EASTERN CHRISTIAN STUDIES 13

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY
AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Edited by
Alfons Brüning and Evert van der Zweerde

PEETERS
LEUVEN – PARIS – WALPOLE, MA
2012

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 CONTENTS

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V

Introduction: Orthodox Christianity and Human Rights — An Ambig-

uous Relationship (Alfons Brüning, Evert van der Zweerde). . . . 1

1. CLAIMING UNIVERSALITY

The Religious Scope of Human Rights (Johannes A. (Hans) van der Ven) 19

Uneasy Alliances: Liberal, Religious and Philosophical Human

Rights Discourse (Evert van der Zweerde) . . . . . . . . 35

Natural Law and Natural Rights according to Vladimir Solovyov

and Jacques Maritain (Elena Pribytkova). . . . . . . . . 69

2. DIFFERENT CIVILIZATIONS?

Humanism and the Traditional Orthodox Culture of Eastern

Europe: How Compatible were They in the 16th and 17th Centuries?
(Mikhail V. Dmitriev) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

From “Natural Law” to the Idea of Human Rights in 18th-Century

Russia: Nobility and Clergy (Tatiana Artemyeva) . . . . . . 111

“Freedom” vs. “Morality” — On Orthodox Anti-Westernism and

Human Rights (Alfons Brüning) . . . . . . . . . . . 125

3. CENTRAL TERMS

Human Rights in the 2008 Bilateral Discussions of the Russian

Orthodox Church with the Evangelical Church of Germany and the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (Heta Hurskainen) . . . 155

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 VIII CONTENTS

Sergey N. Bulgakov’s Concept of Human Dignity (Regula Zwahlen) . 169

The ‘We’ in Normative Political Philosophical Debates: The Position

of Christos Yannaras on Human Rights (Kristina Stoeckl) . . . 187

4. CHURCHES, VALUES AND SOCIETAL REALITY

Religiosity, Tolerance and Respect for Human Rights in the Orthodox

World (Christopher Marsh and Daniel Payne) . . . . . . . 201

Human Rights — the Orthodox Churches’ Teaching and Survey

Data (Inna Naletova) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Official and Unofficial Voices of the Russian Orthodox Church:

Analyzing Human Rights in Official Documents and Personal
Interviews (Maija Turunen) . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

5. CHURCH – STATE – SOCIETY

Human Rights and Religious Rights: the Context of the Debate in

Europe Today and the Orthodox Perspective (Philip Walters) . . 253

The Russian Orthodox Teaching on Human Rights: its Socio-Cultural

Significance and its Social Theory Perspective (Alexander Agadjanian) . 271

Human Rights and their Reception in Orthodoxy — a Romanian

Perspective (Radu Preda) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Bulgarian Orthodoxy and the European Court of Human Rights:

The Case of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
(Daniela Kalkandjieva) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

6. ACTIVISM AND REFLECTION

“Human Rights as a Pre-Condition for the Inner Life of the

Church” — Life, Initiatives and Theology of Father Pavel Adelheim
(Pskov, Russia) (Paul Baars) . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

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 CONTENTS IX

Spiritual and Political Dimensions in the Conception of the Rus-

sian Orthodox Church Concerning Dignity, Freedom, and Human
Rights (Marina Shishova) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

General Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

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 INTRODUCTION:
ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS —
AN AMBIGUOUS RELATIONSHIP

Alfons BRÜNING and Evert VAN DER ZWEERDE

On March 17, 2010, Metropolitan Volodymyr [Vladimir (Russian)]

(Sabodan), the Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow
Patriarchate, issued an open letter to the Ukrainian president Viktor
Yanukovych and to the members of the Ukrainian parliament, in con-
nection with plans to introduce a tax identification code for every
Ukrainian citizen. Giving expression to the fear of many that such a
means of official registration might lead to an undue level of possible
control and manipulation, the Metropolitan wrote:
We sustain both the efforts of legislative organs to ensure that Ukraine’s
laws fit the European and international standards, as well as any sensible
measures of the World Community to fight terrorism, which since the
beginning of the third millennium has grown from a local phenomenon to
a general threat to all human beings. At the same time, we would like to
emphasize that the laws of a democratic state have to serve the people, to
defend their rights and freedom, which implies that the means to fight
international terrorism have to be adequate to the very threat. It is impos-
sible to tolerate any reasons leading to an annihilation of the highest quality
of every human being — his or her freedom. History testifies to the erroneous
nature of an ideology, according to which the end justifies the means.
Because of all this, the Church, which stands for Human Rights, relates
with understanding to that part among the believers who refuse to accept
this identification code.1

