The Russia Essays: Chapter One

A brief history of the Eastern Orthodox Church Part I

I’ve got to be honest; I think the angel who appeared to Mary at the annunciation was a dirty little liar. Think about it, this nutless wonder appears out of nowhere and is all, “fear not!” This is about the most ridiculous thing that an entity with six wings covered in eyeballs could ever say to someone. It's like when the monsters from Monsters, Inc are trying to be chill after terrorizing children for decades in order to refine their tears into petrol.

But my beef isn’t so much with the “fear not” bit, as ridiculous as it might be, but with the fact that the angel starts telling Mary what her kid's legacy will be things like “the prince of peace” and doesn’t once warn in that things are going to get a little f+ck-y moving forward.

The angel should have said, “One day, your child will be the justification for a massive land war in Russia and the Left Behind Series.”

To which Mary would probably respond, “What does Russia have to do with anything?” Because that’s also probably what you are saying as well and what most folks have been saying since 2015.

Well, he didn’t warn her about any of that sh+t, and then, two-thousand years ago, a little baby was born in a manger. Since then, a couple of things have happened as a result. Like the Crusades, indulgences, and WWJD bracelets. But while all the apostles are over there singing “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” lets do some quick recapping. Because admittedly, Christianity has had pretty big sh+t stains throughout most of history. The religion born out of the babe with the power (what power!) was supposed to bring hope and peace but instead has repeatedly become a machine of war.

The basis for Christianity is a classic piece of literature known as The Bible, which isn’t really a book, per se, but a compilation of 73 for the Catholics, 79 if you are Eastern Orthodox, or just a measly 66 if you are a Protestant. These individual books are then compiled into a larger anthology we now know as the Good Book, even though its not really a book and it's certainly not very good. It is really more like a miniature library of the (questionable) history, lineage, and theology of some of the most well-known people who (might) have lived.

Both the Torah (Old Testament or Pentateuch) and the Gospel According to Saint John begin the same way “In the beginning,” and as Julie Andrews reminds us, it’s a very good place to start, and since there is no arguing with Maria Von Trapp, Mary Poppins, or the Queen of Genovia, that is exactly where I will begin as well.

In the beginning, the early church was scattered all about with everyone looking at the original twelve apostles as their central form of leadership (minus Judas, whom Matthias replaced because his named rhymed, and it made it easier to not have to change any of the lyrics to their dirty limericks.) Now, you might be stopping here and asking yourself, “Why do I have to learn about the early church and the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church to understand modern Russia and their current plan for globalization?” Well, first because I am writing this book and you are not and I say so. But also because if you don’t understand this sh+t then all the other sh+t I am going to explain moving forward, which already doesn’t make a f+ckton of sense to begin with, will make decidedly less sense, and then you will be confused and write me a nasty letter explaining how I wrote this book based upon the presumption that people understood anything about the Orthodox Church and I should have included more details in my book. Having written numerous other books before undertaking this book, and knowing exactly how you were going to react before you did, I went ahead and decided to start here, and you are just going to have to deal with it and you’ll thank me later, I promise.

So here is how it worked (kinda) in a nutshell: as the early church was developing, you had the original twelve but they didn’t always agree. They didn’t even prooftext each other's memoirs. This left us with all kinds of inconsistencies between the four major attempts at telling their accounts of what happened when they were a marauding gang trapesing about the countryside giving out free healthcare with a side of fish and chips. Their first big public disagreement was over the issue of circumcision and whether everyone needed one to be considered a Christian. And, I might add, if you’ve got to argue over a topic I think this is a great place to start. Basically, this is how the whole thing went down:

Jesus was born; he did some other stuff in the middle, got a lot of people mad at him for it, and then (spoiler alert) he was crucified. But in a surprise twist, he is raised from the dead and then does some more stuff after being reanimated and probably also pissed off a bunch of people but they couldn’t kill him again because that’s not how it works; you can only kill someone just the one one time. Then he decides he will go back to heaven and build a big house with a bunch of condos for all his homies and their homies. Just before Jesus ascends into Heaven for the world's longest brb, and to everyone’s absolute shock, he elevates Peter to upper management. Like most people who shouldn’t be given managerial positions but get them anyway, Peter suddenly starts speaking really lofty and changing all the rules. This also might be the first recorded example of the Peter principle (no relation) in history. First, he’s like, “listen, bacon is probably amazing, and I’m actually really hungry, so we can eat whatever we want now because God told me so in a dream I had while super hangry at a Gentile's house, so I hate some bacon and y’all can also eat bacon now because it was delish.” (Acts 10:9-23). Obviously, the other apostles are a bit confused by his actions, and then he declares it law in the next chapter because he is also the first Pope now. After this, things get a little wild, and rules are being rewritten left and right!

Gentiles are super stoked about the fact that they can now be saved, but some of the apostles are like, “fair is fair, and if you are going to believe in God, you’re gonna have to prove it the old fashioned way: *all twelve make a scissor motion* snip, snip.” The Gentiles freak out, Mel Brooks shows up with his little circumcision guillotine, and a big argument breaks out.

Then everyone is like, “Rocky, Jesus told you we could break the rules and eat whatever we want. Do we really, really have to get cut?” Peter decides at this moment that it is Baptism and the receiving of the Holy Spirit that proves you are chosen by God and not circumcision. But not everyone agrees that Peter has the unilateral authority to make such decisions and so they convene in council instead. Ultimately, the council decides to reach the exact same conclusion as Peter did but as a group so that it's fair. Moving forward, it’s declared that Gentiles don’t have to follow the Law of Moses other than a little bit of fine print about not strangling your meat and don’t eat food sacrificed to other gods (Acts 15:1-35.)

This becomes why the Church began to baptize infants instead of just adults. Traditionally, babies are baptized on the eighth day from their birth as a replica of the rite of the Bris as commanded by God in Genesis 17:9-14.

Listen, part of the problem with religion is people of power make sh+t up left and right as they go along. They are constantly changing the rules to appease their desires. Often for selfish gain. Peter was often the worst, though Paul holds the lead and always will, but I’m going to forgive the OG Pontiff for this tiny amendment. Because if you got to choose between circumcision or a warm bath, I think we all know what most of us would choose.

That being said, this begins a long line of overlapping traditions. It may seem innocent enough on the surface, but soon it gets murky. Whenever the Church starts to encounter conversation issues with a new group of people, they are all, “that’s cool, you really like your rituals, and we get it!” So they start taking over cultures, overlaying the skin of the old tradition (enjoy that visual), and give it a Christian spin. Before you know it, Saturnalia becomes Christmas minus the group activities. All the Easter stuff is co-opted from pagan cultures (but leaving out the fun bits). And the list goes on. But no matter which way you cut it, you’ve got Peter being hangry to thank for it.

This also begins a new tradition of the church leadership meeting in council to make decisions. This first grouping was known as the Council of Jerusalem because it was a council, and they met at Jerusalem. Each one of the Apostles was declared Bishops and those Bishops were given territory, but Christianity was flying off the shelves like hotcakes and so they eventually needed more bishops and more territories for them to oversee and so the original Bishops started ordaining priests and deacons and finally making other Bishops as well. This process became known as Apostolic Succession, which means that all of the original bishops had picked the new bishops and they ordained those bishops and then when they died, another priest was chosen as a new bishop and then they would be ordained by other bishops who had been ordained by the original bishops and all this laying on of hands for those ordinations could be linked back to the original bishops as the power would transfer from one bishop to the next bishop and so on and so forth. This unbroken link of power back to the original twelve would be something that became a big hot-button issue a little later on, so don’t forget this part its important.

