Nationalism and the Diaspora Problem
The Orthodox Diaspora has suffered from many problems in its more than one hundred years of history. Small in size, it has for example often suffered from the tyranny of strong personalities who have tried to dominate sections of it. Thus, in England, two personalities, one deluding others, the other deluding himself, at one time caused much division and misfortune. In France and the USA, similar problems arose. Such personalities always persecuted those who insisted on living according to Christian principles, who strove to live according to their consciences, despite the pressures put on them. By their free witness and sincerity, these latter showed up and so involuntarily denounced the corrupt practices of the unprincipled. We are pleased that in the second decade of the twenty-first century, we can write of these sufferings in the past tense.
Nevertheless, one problem remains – that of nationalism. Here, we speak not of patriotism. To be patriotic is a Christian virtue. It means to love that part of God’s creation where we were born and grew up, and in such a way that we can then learn to love and appreciate other parts of God’s creation, other peoples and their languages and traditions. For he who does not love his own cannot love others. No, here we speak of nationalism, which is simply another word for worldliness, the exclusive attachment to a particular human-created nation and state, and in such a way that there is hatred for other races and places. In the Diaspora such nationalism has taken two forms.
Firstly, such nationalism may refer to the ‘ethnic’, separatist attitudes of immigrants, who have chosen to live in nationalist ghettos. They have expressed a certain contempt for the country that has accepted them and perhaps even welcomed them. This contempt takes the form of a wilful and ungrateful ignorance of the host country’s language, culture and history and a knowledge only of the host country’s faults and bad sides. As a result they may have hypercritical and ungracious attitudes towards it. The Orthodoxy of such immigrants is generally coloured by strongly political and nationalist attitudes. These are born of historic grievances originating in the history of their ancestral country. For this reason, often the second and third generations, ignorant of the ancestral country and even its language, give up on a form of Orthodoxy, which seems to be more about ethnic chips on shoulders than Christian love.
Secondly, such nationalism may refer to the ethnic, ‘autocephalist’ attitudes of native-born inhabitants of the country in question, who have accepted a particular form of the Orthodox Faith brought to them by immigrants. They too may chose to live in nationalist, ‘ethnic’ (e.g. ‘Anglo-Saxon’) ghettos, with a certain contempt for the country of the immigrants who have accepted them and perhaps even welcomed them. This contempt takes the form of a wilful and ungrateful ignorance of the immigrants’ country’s language, culture and history and a knowledge only of the country’s faults and bad sides. As a result they may have hypercritical and ungracious attitudes towards it. The Orthodoxy of such native converts is generally coloured by strongly political and nationalist attitudes. These are born of historic grievances originating in the history of their native country. For this reason, often the second and third generations of converts give up on a form of Orthodoxy, which seems to be more about ethnic chips on shoulders than Christian love.
Today, Orthodox homelands are largely freed from the curse of militant atheism, despite the onslaught of the ‘barbarianism with technology’ of the USA and the EU playing its Pontius Pilate. In such a world the separatist attitudes of ghettos, whether immigrant nationalist or native autocephalist, are dying out. The Centre has returned and there is no place for the equally ethnic extremist separatism of either group. When the Centre was absent, authority was usurped by pretenders. Today, the Mother-Churches which were long absent and captive are now present again. The time of the pretenders is over. We look forward to a time, when each nationality in the Diaspora will work together in united but flexible structures, which will allow all to express themselves freely, but in harmony together.