1
‘[…] Mi pådderçuêmo qk starannq zakonodavwih organåv, Ïob zakoni
Ukraäni vådpovådali êvropeîsàkim ta måçnarodnim normam, tak å rozumnå måri
svåtovoä spålànoti napravlenå na priborkannq terorizmu, qkiî z powatkom
tretàogo tisqwolåttq pererås z lokalànogo qviÏa do zagalànolùdsàkoä
zagrozi. V toî çe was howetàsq pådkresliti, Ïo zakoni demokratiwnoä
derçavi maùtà sluçiti lùdinå, zahiÏati ää prava ta svobodu, a zasobi
borotàbi z måçnarodnim terorizmom maùtà buti adekvatnimi vinikaùwåî
zagrozå. Ne moçna dopustiti, Ïob budà qkå priwini posluçili zniÏennqm
naîviÏoä gådnostå lùdini - ää svobodi. Åstoråq svådwità pro hibnåstà ådeologåä,
Ïo cålà vipravdovuê zasobi. Tomu Cerkva, vådstoùùwi prava lùdini, z
rozumånnqm vådnositàsq do toä wastini våruùwih, qkå vådmovlqùtàsq våd
priînqttq wi ne priîmaùtà ådentifåkacåînih nomeråv.’, http://orthodox.org.ua/
uk/node/6855 [last accessed on September 20, 2010].

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 2 A. BRÜNING AND E. VAN DER ZWEERDE

This sounds as if twenty years after the downfall of the Soviet regime
advocates of Human Rights can count on an important potential ally —
the Orthodox Church. Things are however more complicated than that.
To many observers, who in recent years have followed the vivid discus-
sions about the relationship of Orthodox Christianity to the Human
Rights concept, the statement of the Kievan metropolitan may mirror an
entire set of ambiguities.2 First of all, which freedom is defended here?
Is it a fear of the return of totalitarianism that motivated a high and
widely respected hierarch to write his open letter? It is likely that Metro-
politan Volodymyr, born in 1935, and an Orthodox monk and priest
since 1962 (at the peak of the antireligious campaign initiated by the
Soviet leader Khrushchev), when alluding to an “erroneous ideology”,
mainly thinks of the Soviet system. The Orwellian nightmare of a total
control of the inhabitants of a state by the organs of power originates
from the converted (or perhaps better: perverted) ideals of a political
system that has just been overcome.
The efforts to put Human Rights into practice have contributed to this
historical overhaul, and Orthodox believers are conscious of this fact.
Metropolitan Volodymyr shares along with many other Orthodox clerics
from various European countries the memory of persecution and Soviet
official atheism, together with the experience that efforts to establish and
secure Human Rights have had their share in helping his church not only
to survive, but even to prepare its remarkable rebirth since the 1990s.
Among the most significant rights enjoyed by most Orthodox Christians
today is that of religious freedom, and by all evidence, it is also in the
name of this right that Volodymyr formulates his appeal to the political
leaders of his country.
However, Ukraine and Russia have seen protests against such identi-
fication codes several times before. In most cases, they had been actually
motivated not so much by fear of technical control over the individual
citizen, but rather by a kind of holy disgust towards a hidden symbolic
in the numbers of an identification code — do they not all too often
contain three times a 6, the apocalyptical number which the biblical Book

2
The expression “Human Rights concept” (or: conception of Human Rights), fre-
quently and deliberately used throughout this volume, is to signal that it is often not only
a set of rights, or even single rights, but the entire idea behind Human Rights, its origins,
composition and character in contemporary society, which is a matter of discussion. It
also makes sense to speak of a conception or notion of Human Rights, irrespective of the
exact catalogue of Human Rights advocated or criticized by this or that actor.

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 INTRODUCTION 3

of Revelation ascribes to the Antichrist?3 Quite often, the refusal to

accept the new codes was justified not by hints at their possible threat to
an open society, but by strongly religious convictions, which are likely
to appear superstitious from the perspective of the modern liberal world-
view behind the concept of Human Rights as Westerners are used to see
it. Seen from this angle, the metropolitan’s appeal does entail a specific
notion of freedom of religion — it means that religiously based convic-
tions have to be respected, even if they would lead to citizens’ disobe-
dience vis-à-vis state measures. It is not clear how Volodymyr himself
relates to such ready-made apocalyptical visions. The Russian Orthodox
Church (from the Moscow Patriarchate to the Synod of Bishops to which
Volodymyr belongs) has repeatedly disqualified such fears as completely
exaggerated, but the fact remains that Volodymyr obviously refers to a
liberal notion for the purpose of defending rather non-liberal ideas.
The right to refuse the introduction of the identification code that is
claimed by Orthodox believers and defended by the Orthodox bishop
apparently means the right to claim exclusivity in relation to the state
and not to subordinate oneself to the dictate of a “secular equality before
the law”, which the Human Rights concept entails. In this light, the inci-
dent reminds one, at least in some respects, of the vigorous protests
against the removal of religious allegiance from the identity cards in
Greece, projected, and ultimately effectuated, by the Greek government
in 2000 in response to corresponding requests from Strasbourg. Ortho-
dox groups, headed by the late Archbishop Christodoulos were the driving
force behind the mass demonstrations then. Some Western observers,
following Samuel Huntington, have taken this latter example as proof of
a fault line between two civilizations, an Orthodox-Eastern and a Latin-
Western one, dividing Europe into two parts. From this point of view,
questions concerning Human Rights can eventually serve as a litmus test
in order to assess which civilizational background is concretely at work
in a particular event.4
As we see in this example, even a widely respected and spiritually
experienced personality like Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kiev generally

