By priest Daniil Sysoev
“Ouranopolitism is (from the Greek Ouranos – sky, polis – city) a doctrine that affirms the primacy of Divine laws over earthly ones, the primacy of love for the heavenly Father and His heavenly Kingdom over all natural and sinful aspirations of man. Ouranopolitanism asserts that the main kinship is not kinship by blood or country of origin, but kinship in Christ. Ouranopolitanism claims that Christians do not have eternal citizenship here, but are looking for the future Kingdom of God, and therefore cannot give their hearts to anything on Earth. Ouranopolitism asserts that in the mortal world Christians are strangers and strangers, and their homeland is in heaven.”
About patriotic feelings and Heaven
“When discussing ouranopolitism, one of the most important problems is the problem of language. When I talk about patriotism, I mean a specific ideology that places the interests of the earthly fatherland as the highest value.
By patriotism I mean what Wikipedia says:
“Patriotism (Greek πατριώτης – compatriot, πατρίς – fatherland) is a moral and political principle, a social feeling, the content of which is love for the fatherland and the willingness to subordinate one’s private interests to its interests. Patriotism presupposes pride in the achievements and culture of one’s Motherland, the desire to preserve its character and cultural characteristics and identification of oneself with other members of the nation, the willingness to subordinate one’s interests to the interests of the country, the desire to protect the interests of the Motherland and one’s people.”
Heavenly citizenship is incompatible with this ideology, for God did not give the commandment of “love for the Motherland” in Scripture and Tradition, and therefore it is unacceptable to consider patriotism a religious virtue. What God has not commanded is not a commandment.
“Pride in the achievements and culture of the Motherland” is also unacceptable for a Christian. After all, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And the actual existence of an earthly fatherland is not at all self-evident for a Christian. The consensus of the Patrum will rather be on the side of those who claim that a Christian has only one Fatherland – the heavenly one. Other opinions were expressed only by rare saints of the last two centuries, which contradicts the principle of St. Vincent, “Tradition is what everyone believed, always and everywhere.”
Another thing is the feeling of love for the Motherland. For many people, patriotism is just such a feeling, and not an ideological system. How to evaluate this feeling from the point of view of Heaven? But no way. It is neutral in itself. Like any other feeling, in itself it is devoid of independent value. As an example, I will give a more primitive feeling – the feeling of hunger. The man really wanted ham. Is this good or bad? It doesn’t matter. But if this feeling woke up on Good Friday, then this is a devilish temptation. And not because ham is evil or bad, but because it’s fasting. Likewise, love (in the sense of attachment) to the place and country of one’s birth is an indifferent thing in itself. It can lead to good when, for example, a person driven by this feeling will convert his neighbors to Christ. It can lead to evil when a person, under the pretext of this feeling, begins to justify crimes committed in the name of the Motherland, and even more so to participate in them. But this feeling itself is neutral.
Making a virtue out of this feeling is useless. Human abilities in themselves are not virtues. There is no justification for believing that everyone should have it. This feeling is not initial, and not universal. Nomadic peoples and hunters do not have it, but residents of megacities have it naturally weak. Among Christian peoples it was extremely weak while the Church shaped people’s thinking. And people tried to identify themselves not by the state or national component of their existence, but by what religion they belonged to. It is not self-evident for a person, otherwise patriotic education would not be required. It is not required by God, and therefore who are we to demand it from other people.
So, as one of my opponents well noted, patriotism in this regard is similar in meaning to the desire to set the table well and beautifully. This feeling is neither sin nor good. But if this feeling prevents you from going to heaven, then in this case you will have to overcome it.”
Ouranopolitism: why do we need a new term?
“This question is asked to me by many of my friends, who quite rightly note that what I write is the most ordinary Christianity as set out in the Bible and the Fathers of the Church. I’ll try to explain my position. In my opinion, so much pseudo-Christian mythology has crept into the worldview of many modern Orthodox Christians that if we say “just Christianity,” we will be accused of Protestantism, and the word “Orthodoxy” in the minds of a huge number of people means something completely vague and abstract. Nowadays Karpets calls himself Orthodox (according to the normal classification, he is an ordinary Gnostic), a Tsarebozhnik (according to the traditional classification, a pagan), an atheist like Lukashenko, etc. And we are also terribly hindered by the “theory of theologumens”, when everyone considers himself to have the right to attribute any meaning to the word “Orthodoxy”. In realizing the Church operating in this world, we encountered the same problem that the Fathers of the 1st Ecumenical Council faced when speaking with the Arians. The same words often carry mutually exclusive meanings in the minds of different people. And at the same time, people are not offended by expressions like those that I recently saw on a banner in the Moscow region “The Church has always served Russia.” Although the usual 1st commandment of the Decalogue prohibits serving anyone other than God.
And I believe that it is necessary to introduce a new term, with which supporters of “hybrid Orthodoxies” could not agree. — The word “uranopolism” is new, and therefore it cannot yet be misinterpreted. It very clearly draws a line between Orthodox Christianity and patriotic “Christianity”, and separates the Orthodox faith from nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and liberalism. This term is even more rooted in Scripture than the Nicene “homousios.” The city of heaven is mentioned in Scripture several times (Apoc. 21-22, Heb. 11, 10-16; 12.22; 13.14) and therefore the expression “ouranopolitism” or “heavenly citizenship” is simply biblical.
As for the fact that the sound of this term can cause false associations, it seems to me that a pig will find dirt. I think that even another word can have a nasty association. And there will always be many people who are unscrupulous and do not fear God. You can call this line of thought in Russian “heavenly citizenship,” but these are still two words, not one. However, this is a matter of taste. I don’t know which version of this word will stick. Yes, it doesn’t matter to me either. The main thing is that the Church retains its unearthly view of what is happening.
As for associations with politics, it is completely justified. Ouranopolitism is Christ’s program for life in this world. It includes, among other things, very specific relationships with any forms of government. Contrary to popular belief, I am convinced that Christianity is not compatible with virtually any existing worldly ideology in its pure form, but at the same time it has a completely clear view of all the processes of this world. It is this heavenly view of earthly processes that I call ouranopolitism.”
Source: priest Daniil Sysoev † 2. Posted by ouranios on 2011, https://uranopolitism.wordpress.com/.
