I would like to thank my colleague, Dr. James Payton, for his invaluable and detailed comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks are also due to the late Professor John Meyendorff of St. Vladimir's Seminary, who offered support and helpful suggestions less than three weeks before his unexpected death. Thanks as well to my other colleagues who nicely poked through the holes in my reasoning while encouraging this project as a whole, and to Mr. Michael Morbey of Ottawa, Ontario. Their input measurably improved this paper. Any remaining flaws are my own.

1. Niebuhr's brother, Reinhold, , with his Christian realism, could probably also be placed in this category, as evidenced by his Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribner's, 1932)Google Scholar, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (New York: Scribner's, 1944)Google Scholar, and The Nature and Destiny of Man (New York: Scribner's, 1941).Google Scholar

2. It is probably incorrect to generalize about North American evangelicalism, which perhaps ought to be seen as a diverse coalition of conservative and confessional Christians within the historically delineated traditions. Consequently so-called evangelical Presbyterians are likely to have a different approach to culture than that followed by one of the Scandinavian free-church denominations which bear the unmistakable imprint of their Lutheran and pietist roots. Similarly, self-styled “evangelicals” in the Mennonite and Anglican traditions would take different attitudes towards issues of Christian political responsibility.

3. See, e.g., Bloesch, Donald, The Evangelical Renaissance (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1973)Google Scholar, and The Future of Evangelical Christianity: A Call for Unity Amid Diversity (Colorado Springs: Helmers and Howard, 1988)Google Scholar; Wells, David F. and Woodbridge, John D., ed., The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They Are Changing (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Marsden, George, ed., Evangelicalism and Modem America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984)Google Scholar; and Noll, Mark A. and Wells, David F., ed., Christian Faith and Practice in the Modern World: Theology from an Evangelical Point of View (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988).Google Scholar

4. Hereafter to be referred to as Orthodoxy or Orthodox Christianity.

5. For a discussion of the historical and ecclesiological factors behind the emergence of ethnic nationalisms in the Orthodox world, see Meyendorff, John, The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1982), pp. 225 ffGoogle Scholar. See also his Imperial Unity and Christian Division The Church from 450–680 A.D. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1989)Google Scholar. For a treatment of the introduction of Hellenic nationalism among Orthodox Christians in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, see Kitromilides, Paschalis M., “Greek Irredentism in Asia Minor and Cyprus,” Middle Eastern Studies 26 (01 1990): 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Florovsky, Georges, in his essay, “Faith and Culture” (published as Chapter I of his Christianity and Culture [Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Co., 1974])Google Scholar, takes what might be considered a transformational approach, arguing against varieties of Christian indifference towards culture and in favor of a more positive approach which sees man as “redeemed in order to be re-instated in his original rank and to resume his role and function in the Creation” (p. 21).

7. To the Orthodox all Western Christians, protestant or Catholic, look more alike than different. So much is this the case that Alexis Khomiakov refers to protestants as “Crypto-Papists.” See Ware, Timothy, The Orthodox Church (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar Anthony Ugolnik similarly draws attention to the inadequacy of Niebuhr's typically Western categories for understanding Orthodoxy. See Ugolnik, , The Illuminating Icon (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), p. xv.Google Scholar

8. I shall not in this article attempt a foundational critique of the iconic theory itself but shall limit myself to attempting to analyze its traditional articulation from within the tradition.

9. See, e.g., St.John, of Damascus, Third Apology, 26, published in On the Divine Images (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980), pp. 80 ffGoogle Scholar; and Theodore of Studios, On the Holy Icons (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1981).Google Scholar See also Lossky, Vladimir, “Image and Likeness” in both his Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1978), pp. 119–137Google Scholar and The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), pp. 114–34.Google Scholar

10. See, e.g., the Russian Primary Chronicle, which recounts how the emissaries of Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev, experienced the worship at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: “Then we went to Greece, and the Greeks led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only know that God dwells there among men...” (Riha, Thomas, ed., Readings in Russian Civilization [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964], 1: 27–28Google Scholar).