3
This is one of the main arguments, which for example the monks of the Pochayiv
Monastery in Western Ukraine add to the open letter of their Metropolitan. See their notes
on http://pochaev.org.ua/?p=listok/zvernennya_bratii [website of the Pochayiv Lavra,
last accessed on September 23, 2010].
4
Daniel Payne, ‘The Clash of Civilisations: the Church of Greece, the European
Union and Question of Human Rights’, Religion, State & Society, vol. 31, no. 3 (Sep-
tember 2003), pp. 261-271.

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 4 A. BRÜNING AND E. VAN DER ZWEERDE

may seem a difficult ally in Human Rights causes, at least to many

Westerners. To those familiar with recent events and discussions con-
cerning the Orthodox positions towards the concept of Human Rights, it
may rather come as a surprise to see an Orthodox Church stand up so
clearly in favour of Human Rights and democracy. All too often it seems
that in recent years one has had to deal with sceptical comments and dif-
fering interpretations.
In August 2008, after lengthy deliberations, the Bishops’ Council of
the Russian Orthodox Church (of which Metropolitan Volodymyr is a
prominent member), published an official document, which was sup-
posed to include the official position of the Moscow Patriarchate con-
cerning the widely discussed theme of Human Rights: The Russian
Orthodox Church’s Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and
Rights.5 As explicitly stated, this document was issued as a basis for
further dialogue with NGO’s and secular Human Rights groups in par-
ticular, as well as with other Christian denominations.6 Such a dialogue
seemed necessary enough, since in many countries with an Orthodox
majority the gulf separating Human Rights activists from many, though
not all, representatives of the Church had become larger and larger. Russia
is perhaps the most prominent, but certainly not an exceptional example
at this point. Human Rights must not justify sin and immoral behaviour,
the Church said, and went on to suggest a number of significant limita-
tions to the “freedoms” at the heart of the Human Rights concept. At the
same time, Human Rights activists have repeatedly warned against what
they labelled a “clericalization” of society, enumerating long series of
violations of the separation of church and state in legislation, administra-
tional cooperation, schools, press, etc.7 Again, the claim to universality
of the Human Rights concept apparently is met, especially among
Orthodox believers, with the reluctance to adopt a supposedly “West-

5
Osnovx uweniq Russkoî Pravoslavnoî Cerkvi o dostoinstve, svobode i pra-
vah weloveka [The Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Free-
dom and Rights], Bishops’ Council, 2008, http://www.mospat.ru/en/documents/dignity-
freedom-rights/.
6
Cf. the speech of Metropolitan Kirill (now Patriarch) on the Bishop’s Council in
August 2008, published on http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/428391.html [Website of
the Moscow Patriarchate, last accessed on September 23, 2010].
7
See Sergeî Buràqnov, ‘Svoboda ubeçdeniî, sovesti i religii [Sergey Bury-
anov, ‘Freedom of Conviction, Conscience and Religion’], in: N. Tagankina, N. Kos-
tenko (eds.) Prava weloveka v Rossiîskoî Federacii: dokl. o sobxtiqh 2007 g.
(Moskva: Mosk. Helàsink. gruppa, 2008) [N. Tagankina, N. Kostenko (eds.), Human
Rights in the Russian Federation: Reports of Events 2007 (Moscow: Moscow Helsinki
Group, 2008)], pp. 84-138.

