St Apostle Paul says that: Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God (Rom.13:1). Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves (Rom.13:2).
St Apostle Paul himself comments his words: For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same (Rom.13:3).
St Valentine Sventisky (+1931) comments these passages:
The Apostle told the believers directly: be submissive to every human authority. But this was only the first half of the answer. The question was not only whether one should obey human authority, but what to do in those cases when the commandments of Christ and the demands of the authorities mutually exclude each other. Whom to listen to? In the Acts of the Holy Apostles there is a passage that is too little noticed: “The next day their rulers and elders and scribes, Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and the rest of the high priest’s family, gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had called them, they commanded them not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, “ Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, judge ye ?” ( Acts 4:5-6, 18-19 ). Comparing this passage with the requirement of submission to “every human authority,” we get a very definite, truly Christian answer: one must obey every human authority, but only as long as the demands of this authority do not contradict the commandments of Christ .By giving this answer, the apostles completely eliminated the possibility of any conflict between Christian conscience and the demands of the authorities.
This is what the Scriptures refer to the Authority established by God, however the scriptures also reveal another form of authority that is the authority of the antichrist and his forerunners, In Revelation 13:2 it says: Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.
To these ''authorities'' Christians should never be obedient! Otherwise they will not be saved. In fact when the antichrist comes he will not only be a religious leader but also an absolute political ruler and will demand subsmission.
Below I will quote what the orthodox saints and elders say concerning this question:
Schemamonk Epiphanius (Chernov):
A Christian is obliged to submit to any authority that carries within itself respect and obedience to God: and it is precisely to the extent of this obedience to one or another authority that Christians submit to God. But if the authority takes on a consciously God-fighting character, imbued with the spirit of the Antichrist, then the area of Christian obedience in relation to such authority is increasingly reduced (to the extent of its God-fighting), and finally at some point, as indicated in Rev. 13:15-17, it completely disappears…
St Justin (Popovich)
ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE CHURCH TO THE AUTHORITIES
We must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). Here it is, the soul, the very heart of the Orthodox Church; here it is, Her Gospel, Her All-Gospel. This is what She lives by, and for what She lives. This is Her immortality and eternity; this is precisely Her everlasting valuableness. To obey God more than men is Her principle above principles, sanctity above sanctities, standard above standards.This All-Gospel is the essence of all holy dogmas and all holy canons of the Orthodox Church. Here, even at the cost of all costs, the Church cannot make any concessions to any political regimes, nor can it arrange any compromises with either people or demons. Least of all with outright church fighters, church persecutors and church destroyers. "Obey God rather than men" - this is the charter of the Orthodox Church, Her eternal and unchanging charter - the all-charter, Her eternal and unchanging standing - the all-standing. This is the first answer to the first persecutors of the Church: Acts of the Apostles 5, 29; and this is Her answer to all persecutors through all centuries until the Last Judgment. For the Church, God is always in the first place, and man, people, are always in the second place. People must be submitted to insofar as they are not against God and God's laws. But if they are against God and His laws, then the Church must oppose and resist them. If it does not do so, is it the Church? And the representatives of the Church, if they do not do so, are they apostolic representatives of the Church? To justify oneself in this by the so-called ecclesiastical oikonomia (indulgence) means nothing other than secretly betraying God and the Church. Such oikonomia is simply a betrayal of the Church of Christ. The Church is eternity in time, in a temporal world. The world changes, but the Church does not change; Her eternal divine Truth, Her divine truth, Her eternal divine Gospel, Her eternal divine means do not change. It does not change, for the Lord Christ does not change, Who is such and does such. Such is the Gospel truth and reality: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb. 13:8). The Church presents eternity in time so that time may be sanctified by Her, renewed by Her, made eternal by Her, and equalized by Her. She must not equalize by time or by the spirit of time, but time must equalize by Her as the eternal, and the spirit of time by Her as the bearer of the spirit of eternity, the spirit of God-manhood. For She is always holy, always apostolic. She is always conciliar, always divine, and therefore She never dares to sacrifice the eternal to the temporal, the divine to the human, the