Thoughts from Saint Sophrony on nationalism.https://t.co/0kRBbaA2VG pic.twitter.com/c8YDQ3WxPl
— IOCS - Cambridge (@IOCS_Cambridge) September 30, 2020
My desire was to establish a monastery in the spirit of Saint Silouan [the Athonite]. But to this day, I hear that my attempt is purely utopian. People tell me: "It is impossible to overcome nationalism in oneself." But then, I think, salvation is impossible. If I am a nationalist and Christian by faith, then I narrow Christ down to this concept - "nationality." You see why it is impossible for me to accept this narrowing down and why it is a great consolation for me that, although we are a small group, we are eleven nationalities! In the prayer of Silouan, who always calls us to pray for all mankind, from beginning to end, there is, of course, no nationalism. All these national divisions were the result of the Fall into sin. Nowhere do we see a Christian preaching of hatred. This means that the Christian faith doesn’t talk about the rejection of other nationalities, but about overcoming this limitation by ascending to the prayer of Gethsemane.If ethnonationalism meant loving only those of one's ethnos the exclusion of all others then it would be a sin. But that is not how it is used by those who use it in an identitarian context.
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