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 INTRODUCTION 5

ern concept.” Actually, disputes on this topic have taken place in many
states with an Orthodox majority, and the above-mentioned oppositions
mark only the extremes within a large spectrum. Between the liberal or
secular adoption of this Western concept and its outright rejection, a
large number of different points of view can be discerned.
Many, but certainly not all, current discussions in “the world of
Orthodoxy” are a direct heritage of the Cold War and of the transforma-
tion processes in post-Soviet societies. Already in 1979, in a paper pre-
sented to the UNESCO, an experienced and open-minded man like the
Greek bishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), now archbishop of the Auto-
cephalous Church of Albania, felt urged to state “some ambiguity in the
concept”:
Orthodox thought is not always in full agreement with everything that has
been characterized from time to time as “human rights”. On the basic core
concepts — freedom, equality and human dignity — there is of course
immediate agreement and absolute affirmation. Most of the ideas expressed
about human rights are accepted by Orthodox thinking as corollaries of its
own views on humanity. There are good numbers of issues, however, on
which Orthodox thought prefers not to take a stand, allowing them to
remain open questions, within the realm of purely human speculation.8

Since the 1970s, many changes in the societies with a more or less
substantial group of Orthodox believers confront the churches with chal-
lenges they did not have to face before, ranging from multi-religious
societies to sometimes very militant Orthodox political organizations,
and even disruptions within the flock between diverging world-views
and religious practices. Orthodox clerics, as well as lay people, can no
longer rely on a position of noble reservations, as expressed in bishop
Anastasios’ introductory sentence. Yet, the difficulties not only remain,
but they are even more painfully felt under the conditions of modernity,
plurality, globalization, etc. To defend human freedom against an excessive
accumulation of political, economic or social power is one primary con-
cern of the concept of Human Rights, with which various Orthodox
churches have always easily been able to agree. The Orthodox Church of
America, which was granted autocephaly in 1970 by the Moscow Patriar-
chate, openly protested against racial discrimination in the United States
already in the 1960s. Diaspora branches of several Orthodox churches
not only pleaded repeatedly in favour of a strengthening of Human
8
Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), ‘Orthodoxy and Human Rights’, in: idem,
Facing the World. Orthodox Christian Essays on Global Concerns (New York: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 2003), pp. 49-78, quotation p. 51.

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 6 A. BRÜNING AND E. VAN DER ZWEERDE

Rights for their fellow believers in homelands under Soviet rule, but also
broadened their activities in favour of political dissidents or victims of
social and economic injustice in general.9
Things seem to look more complicated, however, when Human Rights
have to be applied in multi-religious or multi-ethnic societies, in relation
to a secular state, and in relation to press and media, family legislation,
or the educational system. Frequently, conflicts emerge between liberal
regulations, as demanded by the Human Rights concept, and the moral
norms to which an Orthodox believer is expected to adjust his life con-
duct. In the course of the discussions that have arisen around the percep-
tion and the reality of the Human Rights concept, the question has more
than once come up, whether an “Orthodox point of view” necessarily
means the same when it focuses (as for example the recent Russian doc-
ument did) on the themes of freedom, rights, equality and human dignity.
How far does even a supposed agreement really extend? The more gen-
eral question behind all this is the question about the capacity of Orthodox
thinking, theology and religiosity to contribute in a significant manner to
Human Rights discourse.
At this point, differences appear not only among and within estab-
lished “national” Orthodox Churches — the Russian Orthodox Church,
the Romanian Orthodox Church, etc. — but also between those churches
and Orthodox communities in non-Orthodox majority countries, such as
the USA and Canada, EU member states, or Israel. This differentiation
suggests that the actual stances on Human Rights of the various Orthodox
Christian Churches or organizations are related not only to Orthodox
theology and anthropology, but also to cultural and political traditions,
as well as to the actual position of those churches and organizations in
their respective societies. In a country like the Netherlands, for example,
Orthodox communities belong to a generally significant number of various
religious groups within the same society, which can engage freely in
religious activity and publicly confess their faith — the issue of “tolera-
tion” only extends to potentially aggressive or criminal groups. In a
country like Russia, by contrast, the traditionally strong Russian Orthodox
Church has sought and found legal protection against the onslaught of
economically strong Christian denominations and so-called New Religious
Movements. The controversial religious law of 1997, at any rate, has

9
Alexander F.C. Webster, The Price of Prophecy. Orthodox Churches on Peace,
Freedom and Security (Washington D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1995),
pp. 137-208.

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 INTRODUCTION 7

met the opposition of Russian and Western Human Rights groups alike.10
Finally, in a country like Bulgaria, a split in the Bulgarian Orthodox
Church illustrates how European legislation makes it difficult for a tradi-
tional church to defend its turf [see the article by Daniela Kalkandijeva in
this volume].

