Establishment Theologoumenon on the State's Role Regarding Education

DECLARATION BY THE ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS OF ENGLAND AND WALES ON THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION (1929)
1. It is no part of the normal function of the State to teach.
2. The State is entitled to see that citizens receive due education sufficient to enable them to discharge the duties

— Fr Thomas Crean OP (@crean_fr) October 2, 2021

Tom Holland on the Influence of Christianity on Politics

In the new episode of my podcast CULTURE WARS for @spikedonline, I talk to the historian @holland_tom about the enduring influence of Christianity on Western politics.

Available on all major audio streaming services. https://t.co/h8mFq1vZ8S

— Andrew Doyle (@andrewdoyle_com) January 28, 2021

A Question

Does any ecclesial tradition have prayers at the Eucharist for tyrants or those who hold political authority unjustly?

Cyril Hovorun. Public lecture on International Relations and Ecumenism

The recording of my public lecture, where I explore how the notions of political legitimacy and power-sharing shaped the church and its relations with the state and modern societies.https://t.co/Nje8RtECx0

— Cyril Hovorun (@cyril_hovorun) October 6, 2020

Catholic Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights

Glad to say I've recieved a first print of my new book 'Catholic Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights'. Indebted to @samuelmoyn for his foreword and guidance, & to @hmtennapel & @smullallylaw for their endorsements. Available 5th March. @CUP_Law @IrishCentreHRhttps://t.co/9yor8YOgbn pic.twitter.com/glvjOoA445

— Leonard 'Emperor of Teaching' Taylor (@leonsaviour) February 24, 2020

Cambridge University Press

The Constantinian Legacy

Tomorrow is the Feast of Sts. Constantine and Helen in the Orthodox Church. I have a few thoughts on the complex issues surrounding Constantine’s legacy in the Orthodox Church (which is dominated by the influence of his biographer, Eusebius).

— George Demacopoulos (@GDemacopoulos) May 20, 2020

See the thread.

What Is Needed for Reconciliation with Rome

According to Fr. Thomas Hopko -- AFR: What Does Rome Need To Do? - Part 2 (and Part 1)

Some are the same demands of Rome made by Orthodox polemicsts in the immediate centuries following the supposed date of the schism.

Russian Faith has a summary: 22 Changes Roman Catholics Must Make to Repent, Become Orthodox, and Join the One True Church

The restoration of ad orientem worship was not included, but it probably should have been. Many of Fr. Hopko's demands regarding supposed "doctrinal errors" seem to ignore legitimate differences in theologoumena between the Latin and the Byzantine churches. I will have to reconsider those.

The doctrinal errors concerning the papacy are important, and considered by others to be the main or primary obstacle to full reconciliation.

• Aquiesce Papal Power
• Abolish All Pretenses of Papal Infallibility
• Actively Promote a Conciliar Approach

I agree with the demands that are based on the tradition once universally observed by the Church Universal:

• Perform Chrismation/Confirmation Immediately After Baptism
• Provide Holy Communion for Infants and Young Children, Immediately after Baptism and Chrismation
• Partake of Holy Communion Consecrated at the Present Service, Not from a Previous One  

Some comments on the following proposals:
Prepare Holy Communion with Leavened Bread
I have read that Rome used to use leavened bread as well; despite the claim that unleavened bread was used at the Last Supper, I don't see why Rome can't make the use of leavened bread at least optional.


Affirm New Bishops, Not Appoint Them
I think there need to be changes in how bishops are elected, but such a reform would require prior reforms of the local Church and its ecclesiology, and the Orthodox themselves need to consider what changes they should be making to church governance. So I don't think that should be a necessary condition for reconciliation.

