Sacred Monarchy - by Fr. Michael Azkoul

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From sacred Monarchy and the Modern Secular State - http://www.czipm.org/azkoul.html

H/T - http://tsarlazar.wordpress.com/

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"The 20th century has brought an end to sacred monarchy. 

"To be sure, several nations yet possess a king or queen, but with few exceptions, they reign without ruling. In the West, none of them pretend to hold their position by "the Grace of God," despite the liturgical rhetoric surrounding their coronations.  (...)

"In any case, there has never been a monarch who ruled in the East or in the post-Orthodox West by "the Grace of God," because the existence of true kingship depends upon true faith. Furthermore, we cannot speak of a heretical society as societas christiana.

"The Holy Russian Empire - the last phase of the Roman Imperium, successor to Byzantine or Christian Rome - was the last Christian society and Nicholas II was the last Christian Emperor. His death brought the extinction of "the age of Constantine," the end to God's Plan concerning holy empires.

"With the disappearance of Christian Rome, that which restrained world revolution, world atheism, world anarchy, world apostasy, is no more (cf. II Thess. iv, 6).

"Secularism characterizes the present age and nowhere is it more obvious than in the principles and policies of the modern democratic state, in which power ascends from the electorate to the elected, to officials and bureaucrats whose only concern, if any at all, is the material and earthly happiness of their constituents.

"If there is a place for religion in these "pluralistic societies," it does not inform their attitudes, aspirations and decision-making process.

"The self-styled "separation of church and state" is a political dogma because it is already a spiritual condition.

"The secular state is always atheistic. St. Gregory the Theologian observed in the 4th century that there are three fundamental kinds of government: 

1. monarchy, the rule of one, is associated with belief in one God or, at least, one supreme God.

2. Polyarchy (aristocracy, the rule of the few or best, is linked with polytheism; and 

3. the rule of the many, which the Saint called Anarchy (democracy), is bound with atheism.

"We Orthodox, be it said, hold monarchy "in honour", because it imitates the unity of God, whereas polyarchy implies a division or dispersion of His Power, a "severance of His Essence," that is, among many gods.

"Finally, anarchy, the government of the people, implies theologically that the Essence of God is pulverized; or, in other words, power is so completely spread out or distributed that He cannot be conceived to exist ( Theol. Ora. III, 2).

"We ought not be confused by St. Gregory's explanation. He did not mean that nations always make conscious, philosophically elaborated choices, but that there is always a direct connection between theology and politics. (...)

"Kingship and the idea of descending political power - that is, political power "descending" from God to the king for the benefit of the people - finally expired with the "republicanism" of the French Revolution. The year 1789 marks the traditional date for the beginning of the complete and radical secularization of the Western world.

"From this moment, "democracy" becomes its political ideal and atheism its political consequence. God is forever shut off from human affairs, dying a quiet death in the scientific madness of the 19th century, with no one to grieve him, as Nietzsche moaned.

"Now the universe was in the hands of man and, as August Comte proclaimed, he was its "god" and the love of humanity his religion."

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