11. For accounts of the iconoclastic controversies and the Seventh Ecumenical Council, see Schmemann, Alexander, Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1977), pp. 198 ffGoogle Scholar; and Ware, , The Orthodox Church, pp. 38 ffGoogle Scholar. For the theology behind the use of icons, see Ouspensky, Léonide, Theology of the Icon (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1978)Google Scholar; and Benz, Emst, The Eastern Orthodox Church: Its Thought and Life (New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1963)Google Scholar, especially chap. 2, “The Orthodox Icon.”

12. See Harakas, Stanley S., “The Integrity of Creation: Ethical Issues,” in Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation: Insights from Orthodoxy, ed. Limouris, Gennadios (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1990), pp. 70–82Google Scholar, for a discussion of the relation between spirit and matter, the role of man as mediator between Creator and the rest of creation, and the implication of these themes for the ecological crisis.

13. Florovsky, , “Faith and Culture,” p. 24.Google Scholar

14. Schmemann, , Church, World, Mission: Reflections on Orthodoxy in the West (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1979), pp. 217–27.Google ScholarCf., Ware, , “The Value of the Material Creation,” Sobornost, series 6, no. 3,1971, pp. 154–65.Google Scholar

15. Schmemann, , Church, World, Mission, p. 223.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., p. 224. See also John, St. of Damascus, First Apology, 16 (On the Divine Images, p. 23).Google Scholar

17. Ouspensky, , Theology of the Icon, p. 191.Google Scholar

18. See, e.g., Bloesch, , Essentials of Evangelical Theology (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978,1979), especially vol. 1, pp. 133,155–56, and vol. 2, p. 242.Google Scholar Bloesch is critical of Orthodox mysticism, deification, and the tendency of “Catholic theology (Roman, Greek, and Anglo-Catholic)... to view the incarnation as a cosmic principle working from the union of God and man apart from the cross of humiliation” (1:133). See also Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), especially pp. 242 ff.Google Scholar

19. See Ouspensky, and Lossky, Vladimir, The Meaning of Icons (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1982)Google Scholar, for a classic treatment of the interpretation of icons themselves.

20. The notion of theosis, or deification, can be traced back to the early church fathers, St. Irenaeus and St. Athanasius, and continues as an important theme in Orthodox theology thereafter. See Ware, , The Orthodox Church, pp. 236–42Google Scholar, for a brief discussion of the concept and Mantzaridis, Georgios I., The Deification of Man: St. Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984)Google Scholar, for a fuller treatment. Note that Ware is careful to emphasize, first, that “the Orthodox Church, while speaking of deification and union [with God], rejects all forms of pantheism” (The Orthodox Church, p. 237) and, second, that deification is a process which involves the body, and not merely an incorporeal platonic soul. But even Meyendorff admits that Platonism has been “the greatest temptation for Eastern Christian thought from the time of Origen” (Meyendorff, , St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality [Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974], p. 126).Google Scholar

21. The Byzantines called themselves Romaioi, or Romans, and saw themselves as simply the continuation of the Roman Empire. See Barker, Ernest, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 27Google Scholar; Ostrogorsky, George, History of the Byzantine State (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1957), p. 26Google Scholar; and Ahrweiler, Helene, L'deologie politique de l'Empire byzantin (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1975), p. 12.Google Scholar

22. See Obolensky, Dimitri, The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe 500-1453 (New York: Praeger, 1971)Google Scholar. Obolensky argues that for close to a millennium all of the Orthodox countries of Europe, and not merely the Byzantine Empire proper, in effect constituted a supranational commonwealth which acknowledged the emperor as its head. According to Byzantine political philosophy, “a nation, having accepted the empire's Christian faith, became thereby subject to the authority of the emperor, who was held to be the sole legitimate sovereign of the Christian world” (p. 84). For a brief discussion of the “Third Rome” ideology in Russia, see Zernov, Nicolas, The Russians and their Church (London: Society fo Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1945), pp. 44 ff, especially p. 51.Google Scholar

23. Ware, , The Orthodox Church, p. 50.Google Scholar

24. Benz, , Eastern Orthodox Church, pp. 163 ffGoogle Scholar. See also Runciman, Steven, The Great Church in Captivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 57–58.Google Scholar

