“We have no king but Caesar.”

By Nikolaos Mannis, educator

Dedicated to those who were recently persecuted for their Faith in Christ the King

 

 

On the occasion of the things, unacceptable to every soul of a true Orthodox Christian, which we experienced in recent days, more and more people are realizing that which certain enlightened Hierarchs foresaw: that the subjugation of the Church to the undoubtedly anti-Christian State has as its result that the leaders of the former submit to the commands no longer of Christ, but of Caesar, unfortunately imitating the behavior of the Chief Priests of the time of Christ. [1]

About one hundred and fifty years ago, the then Metropolitan of Chios, Gregory, [2] on the occasion of the rumor that the Ottoman State was going to put the clergy of the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on its payroll, sent, on this matter, two memoranda to the then Patriarch Sophronios III and the Synod around him. [3]

In these he points out the danger of the captivity of the Church by the State, through salaried payment, crying out prophetically:

“What hope is there of shepherds acting freely in religious matters and proclaiming the divine commandments with boldness, when the clergy are salaried? Then the mouth of the Hierarchs has been muzzled, and the tongue is stuck dry and motionless in their throat..!” [4]

He considers that a salary from the State “humbles and debases the supernatural and lofty office of the episcopacy, because it cheapens the spiritual character of the shepherd before his own sheep... it makes him a captive, a slave, and subject to the State,” [5] while he observes that “there exists a general axiom, confirmed by experience, that the salaried man cannot be independent.” [6]

And foreseeing the dreadful consequences of salaried payment in practice, he writes that in the event that some political rulers make unjust decisions, then “the Bishop, considering the consequences of his opposition, considering that the only means of support for himself and those around him lies in the hands of the political Ruler, who is able, whenever he wishes, to postpone the payment of the salary... considering these things and others similar to them, will yield, willingly or unwillingly, to his will; ‘the irresistible force of necessity’; can there be a greater humiliation than this, or rather enslavement?” [7]

The Church of Greece, however, despite the protests of those who were asking for “a free and living Church,” such as the blessed former Metropolitan of Florina, Augoustinos Kantiotis, not only accepted becoming the handmaid of the State by accepting to be salaried by the latter, but also accepted changing its legal shell in such a way as to be entirely dependent on the State.

Fifty years ago, the ever-memorable former Metropolitan of Sisani, the blessed Polykarpos, [8] on the occasion of the adoption of the then Statutory Charter of the Church of Greece and its transformation into a Legal Person of Public Law, wrote a refutational book, in which, among other things, we read the following fearful words: “[The Church of Greece] officially and irrevocably cut off the head of the Church, which is Christ, and in place of it set the Law of the State; and this, as the head of the Legal Person ‘Church of Greece,’ this will direct the Church, as its head henceforth, wherever it wishes, even to dissolution.” [9]

Is there, then, anyone who still considers the stance of the Hierarchs inexplicable?

May our Lord grant them the courage to rise up and renounce the yoke of Caesar, [10] crying out, together with the servants of the Heavenly King, “Christ is risen, and the demons have fallen”!

 

NOTES

[1] “Pilate says to them: Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered: We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15).

[2] The blessed former Metropolitan of Chios, Metropolitan of Heraclea and Raidestos, the late Gregory Pavlidis (1825–1888), was described as “one of the most learned hierarchs... upright in character, filled with divine zeal, not loving gain, and of the strictest morals” (Georgios Papadopoulos, The Contemporary Hierarchy of the Orthodox Eastern Church, Athens, 1895, p. 455).

[3] The first memorandum bears the date December 30, 1864, and the second February 28, 1865. Both were published together in Two Memoranda to the Great Church of Christ Against the Salaried Payment of the Sacred Clergy, Chios, 1866.

[4] Two Memoranda..., op. cit., p. 6.

[5] Ibid., p. 7.

[6] Ibid., p. 34.

[7] Ibid., p. 38.

[8] The blessed former Metropolitan of Diavleia, Metropolitan of Sisani and Siatista, the late Polykarpos Liosis (1900–1996), was, by common confession, one of the most distinguished Hierarchs of the Church of Greece during the twentieth century.

[9] The Church of Christ, a Divinely Established Institution and Not a Legal Person of Public Law, Athens, 1969, p. 37.

 

Greek source:

https://www.romfea.gr/katigories/10-apopseis/36687-ouk-exomen-basilea-ei-mi-kaisara