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The European Union was founded at a time when European nations were falling into the void;[9] she was founded as a parachute,[10] hoping that peace and security would be the destination of the fall, without having realised that even if she makes it to whatever land, at any rate in that land she will be without God: she was founded mainly upon the agony of survival; therefore, the landing place cannot be but a jungle.[11] Whatever wealth and power the European Union might achieve, she will have it within a constant struggle for survival: endurance and prosperity.[12]Even if another World War doesn't follow in the form that we know, in the war that is being prepared right now before our eyes, the enemy will be our life, our personal relationships, social life, family, work - everything will become burdensome and disappointment will always grow. Values stolen from a history thrown to the margin, will be more and more corrupted in the course of time, they will become unrecognisable and then unthinkable, until Europe will collapse in the dust of hypocrisy, scheming and barbarity.
This course already seems fatal. We wouldn't have any reason even to write about this now, were it not for healthy forces allowing some hope. The Church of Greece is one of these forces - so far as I know the most important and clear voice as to the substance and character of the European Union.
Archbishop Christodoulos doesn't fail to recognise that papacy, which wanted the union of Europe more than anyone else, - papacy destroyed the European prospect.
“Ιn Western Europe, the Church herself developed into a distinct authority, thus breeding a disastrous antiecclesiastical spirit.[[13]] In this way, although she fought to create a society of solidarity, an ecumenical republic, where all nations would live in peace and security, the Church herself found herself scheming breaches or collaborating in their occurrence. ... Let me just remind you that it was the Schism, both during its period of incubation and when, later on, it came out of the snake's egg, which led to the pernicious division of Europe into Eastern and Western worlds, to the underestimation of and contempt for the one of these two worlds by the other, which, in turn, ended up in wars and disasters.[[14]] ... The original Schism between the Orthodox Church and Rome was followed by others, of which the most serious was the breach between the Catholic South and the Protestant North. The religious wars which ensued caused new wounds to the body of Europe, and led to its inner division”.[15]
These lines summarise a long and sad story, the story of the abandonment of the European peoples by their Church. Today, the various Christian denominations, swirling in the void of their fragmentation, are, or ought to be, in a very difficult position, whenever they decide to talk about the future of the European Union. One immediately wonders how they talk at all - even a little, even in a mild voice, even in words of wisdom... - , one immediately thinks, what kind of a Union can they want or imagine they can strengthen and support, the Churches, when they are not able to unite even themselves! Is it not absurd, what for centuries and even now separates and divides them and all of us, to be proposed as an inspiration for our union?
[9] Valery, What is to become of the European Spirit?: “’And I,’ he says. ‘I the European intellect, what is to become of me? What is peace? It is perhaps a state of things in which Man's natural hostility towards his fellow expresses itself in creation rather than degenerating into the destruction of war. It is a time of creative competition, of the struggle of products. But I, am I not tired of producing? Have I not exhausted the desire for extreme attempts and have I not abused scholarly mixtures? Must I leave aside my difficult duties and my transcendent ambitions? Must I follow the trend and imitate Polonius, who is now directing a major newspaper? Or Laertes who is somewhere in aviation? Or Rosenkrantz, who is doing I know not what under a Russian name?’”
[10] Therefore, if Renan is right (see What is a nation?), European Union, the way it was established, can not share the dreams of a single nation, unless all of her nations, by great things mean survival: “what makes a nation is not speaking the same language or belonging to the same ethnographic group, it is having done great things together in the past and wanting to do more great things in the future.”
[11] Cf. the Treaty of Maastricht: “recalling the historic importance of the ending of the division of the European continent and the need to create firm bases for the construction of the future Europe.”
[12] “S'unir pour vivre et prospérer: telle est la stricte nécessité devant laquelle se trouvent désormais les Nations d'Europe”, Alexis Leger writes - and the mind discovers its own mode of survival in a constant research - science and technology become the highest ideal of the mind! - see Malraux, Tragic humanism.
[13] Cf. Schelling, A union needs religion.
[14] Cf. E. Berl, The West owed everything to Byzantium, H. Schmidt, Byzantium and the East is part of Europe and it should be, David Turner, Byzantium : The 'alternative' history of Europe
[15] Christodoulos of Athens and all Greece, With or without Christianity? Cf. Novalis, The Fall of Europe: “the Reformation sounded the knell of Christendom. It has ceased to exist. In their sectarian isolation, Catholics, Protestants and the Reformed are further apart from each other than they ever were from Moslems and pagans. The last Catholic states continued to vegetate, not entirely without feeling the harmful influence of their Protestant neighbours. Modern politics dates from this time, and some powerful states attempted to take possession of the seat of Catholic power, now transformed into a throne...” I just wonder, how many crimes the Holy See needs, not to repent: just to suppose - if - maybe - its infallibility and primacy is in the crimes...
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