Against this background, an international conference on “Orthodox

Christianity and Human Rights” was organized by the Institute of Eastern
Christian Studies and was held at Radboud University Nijmegen in Feb-
ruary 2009. Nearly all chapters in the present volume go back to papers
presented at this conference. Not only was there a multiple set of ques-
tions, but also a plurality of approaches, originating in a variety of disci-
plines: historical sciences, sociology, theology, religious studies, politi-
cal science, and political philosophy.
Human Rights are not in themselves a religious concept, although
their religious roots are of course a matter of research and discussion.
Consequently, the relationship of religious institutions and religious
teachings — among which those of the Orthodox Churches — is neces-
sarily ambiguous and sometimes complicated. The volume opens with
three general papers on Human Rights discourse and its vicissitudes.
Johannes van der Ven, referring with a sense of hope to the fact that
more than sixty years have passed since the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights [UDHR] was adopted in 1948, addresses the religious
origin and history of human rights and discusses the “open foundation”
character of the UDHR, while at the same time pointing out the scope
and relevance of some nonreligious, Christian and Islamic foundations
of Human Rights. Evert van der Zweerde links this topic with an analysis
of the conflict between religious and non-religious Human Rights dis-
course, and with the suggestion of a more “sober”, simultaneously more
pragmatic and more political approach to Human Rights that does not
undermine their religious and/or liberal foundation, but, on the con-
trary, creates proper space for both. Elena Pribytkova illustrates these top-
ics concretely by means of a comparative discussion of two major con-
ceptions of natural law: the “Orthodox” conception of Vladimir
Solovyov and the “Roman Catholic” conception of Jacques Maritain,
one of the founding fathers of the 1948 Declaration.
10
William J. Kovatch Jr., ‘All Religions are Equal, but Some are More Equal than
Others: Russia’s 1997 Restrictive Law of Religious Practices,’ Demokratizatsiya 6
(1998), no. 2, pp. 416-425; John B. Dunlop, ‘Russia’s 1997 Law Renews Religious Per-
secution,’ Demokratizatsiya 7 (1999), no. 1, pp. 28-41.

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 8 A. BRÜNING AND E. VAN DER ZWEERDE

The “open foundation” character of the UDHR in 1948 was largely a

diplomatic compromise in reaction to the widespread objection that the
Human Rights concept is predominantly shaped by a Western cultural
context, and thus cannot be easily transferred to allegedly differing cul-
tural contexts. Orthodox intellectuals, clerics and lay people alike, quite
often refer to this argument, hinting at the specific peculiarities of an
“Orthodox civilization” that are believed to form serious obstacles to
the application of the Western liberal values, upon which the Human
Rights concept is founded. As Mikhail Dmitriev exemplifies with the
case of some religious dissidents in 15th- and 16th-century Muscovy,
there are generally significant differences in the Christian traditions of
East and West, but they do not necessarily lead to a rejection of a con-
cept rooted in Western Humanism. Humanism as well as Enlightenment
can be regarded as reactions to overcome crises that emerged from defi-
cits in the theology and anthropology in the Latin West (such as the
doctrine of “original sin” that goes back to St Augustine). From this
perspective, the Orthodox Christian teaching, lacking the negative con-
sequences of the pessimistic Augustinian anthropology, apparently has
an even higher potential to contribute to a concept that aims at the
defence of the rights of every human being. On the other hand, as Tatiana
Artemyeva shows, Muscovy and the Russian Empire lacked a juridical
tradition similar to the one which paved in the West the ground for the
implementation of Human Rights.
The very notion of objective “rights” is essentially foreign to the Russian
legal tradition, which knew only privileges and granted advantages
instead. The state in general, and the Tsar in particular, was and remained
for centuries the single source of “rights”. Nevertheless, ideas about a
Western style “natural law” entered Russia since the early 18th century,
but were interpreted quite differently by noblemen, intellectuals, and
clerics. Differences between the “Orthodox world” and the West, against
this background, apparently do exist, but it is not an easy task to assess
them precisely nor do they necessarily justify the partial or complete
rejection of the Human Rights concept. As Alfons Brüning argues, the
frequent anti-Western argumentation of especially Greek and Russian
clerics and theologians usually operates with long established stereo-
types of Orthodox anti-Latinism and currently tends to transfer them into
a discourse on essentially different “civilizations”. While, on the one
hand, most difficulties that Orthodox theologians have with the Human
Rights concept can to a large extent be explained and understood against
the background of a confrontation between a secular concept and a

