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Orthodox Church leader pushes health care, nonviolence in DC meetings
By Michelle Boorstein
Is Orthodox Christianity progressive?
To see the spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians making his rounds in Washington this week - meeting with President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Senate leader Reid and speaking at the Brookings Institution today - you could make that case. In his talk yesterday at Georgetown University (sponsored by the left-leaning Center for American Progress), the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew spoke about the spiritual imperative for nonviolence, universal health care and reducing consumption to help the environment.
But Bartholomew knows the political language of America, and he made a point in his talk to claim that these positions are neither left nor right, calling the Orthodox "one of the most conservative members of the Christian family."
In office 18 years, Bartholomew is also here to push for U.S. support for religious pluralism in Turkey, where the ecumenical patriarch lives. Turkish officials have limited the practice and outreach of religious minorities including the Orthodox, even shutting the faith's best-known seminary in the 1970s. Meanwhile, the Orthodox community is famously complex and splintered into different ethnic and national churches, with many refusing to see Bartholomew as their representative. Orthodoxy calls the ecumenical patriarch "the first among equals," but he doesn't have the singular infallibility of Catholicism's pope.
Yesterday, Bartholomew met the president at the White House, and afterward the White House issued a statement of support for the reopening of the Halki Seminary in Istanbul (a position Obama has taken before, as have previous U.S. presidents) and for the patriarch's work on interfaith dialogue. At the meeting with Obama were other Orthodox leaders including Archbishop Demetrios, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in America; Deputy National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon, and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, who oversees European affairs at the National Security Council.
By
Michelle Boorstein
|
November 4, 2009; 9:13 AM ET
| Category:
God in Government
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Posted by: fabian955 | November 5, 2009 8:55 PM
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Speaking up on behalf of those in need is a fundamental Christian responsibility. Remaining silent when we see needless suffering is a terrible sin. The health care issue goes well beyond being a political issue. It is entirely appropriate for the Orthodox church to make statements on those issues that so profoundly impact the lives of people -- such as health care -- and, in this manner, give a measure of guidance to those who are uncertain.
Posted by: fabian955 | November 5, 2009 8:54 PM
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I am an Orthodox Christian, and I'm shaking my head at this story. It is difficult to see a bishop of my church mistaking local (U.S.) politics for church issues in this manner, and more difficult to see him using his position to push a political agenda. Our bishops usually have enough sense to stay above the political fray.
Posted by: sakeneko | November 5, 2009 6:00 PM
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The comments to this entry are closed.
Speaking up on behalf of those in need is a fundamental Christian responsibility. Remaining silent when we see needless suffering is a terrible sin. The health care issue goes well beyond being a political issue. It is entirely appropriate for the Orthodox church to make statements on those issues that so profoundly impact the lives of people -- such as health care -- and, in this manner, give a measure of guidance to those who are uncertain.