Human Rights and Orthodox Christianity: Learning from our Differences

Abstract

Orthodox Christians have long been wary about the modern regime of human rights, given its common association with liberalism, libertinism, and individualism; its insistence on separating church and state, if not secularizing society altogether; its disastrous effects on post-Soviet Eurasia; and its growing attacks on majority and minority religions alike. His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, however, has recently encouraged his followers to see that rights and liberties are God's gifts to humanity, even if they have sometimes become prodigal and dangerous when not well rooted and routed. Rights and liberties depend on Christian and other ontological beliefs and values for their grounding and reformation. Particularly Orthodox theologies of conversion and theosis, symphonia and society, church and state, sacrifice and martyrdom, silence and love have much to offer to modern human rights around the world.

Keywords: Patriarch Bartholomew, Orthodox Christianity, human rights and liberties, church-state relations, symphonia and society