I've been reading this wonderful collection of essays by Bartolomeos I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and friend of Pope Francis. I underlined every line of two pages from the talk he gave at Fordham in October 2009. I searched online for the original but I could not find it, so this is my translation from the Italian. (If anyone can find it...) I was so disheartened to find out how badly some folks speak about Rev. Martin Luther King these days. Apparently Patriarch Bartolomeo is of the opposite opinion, putting him in the company of Jesus and Gandhi. This is another face of Christianity, one that is very important to show right now.
“As communities of faith and religious leaders, we have the constant obligation to follow and proclaim with insistence different ways of regulating human affairs, to teaching the refusal of violence and the pursuit of peace. … The pursuit of peace, however, demands an overturning of that which has become normal and normative in our world. It demands conversion (metanoia) and the will to become both individuals and communities of transformation. The classics of Orthodox spirituality identify the place in which God, humanity, and the world can coincide harmonically in the heart. The Philokalia underlines, indeed, the paradox constituted by the fact that one obtains peace through sacrifice (martyrÃa), understood not as passivity or indifference to human suffering, but as the renunciation of selfish desires and the attainment of a greater generosity. The way of the heart is contrasted to anything that violates peace. When one awakens to the interior way, peace pours out as an expression of gratitude for the love of God toward the world. If our actions are not founded on love instead of fear, we will never win over fanaticism and fundamentalism.
In this sense, the way of the heart is a radical response that puts the strategies of violence and the politics of power profoundly in crisis. For this reason, the peacemakers – whether Jesus or Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King – constitute a threat to the status quo. And truly, the Sermon on the Mountain gave form to the pacifist teachings of Leo Tolstoy, whose work The Kingdom of God is Within You was influenced by the writings of the Philokalia and in its turn profoundly influenced both the nonviolent principles of Gandhi and the activities in defensive civil rights of King. Sometimes the most “provocative” message is “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Lk 6:27) Some proclaim “the end of faith” or “the end of history,” blaming religion for the violent aberrations of human behaviors. That notwithstanding, never has the peaceful protest of religion been more necessary than in our time. Ours is the beginning, not the end of faith or of history.”
(La via del dialogo e della pace, Edizioni Qiqajon, 15-16)