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 INTRODUCTION 9

religious tradition, these difficulties, on the other hand, have rather little
to do with an alleged antagonism between civilizations. As a matter of
fact, the Western churches had to face them as well. Still, as long as a
clear consensus about what defines and distinguishes “civilizations” is
lacking, discourses relevant to this topic will and must remain more or
less diffuse and can hardly be purged of certain ideological ghosts.
Not only the recent Russian document from 2008,11 but the entire dis-
course is to a great extent about “basic teachings on Human Dignity,
Freedom and Rights.” However, it was the publication of 2008 that sig-
nificantly revitalized discussions among philosophers and theologians
about the basic notions on which the Human Rights concept is grounded,
and their obviously sometimes different Orthodox interpretation. Among
the first to react critically to this document were Western Protestant
churches.12 Many of the controversies that immediately followed the
release of the Russian document focused on diverging anthropologies
and corresponding interpretations of “human dignity” and its signifi-
cance for the Human Rights concept. This was also the case during the
Russian Orthodox Church’s Bilateral Discussions with the Evangelical
Church of Germany [EKD] and with the Evangelical Lutheran Church
of Finland in 2008, discussed in this volume by Heta Hurskainen. While
Western Protestant theologians tend towards an understanding of human
dignity that emphasizes it as being granted by God the Creator, and as
existing inalienably and irreducibly in every human being, the Orthodox
lay a stronger emphasis on moral aspects, referring among others to a
corresponding passage in the “Basic Teaching”: ‘A morally undignified
life does not ruin the God-given dignity ontologically, but darkens it so
much as to make it hardly discernable.’13 The study of the Human Rights
concept from the viewpoint of Christian theology reveals some under-
standing and mutual agreement, but also significant differences in terms
of anthropology, especially in the interpretations on how the image and
likeness of God, given to man in Creation, is present in man, and how it
is relevant to the issue of Human Rights. Against the same background,
Regula Zwahlen articulates remarkable starting points for a founding of
11
Osnovy (2008).
12
‘Human Rights and Morality,’ a response of the Community of the Protestant
Churches in Europe — Leuenberg Fellowship — to the Principles of the Russian Orthodox
Church on ‘Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights’, http://www.leuenberg.net/daten/File/
Upload/doc-9806-2.pdf [last accessed January 12, 2010]. For further explanations and
comments, see Frank Mathwig, ‘Menschenrechte und Ökumene. Zur Diskussion zwischen
ROK und GEKE’, G2W 2009, no. 10, pp. 22-24.
13
Osnovy (2008), I.4.

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 10 A. BRÜNING AND E. VAN DER ZWEERDE

Human Rights in Orthodox theology in Sergey Bulgakov’s vision on

human dignity, particularly in his sophiology. Closely connected with
the discourse on human dignity, a commonplace critique on the Human
Rights concept in its present shape is directed against its alleged “indi-
vidualism”, which is one of several typically Western signs of imbal-
ance in it, as Orthodox intellectuals tend to see it. A most prominent
voice to counteract this imbalance is the Greek philosopher and theolo-
gian Christos Yannaras. Kristina Stoeckl describes and analyzes his
standpoint on Human Rights and in particular the meaning of the col-
lectivity that Yannaras focuses on: “we, the Orthodox people”. Among
others, she asks the elementary question of what can be the meaning and
sense of the first person plural when making normative statements.
Besides being the focus of theoretical debates, Human Rights are
also a reality in politics, social relationships and religious practices,
which is reflected in another set of articles. For example, sociology of
religion offers rather interesting insights into the current perception and
adoption of the Human Rights concept among Orthodox clerics and
believers. The paper by Christopher Marsh and Daniel Payne addresses
another frequently encountered commonplace viz. that Orthodoxy is
incompatible with democracy as well as with the norms of Human
Rights. The focus of their explorations is the notion of tolerance, under-
stood as a necessary basis on which norms of Human Rights have to be
founded. As both authors point out, the differences between East and
West are much less apparent than one might have expected. When these
differences do exist, however, it has to be asked whether they really go
back to an Orthodox influence, or also to more than half a century of
authoritarian political regimes, from which the believers have yet to
recover in many ways. The difference between the Western notion of
“tolerance” and such a Russian notion as terpimostà [terpimost’, to
be translated also as “patience”] reminds one, according to them, of the
theoretical distinction between positive and negative tolerance. While
the former is characterized by real respect and openness for value sys-
tems different from one’s own, the latter rather boils down to an atti-
tude of neglect and ignorance, an expression of indifference. This dis-
tinction, however, is a subtle one and is certainly not mirrored in a
“cultural” difference between East and West. As prominent hierarchs
usually oppose indifference, but do not necessarily oppose tolerance in
whatever understanding, this is a point that is able to provoke further
debates on Human Rights between the two parties in question. Focused
on a similar debate issue, viz. survey data concerning the question of

