites did not know the one true God. The Jews knew one true God through the prophets and through many miracles. The Serbs, however, knew God, revealed to the world in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Punishment is measured according to the scale of knowledge of God [Through a Prison Window].

In sacred history, God came to the transgressor Cain to give him a chance to repent after he slew his brother Abel (Gen 4:6-7). St. Ephraim the Syrian explains that God appears to Cain without anger so that the prayer pronounced by Cain's lips might wash away the sin of murder performed by his hands. However, if he does not repent, a heavy punishment will be assigned to him such as his crime deserves. Finally, although Cain did come to admit his guilt, it was too late, and his confession was more an admission of fact than it was an indication of repentance. Cain regretted his sin, but he did not repent of it (a common state among people to this day). Consequently, Cain was subjected to the curse: “Thou art cursed from the earth.” Here again, God shows first His concern that the guilty should repent, and then He shows His mercy even when there is not repentance.

            The same thing happened with the Hebrews. For a long time God endured their sins and awaited their repentance. Finally, when they did not reform themselves, they went into bondage to the Assyrians and Babylonians as a direct consequence of their long-standing idolatry and pursing heathen practices, and because of their disobeying the Law and ignoring the prophets. The historical books of the Old Testament, as well as the five nomothetic books of Moses, propound the close relationship between the piety of the people and their prosperity. In other words, they show that national disasters are always brought on by apostasy from the faith and moral decline. As Abba Dorotheos of Gaza (sixth century) states:

Everything that happens, happens with God's permission or approval, as it says in the Prophet, “I, the Lord, make the light and create darkness” (Isaiah 14:7), and again, “There is no evil in the city which the Lord did not make” (Amos 3:6). He speaks of evil here in the sense of the consequences of evil and the troubles that are brought upon us for correction because of the evil we do, such evils as famine, earthquakes, droughts, diseases and war. All this happens to us, not according to God's pleasure, but by His permission, with His permission they come upon us for our profit.

On the other hand, if people repent, “if My people which are called by My name shall humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked way; then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chron 7:14).

            Further on in sacred history, it is shown that when the Prophet Jonah, and later the Prophet Nahum, prophesied the destruction of Nineveh in Assyria by fire and water, the Ninevites repented for a short period of time. Then, seeing that Jonah's prediction did not come to pass, the people returned to their evil ways, thereby stirring up the wrath of the long-suffering God. As a result, there was a great earthquake, and part of Nineveh was flooded by waters from a nearby lake. The remainder of the city, the part that stood upon a hill, was consumed by a fire that spread from the surrounding wilderness. Thus did God in His righteous judgment punish the sinful people and fulfill Nahum's prophecy.

            The same principle is seen throughout the history of mankind: God chastises only after giving people abundant opportunity to repent and change their ways. This lesson is seen in Serbia in 1389, in Constantinople in 1453, and subsequently throughout the Balkan Peninsula as many nations fell to the Moslem Turks. More recently, it is repeated in 1917, when the scourge of atheistic Communism came upon Russia as a result of its capitulation to Western liberalism in the nineteenth century — that is, when it was overcome by the spirit of materialism and apostasy, and it took place again as Communism came to dominate the various nations of Eastern Europe in the bloody century that just ended. The lesson in each instance is that there are terrible consequences when a nation turns away from God to the idolatrous worship of its own ideas and passions.

            Byzantium was overcome by the same spirit of materialism and apostasy from the true faith, something that clearly manifested itself at the Council of Florence in 1439. After its betrayal of Orthodoxy at that council, it was handed over to its downfall at the hands of the Turks in 1453. After its downfall, Orthodoxy continued to endure martyrdom and persecution from the world, this time from the Moslems. As in the case under the first great persecution against the Church, suffering under the Moslems kept the Church pure by not allowing for lukewarmness of faith. In such a state, many saints continued to appear there, thus testifying that the Church is not bound to Byzantium, or to any other nation or system of this earth. The rise and fall of nations or systems is not the concern of the Church; the Church's concern is the rise and fall of the human soul. As Blessed Augustine expressed this idea in The City of God, the Church does not exist for empires or governments, but for salvation and the Kingdom of God.