heavenly to the earthly. She does not adapt to the spirit of the times, on the contrary, it befits Her to adapt time to eternity, the temporal to the eternal, the human to the divine-human. Her eternal path through this world is: first God, then man; God in front, and man behind Him: That He / the Lord Christ / might have the primacy in all things (Col. 1:18). Authority in principle is from God (Rom. 13:1-6): both the hierarchy of values and the hierarchy of order are from God. Therefore, in principle, one must submit to authority as ordering and as maintaining this God-given and divine order in the world. Otherwise, there is a fall and a descent into anarchy. We must submit to the authorities because they maintain divine order in the world, because they are "God's servants" and as God's servants. We must submit to the authorities because as God's servants they bear the sword with which they punish evil and protect good. We must submit to the authorities because they, God's servants, are "terrible to evil deeds," but not to good ones. But when the authorities become a fear for good deeds, when the authorities persecute God's good, and most of all the good and all-good of this world - the Lord Christ, and therefore His Church, then such authorities should not be submitted to, nor listened to. A Christian must fight them, and fight precisely with holy, Gospel means. Never should a Christian dare to submit more to people than to God, especially to people who are against the true God and against His Gospel. Power in the beginning, in principle, is from God, but when power falls away from God and acts against God, then it turns into violence and thus ceases to be from God and becomes from the devil. This means that we Christians know both the secret of power and the secret of violence: power is blessed by God, violence is cursed by God. Everything that is from God – good, as long as it is abused – is from the devil. The abuse of God – that is the devil, and all the devilry of all worlds, including the human one. Power is from God; and as long as it is held in God and under God and with God, it is blessed. Having abandoned God, it turns into violence, and thus subjects itself to the power of the anti-god – the devil. Such is the Gospel, apostolic, patristic, Orthodox teaching on the nature and value of power. Such is the holy and infallible teaching of the Orthodox Church of Christ on this, such it has been from the beginning and until now, and henceforth and forever. Witnesses of this? - All the holy apostles, all the holy fathers, all the holy martyrs. Especially the holy martyrs, beginning with the holy first martyr Stephen and all up to our new martyrs and the rest of the holy martyrs of our time. They all suffered for the Lord Christ, all together from kings, kings and princes; in a word, from the godless authorities of this age. And there are not thousands of such holy confessors, there are millions. All of them are holy and immortal as witnesses of the God-human Truth: Christians must resist the godless and anti-godly instructions of kings, rulers, and authorities of this world, wherever they may be and whoever they may be.
St. Hermogenes of Tolbolsk writes: "During the times of Antichrist the place of idols will be taken by those in power through the promotion of worldly wisdom, and will demand worship for themselves; anyone who will obey the laws of civil society of those times, although without directly clashing with the faith, he/she will be a partaker into the dominion of Antichrist. This is when the separation of the good from the bad will begin, the separation of those who do the will of God from the servants of Antichrist.The true believers, in the kingdom of Antichrist – the end time society, will live in solitude, away from the world. They will not obey any laws of the civic society. Those who recognize and obey the laws of society, even unwillingly, they shall be sharers in the kingdom of antichrist and be cast off from God. During the reign of Antichrist the evil mind will act politically, without touching people’s faith brutally. They will be given equal rights, all the sects will have full freedom, even though eventually the antichrist will dismiss all sects and religions. The Antichrist will act with morality and seek to persuade and hurt souls towards spiritual death. The right to preach and to 'legally' perform the church services will be given only to those who obey the laws and do not violate the 'discipline'. Places of worship will be under strict supervision by the same earthly authority that has placed itself as the head of the Church instead of Christ, and will not serve Christ, but the Antichrist. But blinded Christians will not notice anything, although this could be understood even by a little child. The dominion of Antichrist will therefore take all under strict control, to know who is obedient and who is not; as Father [now Saint] Lavrenty of Chernigov wrote, 'then they will get you to the church by force.' However some will not be persecuted from the beginning, to keep the appearances of freedom of conscience. Only toward the end, in those fallen days, when all will find themselves annihilated into the kingdom of Babylon and the wrath of God will be close, orders will be given out that all those who 'rebel against humanity' and 'against authority' be eliminated, just like they were ordinary criminals, and all other people shall receive these 'measures' with enthusiasm."