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 INTRODUCTION 11

the attitude towards Islam in European countries with an Orthodox

majority, Inna Naletova finds a certain predominance of what she calls
an authoritarian value-outlook, which corresponds to the main approach
of Orthodox churches towards Human Rights. Nevertheless, she also
pleads for differentiation, since firstly, the results are not identical, in
quantitative terms at least, in all of the countries explored, and sec-
ondly, an orientation towards the authority of the Orthodox Church
does not necessarily mean rejection of the modern democratic princi-
ples of equality and respect for other religions. This is obviously true in
spite of the fact that the value set of “moral individualism”, which is
usually connected with the Human Rights concept, is relatively weak.
Maija Turunen adds a valuable sketch to this picture with her study on
what might be called the practical presence of Human Rights among
Orthodox priests and believers in Russia. What she encounters is that,
on the one hand, the official and in many respects critical positions of
the Moscow Patriarchate towards Human Rights are generally shared
by clergy and lay people, at least as far as these positions are known.
A necessary addition to this is the widespread plea for more social
activity in favour of the disadvantaged and the discriminated, often con-
nected with a certain self-critique concerning the Church’s tasks and
their level of fulfilment in this respect. Her impression is that terpimost’
at grassroots level in Russian parishes is in any case difficult to label as
“negative tolerance”: ‘Although the opinions expressed on values and
on freedom of religion are similar in many cases, the tone of the official
comments and that of individual believers differ. There is a turn from
the peremptory and ordained tone of the official comments to the life-
interpreting and tolerant attitude of the individual believers.’ Generally
speaking, sociological surveys demonstrate that it is rather theological
and philosophical discourses and not the basic orientations of believers
that signal a real difference between East and West.
At the other end of the scale, the question as to what extent religious
rights and religious freedom should be implemented in national constitu-
tions is widely discussed, particularly in the states formerly under Soviet
rule in Eastern Europe, some of which are now members of the European
Union. In almost all of these countries, the constitution contains a pas-
sage about the separation of church and state, usually regarded to be a
precondition for the application of Human Rights to the state’s legal
system. However, the historical experience especially with this regulation
in many parts of Eastern Europe is rather different. One only needs to
recall that the infamous Bolshevik ‘Decree on the Separation of Church

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 12 A. BRÜNING AND E. VAN DER ZWEERDE

from State, and of Schools from the Church’, issued on January 23,
1918, in fact served the purpose and had the effect of disestablishing the
Orthodox Church in the new state, and marked nothing less than the
onset of persecutions.14 Furthermore, since the downfall of Soviet rule,
many countries in Eastern and Central Europe have witnessed massive
missionary activities by religious denominations and sects, a factor that
was widely seen, and not only by “traditional” churches, as a misuse of
religious freedom. As Philip Walters points out on the basis of a series
of articles published in recent years in the journal Religion, State &
Society, there is an increasing concern that a traditional Western
“Enlightenment” model of Human Rights, with its purely secular state
and essentially individual values, fits badly to the reality in many Central
and Eastern European countries. Especially in countries with a predomi-
nant Orthodox Church, one discovers a tendency to recognise one or
more “traditional” religions as a safeguard for common values, and to
see religious rights as communal.
Current debates affect the development of international jurisprudence
and of legislation on religion. Corresponding to this phenomenon is the
present legislation on religion in several countries with an Orthodox
majority: next to the already mentioned Russian law on religion of 1997,
similar regulations exist, or are being discussed, in Greece as well as in
Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria.15 How liberal, after all, is Orthodoxy, and
how liberal are the Orthodox Churches? Aleksandr Agadjanian addresses
this question in another article on the Russian Orthodox Church. After
an analysis of the recently issued document on Human Rights, its origins
and purposes, and its significance within a given context, he attempts to
position the Russian Orthodox attitudes according to the models of a
liberal society as outlined by Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. Such an
exploration reveals a paradox: while on the outside the Russian Orthodox
Church readily accepts the rules of the game within a liberal society, and
even makes use of them for its own purposes, i.e. to secure its position
in society, it propagates at the same time a rather different system of
values, which if implemented would undermine the established liberal

14
Cf. William C. Fletcher, A Study in Survival: The Church in Russia, 1927-1943
(London: Macmillan, 1965), p. 12ff. Cf. recently on this point Jennifer Wasmuth, ‘Die
Russische Orthodoxe Kirche und die Menschenrechte,’ G2W 2010, no. 5, p. 13 (critical
reference Human Rights and Morality (2009), as quoted in fn. 12 above).
15
Cf. Alfons Brüning, ‘“Orthodoxe Werte” und Menschenrechte — Hintergründe
eines aktuellen Diskurses,’ Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, vol. 62, no. 1-2 (2010),
p. 105 (with further references).