25. Benz, , Eastern Orthodox Church, p. 164.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., pp. 164–65.

27. Schmemann, , Historical Road, p. 97.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., p. 97. On the other hand, Schmemann is highly critical of the tendency of fourth-century Christians simply to assimilate the ancient pagan theocratic conception of the state into their own worldview. Cf., Meyendorff, , Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979), pp. 213–16.Google Scholar Meyendorff is critical of the notion that “the state, as such, could become intrinsically Christian” (p. 213). Cf., Florovsky, , “Faith and Culture,” pp. 28–29.Google Scholar

29. According to Runciman, “Just as the Byzantines disliked hard and fast doctrinal pronouncements unless a need arose or a tradition was challenged, so they avoided a precise ruling on the relations between Church and State. These were decided by a mixture of tradition, of popular sentiment and the personalities of the protagonists” (Captivity, p. 63). Indeed, not all in the Byzantine tradition accept the legitimacy of Justinian's approach. See, for example, Meyendorff's comments in Imperial Unity (pp. 209–210; quoted below, p. 283), where he argues that it is unbiblical.

30. For a more detailed discussion of the history of church-state theories in the West, see Goerner, Edward A., Peter and Caesar: The Catholic Church and Political Authority (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965).Google Scholar

31. For a contemporary Orthodox reflection on the traditional symphonia doctrine within the context of twentieth-century United States with its constitutional doctrine of church-state separation, see Harakas, , “Orthodox Church-State Theory and American Democracy,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 21 (1976): 400–419Google Scholar; and “Church and State in Orthodox Thought,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 27 (1982): 2–21Google Scholar.

32. Novella VI; as quoted in Barker, , Social and Political Thought in Byzantium, pp. 75–76.Google Scholar See also Meyendorff, , Imperial Unity, pp. 207 ffGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of the historical context of Justinian's approach.

33. For example, Theodore Balsamon tipped the balance even further in the emperor's direction, concluding that “the service of the Emperors includes the enlightening and strengthening of both body and soul. The dignity of the Patriarchs is limited to the benefit of souls, and that alone” (Opera, Migne, J.p., Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Graeco-Latina, CXXXVIII, coll. 93, 1017–18Google Scholar; quoted in Runciman, , Captivity, p. 61Google Scholar).

34. Bratsiotis, , The Greek Orthodox Church (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), p. 75.Google Scholar

35. See Muller, Alexander V., ed. and trans., The Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972).Google Scholar

36. John of Damascus makes clear the jurisdictional boundaries between church and emperor within the context of the iconoclastic controversy. “We will not allow an imperial edict to overturn the body of teachings handed down from the fathers. It is not for would-be pious kings to overthrow the boundaries of the church” (Commentary on St.Sophronius, , The Spiritual Garden [On the Divine Images, p. 48]Google Scholar; cf. Second Apology, 16 [pp. 62–3]).Google Scholar

37. See, e.g., Barker, , Social and Political Thought in Byzantium, pp. 7–8Google Scholar; Schmemann, , Historical Road, p. 117Google Scholar: and Ware, , The Orthodox Church, p. 49.Google ScholarBulgakov, Sergei admits that caesaropapism was often the reality, but it “was always an abuse; never was it recognized, dogmatically or canonically” (The Orthodox Church [Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1988], p. 157).Google Scholar Interestingly, however, Roman Catholic philosopher Thomas Molnar, who is in many respects typically Byzantine in his thinking, speaks of caesaropapism in positive terms and even claims a biblical basis for it. See his Twin Powers: Politics and the Sacred (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988), p. 35.Google Scholar Ironically, according to G. P. Fedotov, the reception of Orthodox Christianity by Kievan Rus did not immediately effect a transplantation of the typical Byzantine imperial ideology into that local setting. The political fragmentation of the medieval Russian principalities coupled with the dependence of the metropolitan of Kiev on Constantinople together worked to produce a more balanced church-state relationship than existed in Byzantium itself and would exist later in Russia. See Fedotov, , The Russian Religious Mind, vol. I: Kievan Christianity: The Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 397 ff.Google Scholar

38. The emperor was described by Agapetos, deacon of Constantinople, as “similar to God, who is over all, for he does not have anyone higher than himself anywhere on earth” (Capita admonitoria 21; 63 [Patrologia graeca 86:1172; 1184], quoted in Pelikan, , Spirit of Eastern Christendom, p. 168).Google Scholar