St. Damascene, Bishop of Glukhov:
"Why is it that the seal of Antichrist, as St. John the Theologian affirms, will be placed not upon the forehead and the hand simultaneously, but upon the forehead or the hand? Likewise, St. Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea, writes: He will strive so that the mark might be placed upon everyone... In some it will be on the right hand, so as to instruct those who have been deceived to be bold in their deception and darkness. This will occur because at that time there will be people who will affirm that it is possible and permissible to recognize the God-fighting authority of Antichrist if only one remains a Christian in one's soul. From such ones the Antichrist will not demand that they share his way of thinking; in other words, upon all such ones he will not place the seal on their forehead, but will demand of them only the recognition of his authority, which is, according to St. Hippolytus, the seal on the hand, since through recognition of the human authority which will be God-fighting and against God, lawless and filled with every impiety, a Christian by this very fact will cut off from himself every possibility of doing good and righteous deeds, for in his faith there will be missing the chief sign of uprightness - the confession of God as God and the recognition of Him as the Being that stands above all. All such ones, even though they might bear the name of Christian, in very deed will be, according to the works of their hands, true servants of Antichrist, who has deceived them by the worship of his image, which is the mark of the beast. Repentance is impossible for such ones, according to the teaching of the Holy Church; and it is impossible only because the seal of Christ and the seal of Antichrist are incompatible, and the reception of one banishes the presence of the other. The banishing of the grace of the Holy Spirit through the mark of the beast fills the heart of all such ones with the first sign - fearfulness - which will bring them to an easy destruction. St. Hippolytus writes: 'On the contrary, if anyone will be deprived of the Holy Spirit, that is, if one will not have upon himself or has lost the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit which was given in Holy Chrismation, he will fight with fear in a cowardly manner, will hide, will be afraid of the present temporal death, will conceal himself from the sword, will not endure chastisement, since he is constantly thinking about the world.'"
Elder Athanasios Mitilinaios:
The Christian gospel, beloved, is not a social system aiming to solve the various social problems (to procure social justice). Christianity’s primary purpose is the salvation of the human existence. Based on this, it cannot be said that Christianity has not fulfilled its purpose because it failed to solve the problem of social justice. This premise is totally false from its inception, because it lowers and degrades Christianity to some earthly social system. One only needs to have some elementary knowledge of the gospel to discover the grand truth that makes up the backbone of Christianity in the spiritual and moral aspect of the gospel, How then is it possible for Christianity to solve social problems? Christianity is the true faith, not a social political system... Christianity is the true faith based on facts that lead to salvation and the resurrection of the dead. Furthermore, the Kingdom of God is not food and drink, as Saint Paul clearly teaches. When we resurrect and enter the Kingdom of God we will not occupy ourselves with eating and drinking; we will not marry and develop civilizations. All these belong to the aspiration of this age. When we say that Christianity must serve worldly materialistic states, we are in the area of heresy. The denial of the doctrine of the Trinity is a heresy on the theological level. The acquittal of fornication (adultery, homosexuality) is a heresy on the moral level. All heresy—theological, moral or social—degrades Christianity Those who wish to limit and reduce Christianity to a form of this age are in the service of the spirit of the Antichrist. People can say whatever they want, but we must not be a servant of a caesar."Detestable are those who enter the service of the beast, the Antichrist or the False Prophet, such as those who wish to combine the Christian and Marxist [socialist/communist] identity*. It is ludicrous to combine materialism and Christianity, and those who wish to reconcile these two enter the service of the Antichrist, the beast or the False Prophet. If one were to ask, 'What is Christianity?' we could say: the restoration and re-creation of all [creation], and its participation in the life of the eternal God. If we truly come to acknowledge this, then we will begin to love God with all the power of our soul. The sad thing is that we do not have a clear understanding of the essence of Christianity. We mostly see with a narrow-minded scope, and more often than not we see it as a cultural—social—moral system. How many times have I told you these things? Not so, beloved. Christianity aims to restore and re-create what has fallen, to de-corrupt the corrupt, and to immortalize that which entered the space of death. It aims to make everything new, and to find its way back to God, including man and the entire universe. This is the essence of Christianity.
Lastly Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev wrote a whole book on the concept of ''Uranopolitism'' meaning the citizens of heaven, he stated that Christians are here because of the fall Adam and Eve, all potilics and civilizations are the result of the fall, We Christians are called to the Eternal Life with Christ that starts here by following His commandemts and particpating in the life of the Church, we are called not to love the world, and also the Kingdom of God is not of this world, our real home is the Kingdom of God.
I hope that the following quotes provide an orthodox view of authority and politics.
May God bless you!
Compiled by Marcus Orthodoxus
Sources used:
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