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 INTRODUCTION 13

rules. This paradox, as one might presume, exists in more than one pre-
dominantly Orthodox society, and entails a challenge still to be met in
theory and in practice.
The challenges that emerge from Soviet rule and the turbulent trans-
formation period thereafter do not necessarily have to be met in the same
way as in Russia, as Radu Preda points out in his article. His argumentation
advocates an understanding of the specific historical situation of Orthodoxy,
especially in Romania, at the beginning of the 21st century, and may lead
to the conclusion that under given circumstances the fate of Human
Rights to a large extent depends on the morality and competence of the
elites who are supposed to handle them. However, is this appeal to
morality not precisely what many Orthodox reactions to the Human
Rights concept or at least to its misuse contain? Preda, an Orthodox
theologian himself, perceives some crucial points in the Russian Orthodox
document that eventually might lead one to think more optimistically
about theoretical as well as practised liberality within the Orthodox
world, an illustration of the fact that there is not just one Orthodox
Church, but that a multitude of voices is possible to be heard. A specific,
but not unique case in church-state relationship and Human Rights is
addressed in the article by Daniela Kalkandijeva. After the Synod of the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church headed by Patriarch Maxim had success-
fully relied on juridical assistance from the state in their struggle with a
dissident branch, the Alternative Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox
Church headed by Metropolitan Inokenty turned for assistance to the
European Court of Human Rights [ECHR] in Strasbourg. The judges, as
might have been expected, voted against granting legal privilege to one
particular Orthodox Church under the simultaneous abolition of another
by means of legislative activity of the political powers. They also made
clear, however, that their judgement was made exclusively on the basis
of secular law, and they explicitly restrained from any further comment
as to which branch of the present Bulgarian Orthodoxy could claim to be
in the right ecclesiastical tradition. The vivid media echo that this pro-
cess generated can also be seen as an illustration of the difficulties that
can be met in every day’s political practice given the challenge of a clear
separation between a secular political and a religious sphere. In essence,
however, this is perhaps not a specifically Orthodox phenomenon. Western
historians are probably able to add a number of stories about schisms
and about one or more concurring fractions within a church or a reli-
gious group appealing to the state for help. The case truly has an exem-
plary quality. The crucial question about church-state relationship in

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 14 A. BRÜNING AND E. VAN DER ZWEERDE

this case is newly affected, not only with regard to the allegedly close
relationship of Orthodox churches to the state, in line with the Byzantine
tradition of symphonia, but also concerning past collaboration with the
Communist regimes (also one of the main points of critique against the
present Bulgarian Patriarch), which, as many say, this tradition has made
possible.
This last theme remains to this day a hot issue for a considerable num-
ber of Human Rights activists outside as well as inside the Church. The
article by Paul Baars introduces one such Human Rights activist within
the church, the Orthodox priest father Pavel Adelheim from the Pskov
diocese in Russia. Having survived years in a labour camp with serious
physical damages, father Pavel stands in the front line of those who have
profited from the religious freedom brought about by the downfall of
Soviet atheist rule and the application of Human Rights. A member of
the local Pskov branch of the Moscow Helsinki Committee (a rather
exceptional case for an Orthodox priest), he argues in his theologically
well-founded publications for an adoption of the Human Rights concept
within the church. Along with a considerable number of priests from his
experienced generation, father Pavel stands for an ethos of freedom
without compromise, a standpoint which he obviously does not find to
be in conflict with Orthodox theology. The sharp opposition between
Human Rights activists and the Orthodox Church, which can be encoun-
tered in more than one predominantly Orthodox country, is not a matter
of necessity — this is the main argument in the article by Marina
Shishova. She takes the opposite view, viz. that Orthodox Christianity
implies Human Rights and their observance, and tries to evaluate the
recent document of the Moscow Patriarchate from the perspective of the
Human Rights concept.
Together, the papers in this volume not only clearly demonstrate the
complexity of the relationship between the Orthodox Christian tradition
and the “Western” concept of Human Rights, but also the controversial
nature of many aspects of that relationship. Obviously, the volume does
not address all possible aspects or dimensions. However, although the
focus of the volume is on the present-day situation and the recent past,
and although there is a relative emphasis on the Russian Orthodox
Church, due attention is paid to the historical background, to the dia-
logue between Western and Eastern Churches, to comparative empirical
analysis, and last but not least, to Human Rights activism on an Orthodox
Christian basis. Finally, the volume strikes a balance between sociological,
theological, philosophical, historical and biographical approaches. While

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 INTRODUCTION 15

the very scope of the texts points to many other possible topics and
objects of research, their presence in one single volume suggests that
bringing together complementary perspectives is a fruitful way of doing
multi-disciplinary research. Even more, this multi-disciplinarity can be
rightly regarded as necessary in order to do justice to the complexity of
the theme. In their variety, the articles certainly bring to the fore a number
of differences between the Human Rights concept in its present shape, in
its Western perception and in the positions currently present in “the
Orthodox world”. What they do not reveal, are truly unbridgeable gaps.
Quite the opposite: despite all differences in more or less significant
details, there is an abundance of possibilities for the continuation of the
dialogue, which has yet to take place.

Nijmegen, October 2010

Alfons Brüning and Evert van der Zweerde

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