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Orthodoxy Fights Back
Conversion can be a two-way street, and the Orthodox Church worldwide notes
with satisfaction a growing interest in Orthodoxy and conversions from other
Christian sects to its own “purer” religious message. It proclaims that religion is
about spirituality, the mystery of God that provides inspiration to fill one’s life
with godliness, even to strive to become God in one’s personal life (theosis).
Salvation can come in this life and need not be delayed to the afterlife if the
Holy Spirit can liberate the individual from sin and fill the soul with spirituality.
The liturgy, therefore, is designed to stir the heart with the mystery of God, thrill
and inspire the senses through incense, music, magnificent iconography, richness
of liturgical garments, cultivation of ecstatic joy, the emulation of God in one’s
personal life, the enrichment of contemplating mysteries within the depths of the
faith, a sense of knowing and participating in God’s divine energy on this earth
rather than waiting for the afterlife—in all, a religious experience designed to
move the soul. Orthodox believers believe these spiritual qualities of the church
are diminished in the highly secular environment within which the Catholic and
Protestant churches operate in the West, with their sometimes trendy “social”
concerns and political activism. The American scholar Nikolai Petro suggests
that “if twenty-first-century Europe ever develops a religious complexion, it will
be predominantly Eastern Orthodox.” He is referring to its primarily spiritual
focus.
In a very real sense, then, the chasm between the Orthodox and Latin
Christian world is older and in some ways deeper than that between Islam and
Christianity. Both have been profoundly influenced by geopolitical
considerations of power and have used theology as the symbol, or vehicle, of the
rivalry. Theological differences indeed do exist, but they have taken on new
substance through linkage with contesting nation-states and the forces of
nationalism.
A further striking echo of these emotions can be found on the crowded
religious spectrum of Lebanese religious communities today—Sunni, Shi’ite,
Maronite Catholic, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Druze, and
others; it is especially the Eastern Orthodox Christians among them who
instinctively possess the best intuitive feel for the psychology and politics of
Muslims. It is no accident that the position of foreign minister of Lebanon is
always reserved for the Orthodox community. Eastern Orthodox Lebanese
instinctively understand the balance between Christianity and Islam and their
subtle interplay in international politics. They enjoy the confidence of Muslims

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more than any other Christian sect does. This Orthodox sensitivity stems in part
from a slight wariness toward Western policies and an awareness that Muslims
and Orthodox, even when relations have not always been fully cordial, indeed
share a certain intimate past and a shared worldview. Eastern attitudes transcend
mere Islam.
But how has Russia handled its relations with its own large indigenous
Russian Muslim population and the evolution of ethnic and ideological tensions?

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CHAPTER EIGHT