Each bishop had their region that was responsible for and all the priests and deacons reported to the bishops. The priest had the authority to baptize, hear confession, bless the Eucharist, and almost all of the other sacraments minus ordination which the bishops can only do. Deacons can basically only baptize, and there primary function is to be tattle-tales to the bishops because they work directly for the bishops and are little narcs and snitches, speaking from experience.

Basically, over the first three hundred years of the church there were little disagreements here and there over some issues like baptism and communion. Still, the majority of the church is able to agree and easily earmarks those folks as heretics, and things go on pretty smoothly right up until about 325 A.D.

Things are starting to get a little dicy, and this guy named Arius, who was a priest, began teaching a doctrine about the Trinity that was contrary to what some bishops believed about the Trinity. This would have normally been squashed pretty quickly except that his opinions began to span far and wide throughout the world and many deacons, priests, and even bishops decided to align with Arius on the issue. Soon leaders and warlords took a liking to this new theology too. Essentially, Arius was like, “Bro, God is way more powerful than Jesus because Jesus was begat from God, and so there was a time when Jesus wasn’t and so in a fist fight, God the Father would totally win.” Many folks disagreed with this idea and were like, “nope!” So a big time argument began to move all over the empire, and this annoyed Emperor Constantine and most especially upset him mom Helena who was busy becoming a collector of religious artifacts by way of stealing them from all over the world and bringing them back to Constantinople.

Being as he was Emperor and could do whatever he wanted, he called together his own council and basically was like, “Y’all are really getting on my nerves with all this sh+t, so go work it out and get back to me when you’re done. Btw, here are some notes on just a couple of little changes I would like to see made while you are at it if you aren’t too busy or anything. K, thanks bye.” Then all the bishops convened at the Council of Nicaea, which was named this because it was a council that took place in Nicaea.

At first, Arius is doing pretty good at making his argument and then *WWF announcer voice* WHO IS THAT IN THE CORNER! He’s got a folding chair! He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice, and Arius, he has decided you are NAUGHTY not nice! It is Saint Nicholas of Myra!

Long story short, Arius is kind of a prick and sings a limerick making fun of the Theotokos (that’s Jesus’ mom), and it makes Santa Claus angry and he punches Arius in the face, Nicky gets arrested, it was a whole thing.

Much of what we know about the First Ecumenical Council, which is another name for the Council of Nicaea, because it was an ecumenical council and it was the first one, is largely apocryphal. It is highly unlikely Nicholas of Myra, aka Brawlly Ol’ Saint Nick punched Arius because Arius was merely a priest and wouldn’t have been allowed in the council chambers. But it's a good story anyhow and the broader points are more important. When the council was done we were given the Nicene Creed because it was a creed written in the Nicaean Council, and a bunch of other little amendments and addendums to Christianity as a whole are added from those little notes that Emperor Constantine gave to the bishops.

Now, something that is super important to remember here is that, regardless of some of the nefarious reasons for Constantine wanting there to be an ecumenical council, this council could be accomplished because of the tacit unity that existed within the Church at the time. There was no such a thing as a Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church, at least not in the sense that we’ve experienced them in modernity: it was just One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. You had the Church in Rome, but it wasn’t an island to itself but part of the whole. The Bishop of Rome was the Pope or Patriarch of the Holy See, but he had what was known as the primacy of honor, meaning that it was the first Patriarchate and everyone thought that was historically cool, but he didn’t have any more authority than anyone else. Which worked out pretty f+cking well for about another a thousand years or so until one day, a Pope got a stick up his ass about something and he sent a nasty text message to the Patriarch of Constantinople and then he sent a nasty text message back, and sh+t got real.

So real that this little divorce was going to have a nasty consequence: the invention of Russia, both as an Empire and a Church.

(To be continued… subscribe to get the next essay in the series here!)

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Nathan Monk is a former Russian Orthodox priest and the author of the novel Russian Sleeper Cell. These essays are part of his original research for his bestselling novel which you can get a copy of here.