39. There were sometimes co-emperors, but, as Runciman observes, “only one Emperor exercised the power, the Autocrator Basileus” (Runciman, , Byzantine Civilization [New York: Meridian Books, The New American Library, 1956], pp. 53–54).Google Scholar

40. See, e.g., the letter of Patriarch Antonios IV of Constantinople to Grand Prince Vasily I of Muscovy near the end of the fourteenth century, wherein he argues that ”[i]t is not possible for Christians to have a church (ekklesia) and not to have an empire (basileia). Church and empire have a great unity (henosis) and community; nor is it possible for them to be separated from one another” (Barker, , Social and Political Thought in Byzantium, p. 195).Google Scholar

41. Runciman, , Captivity, p. 65.Google Scholar See also Meyendorff, , The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1982), pp. 246 ff.Google Scholar Ironically, the decline of the Byzantine Empire and the consequent elevation of the status of the Ecumenical Patriarch in some ways replicated the experience of the Christian West nearly a thousand years earlier where the pope's increased ecclesiastical authority had filled the vacuum left by the collapse of the Western Empire. Nevertheless, the see of Constantinople never claimed for itself the universal supremacy which the Roman see had earlier asserted (Ibid., pp. 220 ff).

42. Runciman, , Captivity, pp. 165 ffGoogle Scholar; Meyendorff, , Byzantine Legacy, p. 248.Google Scholar

43. SirLuke, Harry discusses the millet system in Cyprus Under the Turks, 1571–1878 (London, 1921), pp. 15–16Google Scholar, and The Old Turkey and the New (London, 1955), pp. 66–101.Google Scholar

44. Ware, , The Orthodox Church, p. 50.Google Scholar

45. Schmemann, , Historical Road, p. 97.Google Scholar

46. Theoretically the Byzantine emperor's power was limited by that of the senate, the army and the people of Constantinople, all of whom in some sense “elected” the emperor and invested him with their authority. Most importantly the emperor was limited by the law itself. In reality, however, the three above-named institutions gradually lost their remaining powers over the course of centuries, although the army retained some influence. The senate, in particular, became something like the present-day Queen's Privy Council in Canada or the United Kingdom, that is, a largely honorary body made up of notables. Moreover, the law's authority over the emperor was itself limited by the constitutional principle that the emperor is the source of law. See Runciman, , Byzantine Civilization, pp. 51–65.Google Scholar See also Ostrogorsky, , History of the Byzantine State, pp. 35 ff and 117–18Google Scholar on the diminished position of the Senate.

47. Schmemann, , Historical Road, p. 152.Google Scholar

48. Imperial Unity, pp. 209–210. Note that Meyendorff appears in this statement to identify the institutions of church and state with the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world respectively.

49. Schmemann, , Historical Road, p. 152.Google Scholar See also Bulgakov, , Orthodox Church, pp. 156 ff.Google Scholar

50. Benz, , Eastern Orthodox Church, p. 166.Google Scholar

51. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander et al. , From Under the Rubble (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1974), pp. 172–93.Google Scholar

52. Ibid., p. 178.

53. Ibid., pp. 192–93.

54. Although the official Orthodox Church in the former Soviet Union was often subservient to the atheist state, individual Orthodox Christians and unofficial groups of Orthodox Christians did indeed challenge the political authorities on the basis of their faith. For an account of such activities, especially during the last generation of the Soviet period, see Ellis, Jane, The Russian Orthodox Church: A Contemporary History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986).Google Scholar Elite's research took place under the auspices of Keston College in the United Kingdom, a Christian research institution founded by the Rev. Canon Michael Bourdeaux in 1969 to monitor the state of religion in the former communist countries.

