Foreword: Psychopathology and Fascism
Most Orthodox Christians love God and love their neighbour as ourselves. That is to say, we respect ourselves because we know that, despite our sins, we know that God made us. Those with low self-esteem, usually those who were abused in some way in childhood, belong to the realm of psychiatry, for they do not respect themselves. They are not necessarily humble, they are humiliated – and humble and humiliated are very different things, Interestingly, cult-leaders deliberately confuse the two and use that confusion to manipulate or ‘gaslight’ their victims. Those with high self-esteem, in everyday English, the proud, often from a wealthy background, seek power and domination over others, through politics or religion and, in terms of psychopathology, suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissists are always paranoid and Fascist, regardless of whether they are ‘Democrats’, ‘Christians’, ‘Nazis’ or ‘Communists’.
Introduction
Now, narcissism is precisely the most common Western spiritual disease today. Narcissism is an offshoot of the insecurity of infantility, but it is very common in materialistic or relatively wealthy Western societies. It is a result of a lack of physical suffering which causes immaturity, which is encouraged by the spoilt culture of social media, Instagram, Facebook, Tik-Tok etc. Narcissism is characterised by their insistence on a sort of ‘Papal’ infallibility, ‘I am always right’ and ‘I am superior’, as seen precisely in spoilt children. They insist that they are always right, as they are the centre of the world, which owes them its entire devotion, and they lie to and deal out harsh punishments to those who disagree with them. This sense of entitlement and vanity demands that the narcissist must constantly have his ego massaged. He is ‘right’ in a very authoritarian way (Trump and Blair are the most obvious examples).
The Roman Catholic Deviation of Authority
Historically, Papism has been a local disease of religious authority or rather of religious authoritarianism, which proclaims: ‘All truth comes from me, for I am the Head of the Church’. Papism, historically originating in the pagan Roman Emperors who had themselves worshipped as gods and mediators, is dogmatically closely connected with and justified by the later filioque dogma, which reinforces Papism precisely by dogmatising it. The filioque claims that the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, does not pass through or irradiate the Son of God, but actually originates in the Son of God. Now, once the Pope of Rome claimed to replace the Son of God as ‘the Vicar of Christ’, this means that the Pope of Rome, purporting to be the source of the Holy Spirit, and so supplanted Christ, has absolute authority, infallibility. This is clearly a spiritual deviation or heresy and has absolutely no foundation in the Gospels.
However, there are Orthodox Patriarchs who also seem to claim absolute authority (they know their names, we do not need to repeat them here). They claim that they can supplant Church Councils, which are the real practical organs of authority in the Church, providing that those Councils are inspired by the Holy Spirit. We must recall that by no means all Councils are inspired, as we saw at the Robber Council in Crete in 2016. For the source of authority is the Holy Spirit, Who operates through the Church, the Body of Christ, Whose Head is Christ. The Holy Spirit wrote the Holy Scriptures and inspires Tradition, which are identical, as their origin is identical. With their filioque spirit, for instance, some Orthodox claim that if their particular Patriarch is not mentioned by name in any particular church, it is not Orthodox, but schismatic or heretical. This may not be systematic, institutionalised, dogmatised filioquism, but it is no less filioquism.
We can see this today in the Ukraine, the Baltic States and Moldova, where because of local State Russophobia and centralised Moscow’s refusal to grant autocephaly to the Local Church in those countries, the Russian Patriarch may not be mentioned by name during services. Therefore, racist fanatics in Russia reckon that those Churches are not Orthodox, but schismatic! These unloving people would deprive tens of millions of Orthodox of salvation. These are the ‘Orthodox’ Papists, who replace the Holy Spirit with a mere Patriarch. They seem to forget that in the majority of Orthodox Churches, the Russian Patriarch (or any other Patriarch) is not mentioned by name in services. Such is the racist ignorance of these nominal Orthodox, that they do not even know that there are other Local Churches, whose Patriarch is not mentioned at services or who do not even have a Patriarch to mention, but a Metropolitan or an Archbishop.
The Protestant Deviation of Salvation by Baptism
Rather like the submission to Islam, the simple confession of Protestantism is said by many to mean at once that ‘You are saved’. This over-simplicity, the idea that a few words mean salvation, is a reaction to the Papist deviation which declares that a few words of submission to Papism also mean salvation. In reality, it is not so simple, we are saved by the mercy of God, not by Papist or Protestant sets of words and formulas. However, in Protestantism, this idea of salvation leads to the Protestant obsession with baptism. Although in reality baptism is only the beginning of salvation, for the Protestant deviation baptism is salvation. This is why fundamentalists, including so-called ‘converts’ to Orthodoxy from Protestant backgrounds, are obsessed with literalism and forms of baptism. They imagine that this makes them ‘Super-Orthodox’, more Orthodox than the Orthodox! It is all a very Protestant, ‘OneTrueChurch’ reflex.
This is a very unloving and censorious viewpoint, typical of very conservative Calvinism and Lutheranism, and like all views which have no love, they soon become heretical. The heresy here is that such ‘Super Orthodox’ deny the Orthodox sacraments of those received into the Church by economy by chrismation or by simple confession, sacraments which those received may have been taking for years. Ironically, it is these ‘Super Orthodox’ who are the real Papists! Thus, such are ‘filioquists’, for they supplant the Holy Spirit with themselves. These quenchers of the Holy Spirit will deny even the validity of emergency baptism of babies in hospital. Another example: if you are dying in a desert and your companion is not baptised, you can baptise him with the liquid in your mouth. Baptism is the only sacrament that laypeople can perform, is accessible to all and with water, the most common liquid on earth.
Another example: There is a well-known story about a 19th century Russian priest who discovered to his horror that because of a snowstorm and a resulting misunderstanding when he had been about to be baptised as a baby, he had not been baptised. The case was referred to Metr (now St) Philaret of Moscow (1782-1867). He declared that all the sacraments performed by that priest were valid, for the grace of the Holy Spirit is in all the sacraments, not just in one. The priest’s status was validated by the sacraments of confession, communion, marriage and ordination which he had received. It is for this reason of a literalist and formal rite that Protestants are forever counting the number of baptised and how many people go to church each Sunday. However, we Orthodox are the baptised who go to Church because we need spiritual support. Orthodoxy is in our values and so in our way of life, not in a Sunday formality or ritual.
Conclusion
We draw the obvious conclusion that you do not have to be a Papist or a Protestant to make errors or to wish to dominate. It is just that in Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, these errors of self-centred authoritarianism and the narcissistic dogmatisation of error, the lack of love, are systematised and institutionalised, because they are dogmatised. However, by no means all Roman Catholics or Protestants consciously confess these errors; most have never heard of the filioque and do not agree with the institution that they supposedly belong to. Systematised errors are called wrong choices or ‘heresies’. However, this does not excuse Orthodox, often ‘converts’, who do the same thing and indeed do worse. They should know better. Sadly, we know many an Orthodox bishop and some priests who fall into these errors of authoritarian exclusivity, which are sectarianism and cultishness – heresy.