Abdicate the Position as Head of State

With regards to the pope being a sort of figurehead and teacher of the universal teacher, I disagree with Hopko, who writes:

Then finally, in this area, I say: As leader of the world’s Christians, the pope of Rome would travel extensively. He would take full advantage of contemporary means of transportation and communication. He would master electronic media to serve his ministry in proclaiming Christ’s Gospel, propagating Christian faith, promoting ethical behavior, protecting human rights, and securing justice and peace for all people. He would be the servant of unity among all human beings, and first of all his fellow Christians, not as a unique episcopus episcoporum—that’s an expression of St. Cyprian—not as a bishop of other bishops—there is no bishop of other bishops, as was decreed already in the Council of Carthage in the third century: he is not the bishop of bishops; he is one of the equal bishops with all the others—so he would not have that position, but he would have the position as the leading bishop in the world, that Pope St. Gregory the Great called servus servorum Dei, the servant of the servants of God, among all the Christian bishops in the world. 

In an age of the collapse of a "civilization" powered by fossil fuels, this sort of role as "universal teacher" will pass into history. In the age of collapse, if anyone should be exercising some sort of teaching authority with regards to some political community or unit, it should be the local bishops, but within their competence, and the Christian laity must be acknowledged as having a role within the reform of political society that is partly separate from whatever teaching authority bishops may have in that area.

The Nature-Grace Distinction

What relevance to the distinction between the distinction between "State" and "Church"?

The reversal noted here by @jacobwwood is missed by many who think about the application of the nature-grace distinction to the distinction of the two powers. pic.twitter.com/UKGW1TV3CB

— Pater Edmund (@sancrucensis) May 5, 2020

…because he has a much more "optimistic" theology of sin. That is, de Lubac has a naively optimistic understanding of justification through "implicit faith" that leads him to underestimate the extent to which the ’world‘ is under the domination of the devil.

— Pater Edmund (@sancrucensis) May 5, 2020

Violence Necessary to Maintain Orthodoxy?

Alan Fimister and Andrew Willard Jones discuss the reasons for a seeming rise in the amount of violence necessary to maintain orthodoxy in the High Middle Ages. https://t.co/untg1qd3gX

— The Josias (@josias_rex) May 10, 2020

Making any act of heresy tantamount to treason is a papocaesarist's dream.

Integralism

Soft-back version of 'Integralism: a manual of political philosophy' now available for pre-order in the US, priced $31. https://t.co/pZ466ZSHfU

— Fr Thomas Crean OP (@crean_fr) April 13, 2020

Eastern Christian Books: Politically Coerced Orthodoxies

Eastern Christian Books: Politically Coerced Orthodoxies

What Are Legitimate Responses to Transgressions of the Limits of Authority?

Or if there is no legitimate authority to begin with? This essay does not address those questions.

Church Life: Why Is Christian Citizenship a Paradox? by Émilie Tardivel-Schick

Should This Be Called [Roman] Catholic Integralism?

In Defence of Catholic Integralism by Thomas Pink

Is it necessarily bound up with acceptance of the modern nation-state?

A Sacred Kingdom

The Frankish churches exercising authority over the secular realm: standard from erroneous principles? Looking mistakenly at OT antecedents?

The Present Crisis in the Patriarchate of Rome

It is probably not correct to trace it as a consequence of ecclesial trends prior to and culminating in the Council of Trent, much less to intellectual trends alone, but one must also take into consideration the development of the modern nation-state (with its roots in the centralization of power by nationalist kings) and how the Church responded accordingly.

It's not just neo-scholasticism or Tridentine Roman Catholicism that is the problem, though they do have a major effect on the Church's ability to evangelize.

Massimo Faggioli at Providence College

Should Bishops Attempt to Be Politicians?

One Would Expect More from the Orthodox as Well

Seems that many Orthodox prelates can't help but embed themselves with American politicians, much like their Catholic counterparts. But at least the Russian-American Orthodox do not do this?

Byz, TX: NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo receives Pat. Athenagoras award

Bruce Frohnen on the Wall of Separation

Is There a Wall of Separation Between Church and State? by Bruce Frohnen

Answerable to the People?

AmConMag: Byzantine Empire—or Republic?
The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome, Anthony Kaldellis, Harvard University Press, 312 pages
By Brian Patrick Mitchell