55. See Moltmann, , The Trinity and the Kingdom (New York: Harper and Row, 1981)Google Scholar, and History and the Triune God: Contributions to Trinitarian Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1991)Google Scholar; and Boff, , Trinity and Society (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1988).Google Scholar Although Moltmann is a Lutheran and Boff a Roman Catholic, their iconic reasoning is typically Orthodox in flavor, though not all of their conclusions are likely to be acceptable to Orthodox Christians. For example, Moltmann argues that the “doctrine of the social Trinity” which he espouses is more supportive of “presbyterial and synodal church order” than of a hierarchical episcopal polity (Trinity and the Kingdom, pp. 200–202). And Boff avers that a proper conception of the Trinity does not exclude the “motherhood” of the Father or the feminine dimension of the Son (pp. 170–71,182–83). But both draw the connection between “monarchical monotheism” and political absolutism on the one hand, and between a social Trinity and a political order embodying human freedom and equality on the other. Surprisingly, there seems to have been little Orthodox interaction with either Moltmann or Boff, as evidenced by a lack of reviews of their writings in Orthodox journals. I am aware of only one such review, that of Boff's book by Gros, Jeffrey, FSC, in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 34 (summer 1989): 180–82.Google Scholar

56. Lossky, , Orthodox Theology, p. 67.Google Scholar The specific reference in this passage is to the sexual differentiation of man. For other Orthodox thinkers who have worked with a trinitarian social ethic see Harakas, , Toward Transfigured Life: The Theoria of Eastern Orthodox Ethics (Minneapolis: Light and Life Publishing Co., 1983), especially pp. 25–27Google Scholar; Staniloae, Dumitru, Theology and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980), pp. 53 ffGoogle Scholar; and Ugolnik, pp. 110 ff, where he draws out the social implications of Staniloae's trinitarian approach.

57. Harakas, , Transfigured Life, p. 27.Google Scholar

58. Although a trinitarian modification of the traditional iconic approach may provide a foundation for a polity based on greater citizen participation, it is questionable whether it is able to address the issue of normative limits to politics and the state. In other words, a polity conditioned by this trinitarian approach could still perhaps see the democratic state overstep its competence in a potentially totalitarian fashion. This suggests that there may already be limitations inherent in the iconic approach. For attempts within two other Christian traditions to discern such normative limits, see the works of Simon, Yves R., especially Philosophy of Democratic Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 127 ffGoogle Scholar, where the French neo-Thomist political theorist discusses various institutional checks on the “imperialistic” tendencies of government; and Dooyeweerd, Herman, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1953-1958)Google Scholar, volume 3, where the Dutch neo-Calvinist philosopher establishes such limits on the basis of an internal tructural analysis of the state and other societal communities rooted in the creation order.

59. The related concepts of the priesthood of all believers and political democracy are in fact already present to some degree in Orthodoxy. The former is present to the extent that a general council must ultimately be accepted by the Orthodox faithful to be considered a genuine ecumenical council. The iconoclastic Council of Constantinople of 754 was repudiated by the laity and eventually superseded by the second Council of Nicaea, which came to be recognized as the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Similarly, the Council of Florence of 1438–39, which ostensibly reunited the Eastern and Western churches, was a dead letter because the faithful refused to adhere to it. See Schmemann, , Historical Road, pp. 204–208Google Scholar, 253–54. See also Ware, , The Orthodox Church, pp. 252–58Google Scholar on what makes an ecumenical council; and Bulgakov, , Orthodox Church, pp. 54–86Google Scholar concerning the notion of sobornost' (“conciliarity”) and the decisions of the councils. However, other observers play down what might be labelled “ecclesiastical democracy” in favor of more objective criteria for determining Orthodoxy. See, e.g., Cross, Lawrence, Eastern Christianity: The Byzantine Tradition (Sydney, Australia: C.J. Dwyer, 1989), pp. 50–52.Google ScholarAs for the democratic character of the empire, see Runciman, Byzantine Civilization, where he observes that “deep down, there lingered the idea that sovereignty was the people's, and the people had only delegated their power to the Emperor” (p. 52).

60. Solzhenitsyn, , Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1991).Google Scholar This essay was published in 1990 in two Soviet newspapers and contains his proposals for renewing and in some cases restoring the political institutions of what he calls a Russian Union (Rossiiskii Soyuz), encompassing the three Slavic republics of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Although he refers to a number of Russian thinkers, writers and statesmen unfamiliar in the West (who are listed in an appendix), his logic is in many ways typically Burkean and appears to owe much to the classic formulations of the “mixed constitution” defended by Aristotle, Polybius, Thomas Aquinas, Montesquieu and others. See also his earlier Letter to the Soviet Leaders (New York: Harper and Row, 1974)Google Scholar, where he touches on similar themes.